Intro to Digital Photography Blog

Alec Soth: Kenny and Bill, Bad Newz, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, 2002

This portrait illustrates the balance I would hope to achieve with my photographs; the subjects are centered formally, staring directly into the camera, their expressions blank.  However the subtle details of the picture; the industrial kitchen setting their matching blue T-shirt and jeans and their postures reveal tons of info.

Hans Namuth; Walter Gropius, 1952.

Namuth photographed countless famous artists throughout his career, starting with the famous portraits of Pollock. This picture is quite formal, however the minimalist, geometric environment mimics Gropius’ architectural style and philosophy.

Shelby Lee Adams: 105 Degrees at the Napier’s

Everything about this picture feels honest; the rundown rusty shack in the background, the earnest smirks on their faces, their bare chests.  Unlike many photographs of impoverished people, Adams’ portrait of these Appalachian men doesn’t manipulate the viewer or turn the subjects into symbols of poverty, instead Adams photographs these men on their own terms.

Craig F. Walker, Ian Fischer: American Soldier.

Walker won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his documentation of a teen’s journey from enrollment, active duty, and return home from the army.  The photograph is stylized with a compelling balance between Ian and his father to the left, but the subject is raw and real.

Tina Barney, Thanksgiving, 1992.

I like Barney’s “directorial” approach to portraiture: setting up certain aspects of the scene while allowing his subjects to act freely. In this scene, Barney captures a semi-candid family moment, allowing us to glimpse details of her family while still arranging the photograph in a portrait composition.

Jim Marshall, John Coltrane in the backyard of his home in Queens, NY, 1963.
With the background out of focus, Marshall draws our eyes to Coltrane’s face.  Marshall manages to capture what seems to be a momentary expression that is ambiguous and contemplative and undeniably intimate.

I can’t help but be somewhat nervous about the final quality of my photographs for this project.  In my opinion, people are the most elusive, temporal, and difficult subjects in photography.  The formal portrait has become an almost subconscious social norm: when a camera appears, most people smile, posture, and stare dead-center into the lens as if it were a reaction as natural as blinking.  Such rehearsed behavior makes an excellent snapshot for a photo album or formal portrait, but ultimately creates a photo devoid of any mental depth, emotion, or interest.  I am not against using elements of formal portraiture—photographers like Richard Avedon, Annie Leibowitz, and Hans Namuth use formal elements in a unique and emotionally probing manner—however, I want to try to go beyond into more nontraditional realms.  The language surrounding more innovative, non-traditional portrait photographers often emphasizes honesty, authenticity, and realism; I am equally as hesitant to strive for complete “authenticity,” as I think such a goal can create results just as dishonest and superficial as formal portraiture.

Instead, I hope to explore the middle ground between realism and staged formalism, much in the way Alec Soth’s portrait work combines relatively traditional staging within unglamorous and “normal” surroundings, managing to take intimate but also somewhat “mysterious” portraits.  Of the photographers I examined, I found that Soth’s work kept drawing me back.  I will use Alec Soth as a template of sorts for my portraits; I am neither willing or able to mimic his style, but I hope to achieve at least a modicum of the honesty of Soth’s portraits.  In shooting, I have attempted to place my subjects in the center of the frame, in surroundings that are plain but still visually interesting.  Like Soth, I want my subjects to be comfortable enough to let their guard down; so that their expressions do not cross into cliche.  I plan to stage my photographs to an extent, but I do not want to control the actions or expressions of my subject.  Ultimately, it will be a struggle to pay attention to design elements while simultaneously focusing on a subject.

Jim Marshall worked within the relatively limiting field of “music” photography, taking portraits of countless musicians at the height of the 60s rock revolution.  It seems difficult to achieve truly unique portraits of famous individuals, as the disconnect and lack of comfort between subject and photographer often produces stilted, cliched, or simply unnatural pictures.  Similarly, such portraits often rely on the “celebrity” of the subject to carry the photograph alone; thus creating interest only through a superficial understanding of the person.  Indeed, it is difficult to separate the celebrity from the actual person in some of Marshall’s work; for example, an iconic picture of Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar seems interesting only in the context of iconography. 

However, Marshall seemed capable of capturing far more honest moments than most photographers; he talked of capturing the “decisive moment”: frequently a time when a subject let their guard down and showed honest emotion.  His portrait of John Coltrane captures one of these moments; Coltrane stares into the distance, his finger unconsciously pressing against his face.  Coltrane’s expression may not reveal a universal truth about his character, but it feels emotionally honest and natural, as if Marshall captured him deep in thought.  In his portraits, Marshall does not necessarily always disappear, as his subjects sometimes acknowledge his presence, still the photos are remarkably intimate.  His New York Times obituary described his ability to humanize his subjects as the result of both technique—he usually shot with a small and discrete Leica range finder camera—and access.  Marshall frequently insisted on intimate access and generally received it, often spending days with his subjects.  This extreme access is what seems to make his portraits so genuine, as the superficiality and posturing of many celebrity pictures disappears. 

John Coltrane at the home of jazz critic Ralph Gleason in 1960.

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez at the Hotel Viking in Newport, R.I., in 1964.

Janis Joplin backstage at San Francisco’s Winterland in 1968.

Starting with several different interpretations of the trace, I unified them into a multi-layered idea, centered around the idea of objects as traces of a person’s interaction with and impact on the space around them.  Initially, the possibilities of long exposures captured my imagination, and I experimented with the ability of extended exposure to create “literal” traces.  I wanted to avoid the temptation of creating gimmicky or cliched photos, so I used long exposures to move objects or myself around a space.  The long exposure limited me to a space in which I could easily shoot with a tripod and control lighting; thus, my home provided an excellent technical and conceptual setting.  The objects we place, rearrange, remove, in our homes are both the most obvious and most overlooked traces of our impact on the space we inhabit.    

Usually, we evaluate the objects we put in our homes—furniture, food, memorabilia, whatever—for their aesthetic or functional value.  By portraying these objects in a state of movement or transparency, I tried to draw attention away from their surface function and towards their role as documenters of our interactions with the space around us.  When someone moves into a new home, they start with a completely empty space—wiped clear of any traces of previous residents—and proceed to document the reality of their existence and interaction in that space.  That said, I did not want to treat these photos as forensic “clues” of the lives of a space’s residents, creating a guessing game for the viewer.  Instead, I wanted to make apparent this interaction of inhabitant and space, mediated and recorded by the object.  Rather than photographing “interior decoration”—which conjures up images of Martha Stewart and department stores—I wanted to photograph interior “architecture”: the transformation of empty, meaningless interior space into a built environment with meaning and function.

After critique, I found myself paying much more attention to the arrangement of my photos and to the interplay between each photo.  In my case, much of the criticism focused on the issue of consistency of each photo.  My strongest photos created visual interest with the surrounding objects and framing; thus, the photos that lacked this interest—the pillow and table photos—detracted from the others.  While some of the weaker photos worked relatively well alone, their weaknesses were amplified when my classmates viewed them as a series.  Many people also paid more attention to the motion in my pictures than I expected; ultimately, it seemed that the photos with the most motion—especially the refrigerator photo—received the strongest response.  While I explored some motion, I did not necessarily focus on creating motion. 

If I reshot the project, I would pay far more attention to how each photograph interacts with the other—not only after shooting but in the process of shooting.  As with other projects, I often have one or two strong photos while the rest are weaker.  To change this,  I would attempt to identify my strongest photos earlier and focus on shooting photos that have similar strengths.  While do not want to become overly self-conscious, I would like to scrutinize the strengths and weaknesses of my pictures during the shooting process, helping me narrow my shooting to a more specific vision.

Pelle Crepin, from http://www.pellecrepin.com/ (Personal section)

In this photograph, Crepin demonstrates the notion of light as a trace. Using what appears to be a long exposure, Crepin transforms the street lights into diagonal rays emanating from their source. The bizarre lines of neon green and red in the background suggest the trace of the unexplainable and mysterious.

John Divola, from Zuma series (1977); http://www.divola.com/

In this case, the trace is in the form of abandoned objects left behind in an abandoned house.  The objects offer a trace of the house’s residents interactions within their space.

Anthony Hernandez, from Landscapes for the Homeless (February 1996); http://unhoused.livejournal.com/18559.html

Like Divola, the traces here are objects and their interactions with space around them.  The context of homelessness lends the objects and space more emotional weight and clearly makes them traces.

Tokohiro Sato, Respiration #161(1992); http://www.photoarts.com/gallery/SATO/satoexh.html

While Sato’s use of light is fascinating, I am more interested in Takuo Komatsuzaki’s interpretation of Sato’s work as an exploration of “constructed space and structures.”  The traces of light serve as a measurement tool of sorts, allowing the viewer to examine the spaces in his photographs from a different perspective.

Filip Dujardin, from “Imaginary Architecture;” http://www.chazen.wisc.edu/exhibitions/index.asp

Sometimes, a trace does not have to be immediately obvious. Dujardin is an architectural photographer who decided to construct fantastical buildings by digitally piecing together elements of actual, existing architecture.  Unlike Sato, who leaves traces of the fantastical in reality, Dujardin leaves traces of the real within an imaginary realm.  He constructs his own reality out of a composition of the real.

Andy Goldsworthy, Spire—2008 work in Park Presidio, San Fransisco, CA.

http://www.presidio.gov/experiences/spire.htm

Goldsworthy’s sculpture/photography is literally environmental design; his constructions are traces of human handiwork on the natural environment.  These traces are temporal by nature.

At this point, I am working with several different concepts of the “trace.”  First, there is light, which when photographed correctly, appears as traces or rays emanating from the original source.  Similarly, shadows are traces of forms, created when light shines in just the right direction.   Also capturing my imagination is the notion of traces in the form of objects in a space. When an architect designs a structure, they construct a human trace on the “empty” space of the natural environment.  The structure may last for years, but in the long run, it is a relatively temporary object, a trace.  Similarly, when we decorate our interior spaces, we fill empty space temporarily with objects that are traces of our existence within that space.  I am experimenting with photographing objects with long exposures; moving the objects around, creating a “ghost”-like effect that emphasizes how these objects act as traces in otherwise empty space.  This could lead nowhere, but I find it worth exploring.

Tokohiro Saito’s use of exposure and light comes to mind when thinking of light as a trace, but I do not want to simply copy his style, so much as use some of his techniques.  In viewing objects as traces, Anthony Hernandez’s documentation of the possessions of homeless people captures the notion of objects as a person’s trace.  Given my current experimentation with exposure, I plan to try some significant manipulation, but I want to focus on pre-photoshop effects more than photoshop alterations.  At this point I plan to shoot in color, but will not rule out black and white, if it is appropriate.  I plan to stage some of my photographs, especially any using long exposures, but will use a mix of staged and found scenes.

Given the difficulty of the project, I came into the critique with the expectation that people would be as critical as I had been to myself.  Instead, I left the critique with an overall increased confidence in my photos.  The two photos that I felt were the most successful—stair acquaintance and working men—elicited significant discussion.  This did not surprise me: stair acquaintance has a strong composition and color, while working men has interesting movement and geometry.  I was surprised when many people turned their attention to hazy cubes, which did not expect.  The interplay of geometric shapes along with the active frame drew a positive response, and someone else interpreted the juxtaposition of the text on the truck with the factory as commentary of sorts.  

If I reshot the project, I would focus on getting more shots that make of use space and geometry.  My success came from focusing on those elements, but it took me several days of shooting before I realized my strength, too late to go back and shoot a hundred more photos focusing on space and geometry.  With more photos using space and geometry to choose from, my final six photos could have been more closely tied.  I would also make an effort to shoot in a larger city simply for the sake of varied subjects and anonymity; or if that were not possible, I would try to shoot in different places around campus; places like the C-Haus or the Java Joint can become surprisingly crowded.

Crooked road

Hazy cubes

Sterile illumination

Working men

Stair acquaintance 

Red trampled

Philip-Lorca Dicorcia. New York, 1996. 

Dicorcia’s ability to capture action at the right moment is seen in this photo, making it a good example of street photography.  However, his use of dramatic lighting and flash creates a “cinematographic artifice” that questions reality.

Andy Morley-Hall

http://lvps212-241-196-151.vps.webfusion.co.uk/AndyMorley-Hall/gallery/70

Not only has Morley-Hall found an interesting subject, but he has created dynamism with an active frame. Usually, its bad to cut of figures heads, but in this case it is effective.

Boogie.  From the book Istanbul.

http://hypebeast.com/2008/11/boogie-istanbul-book/

A mixture of luck and a good eye makes this photo so energetic and even playful.  Boogie frames the soccer ball close to the camera and near the figure in the street, distorting its size and creating a relationship with the pedestrian.

Shawn Rocco, from http://www.cellularobscura.blogspot.com/

Juxtaposition plays a huge role in street photography, as illustrated by this image by Shawn Rocco.  By placing the two pictures together, we find ourselves searching for a connection or meaning from the placement.

Matt Stuart

http://www.in-public.com/MattStuart/image/1939

While many street and documentary photographers prefer to use black and white, this photograph derives much of its effectiveness from the repeating reds which helps lend energy and visual interest.

Nick Turpin. Speed.

http://www.thephotographicadventuresofnickturpin.com/En/Story/38

Rather than freezing motion, Turpin shows motion—high speed motion, in this case—by allowing the train to blur.  This blur makes it clear to the viewer that the train is moving incredibly fast.