Topic 2 Week 3 and 4 summary

A woman posing next to a window wearing a sparkly sequinned top that reflects light back onto the wall behind her.

Summary

Back to back double webinar with Paul Clements and then Michelle Sank – not recommended to do in one go with out a break.

First session with Paul alongside Rolf and Surita who are both in the module behind us. PC recommends for me:

  • Work more in landscape / widescreen (have a habit of doing more portrait orientated pictures)
  • Look again at Flusser and Gestures (see reading list)
  • Look at Diego Rivera, Lucian Freud and Eduard Muybridge
  • Book recommended – David Sylvester interviews Francis Bacon – see also Fragments of a Portrait video interviews with the same https://youtu.be/xoFMH_D6xLk
  • Look at literature references
  • PC quotes other tutor “The process always has something to say” Laura Hynd

Straight into second session with Michelle with a broad mixture of different cohorts. Off the back of the previous practitioners she recommended in the previous session, she also mentioned looking at placement, clothing, performance, lighting, controlling the process plus some additional photographers inc Tim Walker, Tom Hunter and Helen van Meen.

Following all this by an RPS webinar with Barry Lewis. Very interesting talk about how he was led towards portraiture and how he approached it during different stages of his career. His position on it was the “portraits are a dialogue and consistent conversation – they’re a negotiated settlement”. He also shared some insights on his technique:

  • He much prefers working with someone else like an assistant
  • Perfect assistant would be a journalist asking questions and getting text
  • “You’ve got to be good with people – you’re going up to people and saying ‘trust me’”
  • He uses a large camera on a tripod and leaves it with an assistant whilst going into a crowd with little cards with pictures on – “the camera is a bit of a blocker in the initial conversation”.

Second portrait session

Had a photo session with a friend at the plant nursery she works at (while making some promo pics for her business). Unlike the previous session we weren’t trying to tie it into any sort of underlying work theme – this was more trying out looking at reflecting different painted portraits like those of the Dutch masters and Georgian era painters.

I don’t think the ones that we intentionally set up as portraits (the first three in the below image) work as well as the wider environmental portraits. I think at this point I’m still trying to work out what I’m trying to say with the photos and how I can whittle that down.

Contact sheet view with seven pictures of a woman working in a polytunnel at a garden nursery.
Contact sheet of second photo session

Quick portrait session with my wife

My wife has also volunteered to model for portraits so we’ve run through a couple of quick exercises during spare time in the day to get her more used to being photographed and to try different poses.

Close up portrait

To do

  • Return to sections on August Sander and other portrait photographers in See/Saw by Geoff Dyer.
  • More reading of Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin (see links below).
  • Continue to explore portraiture to help drill down objectives and aims

Upcoming

3x pre-session interviews and shoots in the new couple of weeks

Reading

FLUSSER, Vilém and Nancy Ann ROTH. 2014. Gestures. Translated by Nancy Ann Roth. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

SYLVESTER, David and Francis BACON. 2016. Interviews with Francis Bacon : the Brutality of Fact. Third enlarged edition. London: Thames & Hudson.

GILLANDERS, Robin. 2004. The Photographic Portrait: Techniques, Strategies and Thoughts on Creating Portraits with Meaning.

DODD, Savannah [host]. 2022. ‘Polly Braden: On negotiating consent’. The Photo Ethics Podcast [online]. Available at: https://www.photoethics.org/podcast/polly-braden [accessed 14 October 2022].

DODD, Savannah [host]. 2022. ‘Jason Houston: On collaborative ways of working’. The Photo Ethics Podcast [online]. Available at: https://www.photoethics.org/podcast/jason-houston [accessed 14 October 2022].

DODD, Savannah [host]. 2022. ‘Justin Carey: On solitude and collaboration’. The Photo Ethics Podcast [online]. Available at: https://www.photoethics.org/podcast/justin-carey [accessed 14 October 2022].

OXLEY, Matthew. 2018. ‘Pål Hansen: searching for a true collaborative portrait’. World Photography Organisation. Available at: https://www.worldphoto.org/blogs/11-04-18/searching-true-collaborative-portrait [accessed 14 October 2022].

RAY, Larry. 2020. ‘Social Theory, Photography and the Visual Aesthetic of Cultural Modernity.’ Cultural Sociology, 14(2), 139–159. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975520910589 [accessed 14 October 2022].

YATES, Mick. 2018. ‘Some notes on Ariella Azoulay’s writing.’ Mick Yates Photography. Available at: https://www.yatesweb.com/some-notes-on-ariella-azoulays-writing/ [accessed 14 October 2022].

CLAUSEN, Christina. et al. 2008. The Universe of Keith Haring [Film]. Paris, France, South Melbourne, Vic, Australia: French Connection Films, Contemporary Arts Media distributor.

HINGLEY, Olivia. 2022. ‘Kavi Pujara’s thoughtful photo series This Golden Mile challenges anti-immigrant sentiment’. It’s Nice That. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/kavi-pujara-this-golden-mile-project-photography-290922 [accessed 14 October 2022].

ALEGRÍA, Federico. 2021. Brief Note on Photographic Language. Available at: https://federicoalegria.medium.com/brief-note-on-photographic-language-73312f1b2044 [accessed 14 October 2022].

GREENOUGH, Keith. 2012. ‘Barthes on Portraiture’. Available at: https://photo-graph.org/2012/06/29/barthes-on-portraiture/ [accessed 14 October 2022].

GREENOUGH, Keith. 2013. ‘Disarming the Pose’. Available at: https://photo-graph.org/2013/02/16/disarming-the-pose/ [accessed 14 October 2022].

PUPPE, H. W. (1979). ‘WALTER BENJAMIN ON PHOTOGRAPHY’. Colloquia Germanica, 12(3), 273–291. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23982301 [accessed 14 October 2022].

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