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.
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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment