We are suspicious of advertising photography, in the context of a billboard or a poster we know to distrust, but a simple printed photograph is different, we don’t immediately recognise any potential artifice. Could this be both a strength and a weakness?
Strength – The ability to fool the viewer (Is that dishonest?) into thinking what they see is real. Or maybe allow the viewer to let themselves be fooled?
Weakness – They don’t understand that what you are showing is a story from your own mind, the communications aren’t entirely your own because they think your showing rather than telling. Also does any artifice then make them think its not as good? “Its not real though, its photoshoped” as if that’s detrimental.
Photographs on social media, generally speaking we view photos from our friends and family on social media as immediate truths with no artifice. There are of course plenty of edited photos, but usually they include filters and composites that are blatant and immediately identifiable, and many of us know how and have the means to achieve the same, and so can recognize them right away. In the case of people trying to pass of edited images as real, there have been plenty of viral “Memes” ridiculing people who have done so, while also educating others on how to spot them. In some cases, however, this has led to assumptions that photos which may in fact be truthful, might be falsely viewed as a construction and thus question the veracity of such images.
Advertising on the other hand is honest in its own dishonesty. This morning when I went swimming I saw multiple signs of people using the gym and swimming, images of conventionally good looking men with well-toned bodies using the equipment without breaking a sweat, and an image of a woman swimming in a pool (Casual sexism?) on her own (the pools is usually very busy and you would be lucky to get that much space empty) but does that mean that I should consider the institution a dishonest one.
Its interesting as I have created commercial photography in a similar vain, presenting products on a clean and white background with perfect lighting design to enhance the look of the product. “Show it at its best”. But also, showing it from the point of view of those who have created it and love it (At least in the case of small business).
I think in these two cases, the modern consumer of advertising knows and recognizes the presence of a level of artifice and depending on the subjectivity of the viewer there is a level of artifice deemed acceptable within advertising. Almost like a suspension of disbelief, the benefit of the doubt.
“The Question is not what reality is, but what modes of representing it are available” Kohler, 1995, p.8
We have choice of how to represent reality at every moment, do we experience it and recount it as memory, or do we capture it on photo, do we write it down or try to draw it, or do we record the audio, or a film. Each of these would represent that moment in a very different way, including and excluding key details and forming an individual depiction of the truth that may be in discordant with other modes of representation. Our choice of how we record the moment most likely conforms with what we as individuals feel are the most important details of the scene, and as photographers it could be assumed that the most important would be the visual moment at witch we press the shutter release. “Why photograph this object, this moment, rather than some other” (Barthes)
The word trickster implies a level of dishonesty on behalf of the entity in question, to show an imagined, constructed, world is not necessarily a means to “Trick” the viewer or fool them. Certainly, the work of Martha Rolser is not trying to fool us into thinking the scenes pastes together actually transpired, but instead to buy into the narrative she is constructing in order to make her political stand point clear. The cut paste method she uses is brash and immature, and perhaps is evident of her exasperation with the current social and policatal climate that she references in her work. While Art Wolfe may be more in interested in using his constructed visuals as a tool to create a more authentic impression of the ambience of the moment captured. Luchford for Prada, may be using the film like mise ene scene to engender notions of Hollywood and drama into the advertising to excite the consumer, though this in itself may be a “trick” to encourage the sale of an item that really is not going to bring either of these things to one life.
I do not consider my self a trickster as I have no intention for my audience to believe that the scenes presented in my work are entirely real, though perhaps the use of photography as a medium brings with it a level of objectivity that means the trick is occurring whether I intended it or not. People do often see my work and recognise the locations as they are indeed real, but find interest in how they look so different to how they experienced them.
The portrait of Alfred Krupp
Powerful leading lines on an industrial background, framed in concrete with a hard battle worn texture that almost matches the skin of the subject, emphasised by the harsh lighting. His face sinks into shadow as he is lit from behind looking into shadow, folding his hands and resting his chin watching the camera and waiting. A firm and penetrating gaze. The strong hard side lighting morphs the shape of his face almost making him ghostly and inhuman. This is an incredibly powerful portrait, with krupp at the centre of an industrial universe giving a sense of the innerworkings of this mans mind. The symmetry and geometry of the composition lens blends with the concrete give the image a strength and endurance.
The above paragraph was written before watching the video about the photographs conception. Its interesting to me that I picked up the idea of inhuman from the image, which is clearly along the lines Arnold Newman was thinking, almost portraying this man as the devil. I find this image to be incredibly successful. Newman used his lighting and the environment to dehumanise Krupp, metaphorizing his mind as cold and industrial, putting him at the centre of the photograph as he may see himself as the centre of the universe, and lighting him in a way as to physically distort the mans image to the point of being monstrous.
How do I construct my images
My images are constructed in a very simplistic manner, I am very selective of what spaces are commit to an image, looking for particular characteristics, but also my own automatic psychological response to the space. I know I am often drawn to strong coloured street lamps and “in-between” spaces, liminal spaces. Once I am there, I crop the images, using darkness as the guides to my frame and selecting only the bare minimum that is necessary to the scene. In my most recent works, I have been making use of long shutter speeds to insert a figure into my images by standing within them, the figures are undefined and ethereal, I deliberately sway as I stand so that I never produce a recognisable image of myself. Other than choice of crop and camera settings (White balance being quite key to my colours) this is the only way I physically construct any part of my scene, and yet I would very much consider my images constructed photography. I see the spaces I photograph more as ready-made sets, where the space and the light is the subject. I am not documenting these spaces, I am appropriating them for my own use. So in this way, my work is fiction.
I present the images with little context, no written context, no explanation. The images currently are presented in a minimalist online portfolio, with simply a title (a working title currently), and a black background. The viewers reading of the image should be spontaneous with no previous stimulus. I want the viewer to be drawn into the enigmatic tension of the (almost) empty spaces. I do not want people to immediately question whether or not they have been edited as that is irrelevant, so keeping things simple, no obvious special effects is important. I want the audience to be drawn into the space and to simply experience it as is with no distraction, almost like a meditation. A contemplation on what could be about to happen, or what has happened, or what is happening.
Hunters and Farmers
On the face of things, it would probably be the most obvious choice to define myself as a “Hunter”, given that I spend most of my photographic practice literally out hunting for scenes to shoot. However there is a bit of Farming, in that I find more and more I feel the need to return to a scene to re-shoot, to see if I can improve and nurture the photograph until it is just perfect.
The Work of Gregory Crewdson and its relationship to cinema
It cant be ignored that Crewdson’s work is heavily cinematic, but having seen his work on display at the V&A I can say that the experience of watching a film and the experience of being up close to one of Crewdson’s photographs is quite contrasted. With a film I feel encouraged to sit back and and passively allow the events of the narrative to unfold before me, as if watching through a window. With Crewdson’s images, I feel encouraged to come close and immerse my self in the moment he has captured, scrutinising every detail (Witch given their enormous print size, is not difficult) as if they are each a crime scene and I investigate in vain to uncover the story behind the image.
Shreck the Third - A case study on intertextuality
Shrek the Third, its predecessors and its sequels all have a reputation for being full of adult humour and references, and there were probably about twenty different references in trailer alone that I recognised, I’m sure someone with different a different film and tv vocabulary could recognise more. The references themselves come from pop culture in general rather than just film, and the effect of this is that everyone watching the film can find something within in it to relate too. A similar example would be The Simpsons, the long running cartoon series has from day one blended both childish and adult humour and references, witch it seems has been at least partly helpful in bringing out the series unprecedented longevity. The flexible and silly nature of these two universes make it so that shoehorning multiples references in one after the other doesn’t break the immersion of the audience, infact we expect it and actively look for it, and come from a time when TV and Film were becoming very self-aware, in all genres, take for example the Slasher Horror series Scream (1997) in witch a group of teenagers use horror movie rules and tropes to try and survive their way through the events of the narrative, making references to various horror icons as the film progresses. But for others this began to tire while the first Scary Movie was a relative success, the sequels and of shoots lead to the start of a genre of parody movies that within just a few years became bland and repetitive. It seems here that intertextuality is fine, but don’t forget to mix it in with creativity and originality.
References
Kohler, Michael (ed.) (1995) Constructed realities Zurich: Edition Stemmle
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