The work of Taryn Simon was recommended to me during a webinar by my tutor, while talking through my process of placing figures in the spaces I had been capturing. When I first started this course, I was adverse to using figures in my work due to my own difficulties working with other people, however in previous modules it has seemed that people are infact quite an important aspect of my work.
Simon's "The Innocents" (2002) documents a group of individuals all of whom were wrongly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. The project is a mix of photographic works, a video documentary, and exhibitions in Russia, Germany, France and the USA where all of the individuals are from. The video documentary consists of a series of very raw and intimate interviews with the aforementioned individuals describing the experience of being arrested, how it had come to be that they were accused, the nature of the crime, how they fought the conviction and their eventual release. The photographic project, consisted of a series of environmental portraits of the individuals in places of relevance the case, be that the place of arrest, where they really at the time, or the scene of the crime.
One of the most immediately striking facets of Simon's work is the cinematic nature with witch she photographed the environmental portraits. Her understanding of lighting, colour and the framing of each and scene, the placement of her subjects within them, come together to make each piece a beautiful and considered portrait in its own right, without becoming contrived. The example above, of Tim Durham, depicts him at the scene of his alibi, a Skeet Shooting competition. Simon frames her subject from above, putting her audience in the place of a god, the place of judgement upon her subject. He is positioned sat among the broken Clays used as targets during the sport. Around him, they form a visual that would remind a UK based individual of a field of poppies, and the connotation to war and blood are just as relevant, his war to find innocence, and the blood he never shed. Many of the individuals involved in "The Innocents" were convicted due to a case of mistaken identity, and Simon's work brings attention to how images, art, and photography can direct, and misdirect, our views of the world around us, and even modify our memories.
"In the case of Troy Webb, convicted of rape, kidnapping, and robbery, the victim was shown a photo array. She tentatively identified Webb’s photo, but said that he looked too old. The police then presented another photo of Webb taken four years before the crime occurred. He was positively identified. Troy Webb served 7 years of a 47-year sentence." (Simon, 2002)
The above photograph of Charles Irvin Fain depicts him at the scene of his supposed crime; kidnapping, rape and murder. More than just placing Fain at the scene of the crime, Simon has emulated the atmosphere at the time, shooting at night and using the cars headlights to set the scene. Fain stands amidst the scene, now physically part of it though he never was before. In this space Fain becomes a ghost of a construction, a fantasy, that for him had very real connotations. Simon describes these scenes in relation to her subject as "At once Arbitrary and crucial".
The individuals and the spaces within Simon's work are intrinsically linked together and Simon's style and methodology demonstrate this. While the figure is always clear within the scene, they sit or stand as part of it, not separated from it. For example, another photographer may have chosen to light each individual desperately to from the space to communicate their innocence, or perhaps place them directly in the middle, in an open space, or perhaps they would photograph them desperately and display the two images as a diptych. Simon places these men in the image, in the scene. Frederick Daye sits in the place of his alibi, at the bar, his legs hidden behind the bar and he emerges as part of the bar and the space. Technically speaking I would guess that Simon has used additional lighting to ensure that we see Daye clearly, it has been placed with good care to make sure that he appears to be lit by the ambient light of the space and because of this he is in balance with the space around him.
Finally, although I feel a main part of Simon's choice to show more of the place and keep her subjects use of the frame space limited within a photo is to convey the significance of each space to the individuals story, it does also seem to me to reflect the freedom that was robbed of them, and by moving away from our subject Simon also obscures their identifying features, alluding to how they could be mistaken for another person.
Simon starts with the individual and places them within the space, I however have started with place, and positioned individuals within afterwards, but for both our works the balance between the two is crucial, each as significant to the truth of the image, as the other. Simon's use of lighting and composition helps to balance the two subjects in each image while creating a clear visual narrative, and this is something I must consider in my own work.
Simon, T. (2019). Taryn Simon. [online] Tarynsimon.com. Available at: http://tarynsimon.com/works/innocents/#5 [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].
Simon, T. (2002). Forward from The Innocents. [Online] Availible at: http://tarynsimon.com/essays-videos/docs/The%20Innocents%20foreword_Taryn%20Simon.pdf [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].
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