Repitions.

Thomas Demand.
     Thomas Demand recreates scenes out of cardboard and then photographs them, he begins with an image usually a photograph taken from the media which he then transforms into a life size model using only cardboard to create the scene. Demand will create these cardboard scenes within a studio situation to ensure that when it is ready to photograph he can set up his lights around the scene. He thrives to create the scene perfectly so measures all the dimensions identically to ensure that his photograph is almost identical to the media based image, although sometimes it is clear that they have been constructed, pencil marks or edges that have not joined perfectly can be visible. This helps in a way to remind the viewer that this is a staged tableaux image which I feel is Demand’s purpose.  Demand then captures the scenes on a large format camera using a telescopic lens, by using a large format camera allows Demand to capture the maximum amount of detail possible which is essential as Demand spent long periods of time creating these scenes he wants to ensure that all the detail is visible within the image. Demand’s photographs are displayed within galleries but have also been published in many books, when the images are exhibited they are enlarged and laminated behind Plexiglas, I feel these images gain more by being enlarged, as I mentioned earlier Demand uses a large format camera which is perfect for enlarging images. Also it gives the images a sense of reality, if they are printed up to life size the viewers will feel like they can walk into the image; that it is actually there.

    The images that Demand creates as I mentioned earlier are taken from the media and a lot of the time his images are making references to significant  events in German history, I only know this from reading up about Demand’s work, you could not tell this from just looking at his photographs. As Demand re constructs his images out of cardboard this directly removes his own images from the ones he is reconstructing, both images hold completely different meanings, for example take this image for example.    

                                                                     Room (Raum) 1994.                                 

To a normal viewer this would just look like a room that has been trashed, and Demand offers us little more detail than that. But having done some research into it this is actually a reconstruction of Fuhrerhauptquartier (Adolf Hitler’s headquarters) after it was bombed in July 1944. Once we know what this image is really about it changes the way that we look and feel about it, it now has narrative. I feel that this is the reason as to why Demand does not tell you much about the images he uses to create his photographs, he wants the viewers to look at his images with a clear and open mind instead of already having an idea to what the image is about before really looking at it. By recreating the image out of cardboard for us he is directly creating a distance between us and the event the image is depicting, obviously there is already a distance between us and events as there is only so much the media tell us about certain events happening, but Demand’s images create a bigger distance and almost remove us from the event all together. 

    As individual photographs some people may find them boring, there are never any people in Demand’s images and they are usually very still and cold. When you put all his images together they flow rather well, we can clearly see Demand’s style coming through. When looking through his book I find myself trying to spot the cardboard and see areas that Demand has missed etc and look at his images in a very different way. I almost find them humorous; they remind me of Childs play as if these sets have been created for children, which is the complete opposite of how I looked at his ‘Room’ image after reading more about the history behind it. His images tell a dark story but this is not clear from just looking at them once.  

   
    Demand deals with a lot of simulations; every image he creates is a simulation of the image he sourced it from. A simulacrum is a representation that is not necessarily tied to an object in the real world, in Demand’s case his images are simulacrum as they are representations of an event that happened in the real world. Although the fact that Demand copies from an image taken of an event makes the relationship between Demand’s image and the event less significant, and therefore his image is more cut off from the event it represents and this threatens the relationship of reference between sign and object.

The Rhetoric of Images.

Gerhard Richter. 

Oil on photography 1989. 

Oil on photograph 1989. 

                                      Oil on photograph 2001. 
   


    Gerhard Richter studied as a artist and began his career during his mid teens whilst studying at the Dresden Art Academy in communist East Germany. Richter formed a group called the capitalist realists along with Sigmar Polke and Konrad Fischer-Lueg and Georg Baselitz the interesting thing about this group is that they derived their subject matter from print media, as supposed to creating the subject matter and meaning from the actual painting itself, and the focus should be on the image as supposed to on the reference. 
   These three images i have chosen demonstrate Richter's use of photography within his paintings, he uses either found images or images he has taken himself he then projects the image onto a canvas and traces the photograph  and colours it using the exact palette from the image. as you can see with these three images above the photographs underneath has a slight blur to them, this is due to the soft brush strokes Richter uses to paint these photographs with. Richter then paints over the image and as you can see within last image i have displayed here he contrasts the light soft focus of the photograph underneath with the hard aggressive blocks of colour he created perhaps using a squeegee. sometimes this effect can alter how we see the image, for example all three of these images above are being hidden in some way, there are parts of the image that we cannot see due to their being paint in the way, this can dramatically alter the meaning of the image, for example the facial expressions of the two people in the first image could explain quite a lot to us about that particular image or give that image meaning behind it but their faces have been hidden behind paint so we therefore see the image differently to how it was originally intended. 


"I want to leave everything as it is. I therefore neither plan nor invent; I add nothing and omit nothing. At the               same time, I know that I inevitably shall plan, invent, alter, make and manipulate. But I don't know that." Gerhard Richter 1964. 


   This quote contradicts what i just said in that Richter is saying that by him painting onto these photographs he is not adding anything to the images or taking anything away, i.e. distracting us from the original meaning of the photograph. He also does not feel that by painting over the photographs he is adding anything spectacular to these images, he feels that there is nothing spectacular to add, the images themselves are strong enough but Richter is just giving us a alternative way of looking at these images. Richter publishes these images in exhibitions and galleries all around the world, by publishing them this way allows Richter to give the images as much or as little explanation behind them as he wishes. Whereas if Richter was using these images for advertising for example he would have to make the meaning of the images a lot clearer to the audiences. 


   I think these images are very strong, Richter uses found images and adds something from himself to them, as supposed to artists such as Richard Prince who uses images that someone else has taken and just crops them differently, i do like Prince's work but feel that he does not add anything new from himself as an artist to the images. Richter leaves his mark, so to speak, on the images which therefore adds to them in some way and makes them his own therefore making them into pieces of new art as supposed to just found photographs. He is happy to admit that the images are not his own and he does not try to take credit for them but rather better them by adding details through oil paint. I find these images very beautiful and unique. 

The Gaze.

Kim Weston.

Untitled.

   Kim Weston uses nudes in all his photographs, to be more specific female nudes. Weston being a man means that all his images are taken from a male perspective or a male gaze, he constructs these images to exactly how he wants them to be seen. He can manipulate certain points of the image to ensure that it is given the same meaning that he wants it to. 

       "Any nude is a something you setup in front of the camera." Kim Weston

   A nude is described as a naked body being seen as an object, which is also defined as scopophillia the pleasure of looking at other's bodies as objects. I believe this to be very true to Weston's work, if you examine to the photographs above you can clearly see, especially with the image underneath that Weston has not photographed these women because he found them attractive or even  because he liked them as people. You can tell this because he has covered their faces, he is viewing them, and wants us to view them, as just bodies or objects, he is no longer viewing them as people. This image also deals with the theory of power, the fact that he has used women in this image and that they are tied up connotes power over these women. As Weston is the photographer and also a man it says to us the viewers that it is men or a man who is holding this dominant power over these women. This image might be viewed as being offensive and oppressive towards women, as the image has been published every person that looks at this image too is not going to view these women as people but rather as objects that make up this particular image. 

   Obviously within this image we are looking at the women, they are restricted from looking at us it almost gives us a sense of voyeurism. They are naked and are being displayed like pieces of meat for us to look at, they too cannot look at each other, there are a number of women within this room but none of them are looking at anyone. It almost seems unfair that we can see so much of them and they can see nothing of us, their naked bodies are clearly visible to us whereas their face and identity is disguised. This is the opposite to what is usually normal amongst people within our society, usually we can clearly see people's face and identity but not their naked bodies. 

   I think that this image could either be trying to shock us or to demonstrate some of Weston's hidden desires, many men talk of the fantasy of tieing women up during sexual intercourse as it adds a sense of dominance and excitement. the image objectifies these women, making them appear available for male sexual fantasy, many men may look at this image and relate it to their own similar desires whereas other people may be shocked by what they are looking at and some may be disturbed. Weston does not make it clear with exactly what message he is trying to get across with this image. 

   We own the gaze within this image, we can look at these women but they cannot look at us, it also deals with the ideas of voyeurism and scopophillia, the image objectifies the women as available for male sexual fantasy. 

Nude on the beach 2009.

   This image is another from Weston but has quite a different look and feel about it, obviously it still has a nude woman in it but this time we can see her face and she can see us. 
This image has taken on a very sexual feel to it, the position of the woman and how she is eating the hotdog connotes very sexual acts to us the viewers. This image has a less objective feel to it, I think Weston is still using the woman as a sexual object for his pleasure, but this time the woman is more involved. 
The first image had a sinister feel about it and we could not tell if the women involved were willing, whereas with this image we can tell that the woman is posing as her face is visible to us so we can see her expression. 
The image is still using the woman but she seems not to mind, it is almost like she is playing with the viewer, we cannot tell exactly where she is looking as her eyes are covered. 
   Again I feel with this image we own the gaze, we are looking at her looking at someone or something else. She is choosing not to look directly at us. I think this image too is intended for the same reasons as the first, it could be to shock people or it could be aimed at male fantasy. People who might be shocked by this image are women, feminists in particular as it is almost cheapening this woman, she is making all women look available for male fantasy, she is giving it all away upfront. 




   

Documentary photography.

   For this essay I am concentrating on two documentary photographer, one historical and one contemporary. Both the photographers I have chosen are quite different in style and subject but both display amazing skills in documentary photography.


   The first historical photographer I have chosen to talk about is Don McCullin, who is one of the most influential photographers of all time and by far one of my favourite photographers of all time. McCullin's career began in 1959 and he concentrated on documenting the underside of societies, his photographs have depicted war, unemployment and starvation.

Shell shocked soldier, Hue, 1968.

Starving albino child, Nigeria, 1969.


   McCullin used his photography as a tool to evoke emotions in people, to document what was happening in the world and to try and induce change. McCullin often took images of war that people didn't want to see, images that truly demonstrated what was happening as suppose to just showing who was winning,  he showed us the hard truth and reality. Take the image of the 'Shell shocked soldier' this was unlike any other war images that people had seen at this time, usually the images published were of the Americans winning or of dead Vietnam soldiers. the public were not used to seeing their soldiers in a venerable state like this, as this meant that we were are a disadvantage. This was the reality of the situation at the time, many Americans were being killed or injured the papers just did not want to publicise this as it would show them as being weak. McCullin would get himself into the centre and heat of a war zone, carrying just his camera equipment and no weapons. Obviously being in such a hectic situation he wouldn't of had much time to compose and light the images he took, he worked with what he had. 
   His images have very high contrast and a lot of grain, this adds to the grittiness of the situations he is capturing. The image above of the albino child is quite tightly cropped, McCullin did this a lot with his portrait images in order to hold all the focus onto the subject, so we do not get too lost in the environment in the background. McCullin developed all of his own prints in the darkroom, this ensured that he could get the images exactly how he intended them, no one else could crop his work and give it a different meaning, it was left how he intended it to be. 
   McCullin was a photo journalist so his images were intended for the world to see, this would have influenced his decisions of what he photographed. If he was illustrating an article about famine he would obviously choose to photograph small children, like the image above which would evoke the most emotions in people. What he is photographing is reality but how he chooses to crop, compose and display it can give an image a completely different meaning or enhance a image for a more dramatic effect. 


   The next photographer that I have chosen to talk about is actually a duo, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin are London based documentary photographers. 

"What is your illness? Four white pills and one green everyday" Didier, René Vallejo patient, age 22, 2003.

Untitled, René Vallejo psychiatric hospital, Cuba, 2003. 

   As you can see these images are very different to McCullin's work, these images were taken in René Vallejo psychiatric hospital in Cuba in 2003. They were part of Broomberg and Chanarin's book entitled 'Ghetto' a collection of images taken from 12 different ghettos from prisons to retirement homes. As they were taken for a book as supposed to a newspaper Broomberg and Chanarin would not have had to be so particular as to what sort of images they took, the meaning they wanted to convey was completely up to them. 

   Broomberg and Chanarin's documentary work has a completely different approach then that of McCullin's, their images have a more fine art feel to them rather than McCullin's journalistic images. In contrast to McCullin's images, these images have a very clean look to them. As they have been taken in a hospital Broomberg and Chanarin have kept this theme throughout the images, everything looks clean, organised and has that signature hospital green in it. Whereas McCullin's work was taken in a very different situation, everything looks dirty and gritty this is enhanced by the film he used, 35mm with a high ISO for a high grain image. Broomberg and Chanarin used a large format camera for their hospital images, this reflects in the images they have produced, large format gives you a clear and crisp image containing a high amount of detail. This medium suits their subject matter greatly, if they had used the same medium as McCullin the images would not be as strong and not have as much effect as they do. 
   The situation that Broomberg and Chanarin are in here is similar to McCullin's as they would not have had much freedom into how their images were composed and constructed, they would not have been able to control what was going on around them or ask a lot of the subjects to pose in specific ways for them to photograph. 
I am sure they cropped images and chose their angles carefully in order to convey certain meanings but in this sense they were almost just as limited as McCullin was. 
   I think Broomberg and Chanarin wanted to convey the loneliness felt whilst being in a mental institution, all of their images from this book have a cold and empty atmosphere to them. With all of BroombergChanarin's projects they like to explore places that people would not normally get to see, inside of mental institutions and prisons for example, they use their photography to explore rather than to inform. I think they choose places to photograph that might be considered abnormal, places where the people inside them are different from what is considered 'normal' in everyday society, in order to give us the viewers a small insight into another world that is different from ours. 


   I have given here two examples of very different documentary photographers, when you look at both their images you can clearly see the distinct difference in style and subject matter. Everything down to the reasoning behind their images is contrasted, but in one way the two photographers are similar. Everyone has a sense of curiosity and likes to see something they would not normally see, McCullin and Broomberg and Chanarin both manage this in their photography but in different ways. Not all people, myself included will ever see a war in action just as much as I am unlikely to see the inside of a mental institution or meet the patients inside. In this way their images are similar, they both offer us a small window into another world. 

Images from the exhibition. 

Weegee (Arthur H. Fellig): "Lovers at the Movies", ca. 1940

   I really like this image as we as the viewers can see everything but the people within the image cannot, obviously in a cinema its pitch black so you cannot see the people around you what Weegee is displaying to us is what we would normally see if the lights were on. 

   Everyone else around this couple are oblivious to what they are up to, this gives the photograph a light hearted feel to it as it almost feels as if we are spying on them and being part of something mischievous. 

   The composition of the image works well as the lovers are centered so again our main focus is on them. The photograph is also a little lighter around the couple so again this draws focus onto them. Another factor that works well within this image is the fact that all the surrounding seats are empty, whereas all the other parts of the cinema displayed in the photograph are full. It is almost as if people knew what this couple would do during the film so distance themselves from them. Where the camera is placed makes the image almost look like a still from a CCTV camera, this links in with the surveillance theme of the exhibition, the image captures a large section of the cinema as supposed to just the couple. Weegee could have just photographed the two people but instead decided to include the others around them. This adds effect to the image as it puts the couple into context, the face that we can see everyone else and no one else is doing the same as the re iterates the fact that they are in a cinema, in the dark. 

   Weegee used infrared film in order to capture this image, which is why it has a slight red tint to it, this tone adds to the dated feel of the image. The sepia tone connotes old ages film to people, so when you see a photograph with this effect your mind automatically links the image with being of age.  

   Weegee generally used a speed graphic with a 4x5 inch format and automatic flash to capture these impressive images.

Harry Callahan

Harry Callahan - Untitled (Atlanta) 1984, Dye transfer print, SFMOMA.

   This image stood out to me for the colour, obviously red has connotations of sex and romance and this being a photograph of a woman’s bottom makes the image scream sex to us even more. I feel that if this woman had not been wearing red, and perhaps black the image would not have been as effective as it is. The red colour is very striking and stands out within the image as a whole, the woman does not blend into the background. 
   The composition is interesting, it looks like Callahan took this image with out the woman knowing which is why we cannot see her face. It appears that Callahan might have taken the image whilst waiting to cross a road, it is a very snap shot image as you can tell Callahan has not taken hours trying to figure out the best composition. Although this may be the case I really like the composition, the woman is pretty much in the centre, positioned slightly to the left. The woman's stance is very interesting, she is sticking her bottom out towards us, something she probably would not have done if she had known that she was being photographed. 
   The detail and depth of this image is amazing, the detail on her dress is so clear and also the detail of the background too, obviously it is slightly blurred but we can still see clearly what is there. There is quite high contrast within this image that means the shadows and lines on her dress are really predominant and make the dress the main point of focus for us. The high contrast also bring the woman out of the frame in a way, it is almost like she is sitting on top of the image, she is in perfect sharp focus, the colour of her dress is bright whereas the background is a little dull and blurry.  
   The image almost becomes more about the shapes and shadows within the image rather than a woman's figure, after a while of looking at this particular image you forget that it is a woman as you start to just concentrate on the shapes and lines of her dress. it is quite a mesmerising photograph. 

Shizuka Yokomizo

Shizuka Yokomizo "Stranger No. 1 1998"

     Yokomizo is examining the relationship between the observer and the observed, the “Strangers” within these photographs cannot see her so are less likely to change their body language as much as they would in a studio. When people know that they are being watched they tend to alter the way they stand and act, i am sure that these people have in some way but it appears that this man has not much. He looks completely normal, carrying out his normal evening routines not all that fussed that he is being photographed. 

     This image stands out as there are many frames within the frame, the black frame around the window, each frame of the window, the door frame and the frames hanging on the wall. This in a way forces you to look at each frame separately as well as then looking at the image as a whole. It breaks the image up more, as there is quite a lot in the background of this image there is a lot to take in. By the frame being there lets us look at the image in smaller sections first so we can take all the image in. 

     The composition is interesting too; the man is in the centre of the window frame, which draws your eyes to him straight away. he is not completely centred but enough for him to be our main point of focus, as Yokomizo took these images from outside without actually having spoken to the models would have made it hard for her to compose the image to how she wanted them. Yokomizo had to compose the images from what she saw, perhaps moving her camera around slightly in order to centre this man. 

     The image is very red and quite saturated, which gives off a warm feeling. There is a lot of light coming from inside the window as supposed to the real darkness on the outside creating a large contrast between the inside and outside, making the inside of the house look cosy and inviting.

     The man in this photograph does not look like he is posing, obviously he does not mind being watched as he is standing in front of the window in his underwear.  He is letting us see quite a lot into his personal life, but he is controlling it. If he did not want us to see he would not of turned up when Yokomizo asked.

     I really like this image and the entire series, I think Yokomizo's technique of how she got these images is very interesting and unique. It gives us a small glance into someone else's life for a second and also helps us to create narratives for these people in our imagination. 

Exposed Exhibition

About the exhibition

"...promises to be a magnificent, intriguing, sometimes shocking, sometimes risque show". The Evening Standard

Exposed offers a fascinating look at pictures made on the sly, without the explicit permission of the people depicted. With photographs from the late nineteenth century to present day, the pictures present a shocking, illuminating and witty perspective on iconic and taboo subjects. 

Beginning with the idea of the 'unseen photographer', Exposed presents 250 works by celebrated artists and photographers including Brassaï's erotic Secret Paris of the 1930s images; Weegee's iconic photograph of Marilyn Monroe; and Nick Ut's reportage image of children escaping napalm attacks in the Vietnam War. Sex and celebrity is an important part of the exhibition, presenting photographs of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Paris Hilton on her way to prison and the assassination of JFK. Other renowned photographers represented in the show include Guy Bourdin, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip Lorca DiCorcia, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, Lee Miller, Helmut Newton and Man Ray. 

The UK is now the most surveyed country in the world. We have an obsession with voyeurism, privacy laws, freedom of media, and surveillance – images captured and relayed on camera phones, YouTube or reality TV.

Much of Exposed focuses on surveillance, including works by both amateur and press photographers, and images produced using automatic technology such as CCTV. The issues raised are particularly relevant in the current climate, with topical debates raging around the rights and desires of individuals, terrorism and the increasing availability and use of surveillance. Exposed confronts these issues and their implications head-on.