Professional Practice

Attempting and refining new practices is incredibly important for planting the foundations on which to build my career in photography. From year one to my final year, I have grown, not just as a photographer, but I have grown politically and my intelligence has evolved.

As I’ve grown I have become more displaced in terms of my political viewpoint. Things these days seem more and more confusing, as though I don’t belong on the left/right spectrum. I want to capture my displacement. I believe absolutely that our environment and wildlife is endangered. I believe that human beings should be seen as equals, that the colour of your skin, the God you worship or your sexualiy should not devalue you as a person.  However, I do not submit to the social justice movement. I believe feminism is outdated, Black Lives Matter is a ridiculous, immature and racist group. I believe that the government doesn’t owe anybody anything, I believe that we should all take responsibility for our own failures and successes, I believe that we all have the same opportunities and most of all, I do not believe that we live in a society that favours a particular gender and race. I believe that male white privilege is a disgusting lie. I find it absurd that certain communities raise their children to believe that they are destined to fail because their skin colour is different to my own. Of course those people are going to fail if nobody believes in them.

So, this is my project. I will create a fine art project that signifies these beliefs and exhibit them on a line, left to right. These images will be made up of multiple different images, photoshopped together to make a single image. An example of this is the photograph below.

How has social media created and affected social stigma against photographing children in public?

Merseyside, 1975. Photographer Paul Trevor was patrolling the streets of Granby and Everton, photographing life and recording the mishaps of the children that resided there. A series of beautiful photographs shot on black and white film where produced and stored away for almost forty years. In 2010, a dusty box was found full of old negatives and prints. Beautiful photographs of Liverpool in the mid-seventies were uncovered, and thus began the campaign to find the children in the photographs.

I feel that this particular project is a fantastic example of how we have de-evolutionised as a society. It’s no secret that photographs age like a fine wine or whiskey, but the photographs themselves aren’t the problem. It’s taking the photographs without feeling like you have made someone a victim. Paedophile, sex offender, scumbag. These are just a few of the derogatory labels innocent photographers have had placed upon them since the social media boom. I aim to find out why, and what it was that caused this. Things have changed for photography and I feel that it is hurting the industry.

I have recently been in contact with Photographer Paul Trevor, we have emailed each other and Paul has kindly agreed to be interviewed for my dissertation research. I wish to find out what he feels has changed in terms of the social stigmas that threaten street photography. I will compile a series of well thought open questions, in order to gain what I need. I will also conduct an experiment to find out if the stigma against photographing children, specifically affects gender roles in the industry. I will also cover these aspects in a series of ‘Vox Pops’ to add to my primary research.

Using my primary research, I shall compile my evidence and arrange it into graphs and charts, where I can properly analyse the information and form a hypothesis, which will then either be proved or disproved, by using secondary research and secondary experiments.

The aim of my dissertation is to find what caused the social stigmas against photographing children. What made it such a sensitive subject? There is proof in Paul Trevor’s work, it proves how children are a beautiful and innocent subject matter to photograph. Capturing life where, as humans, we are at our most peaceful point in our lives. No problems, no stress, just serenity. I feel it is important to capture these moments and I feel that is important to abolish this humiliation that we have created as a society. We are photographers, it is our jobs to capture moments and create memories.

Researching skills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Influences: Martin Parr

Martin Parr took a technology that was seen as a waste of time by critics, and jumped into it with a deep passion for trying something different. As a renowned street photographer, he wasn’t afraid of what anybody else thought and used the technology that was available and new. I think that is something that everyone should take a lesson from. Technology is always moving forward and even if it may seem untraditional or a waste, there is no harm in trying as you may create something beautiful. As did Martin Parr.

Influences: Man Ray

Since I started doing still image as opposed to moving image, I have been extremely interested in studio portraiture. My biggest inspiration for this genre of work is Man Ray. His lighting skills are second to none. As a modernist photographer, he liked to use light to distort his images. Pre-modern portraits were typically painted to make the subject look powerful. However, Man Ray uses his camera to shoot them looking vulnerable. He wasn’t afraid to show the world something different, which is something I will carry with me throughout my professional career. A journalist once asked Man Ray how he lit his subjects, and he replied with ‘I can’t remember.’ As foolish as this is, it’s also brilliant as it teaches you to experiment. It also makes his photographs unique.

Influences: Sam-Taylor Wood

When I was studying my pre-degree, I became very interested in performance art. One of the performance artists I became fond of, was Sam-Taylor Wood. Now, Sam-Taylor Johnson. I was completely intrigued by her work and the way that she expressed her femininity and herself. She did this in a series of self-portraits, the portraits have been exhibited in galleries all over the world. One of my favourites is a portrait of her, holding Robert Downy Jnr in the fetal position, during the time of his addiction to Heroine. This photograph is incredibly inspiring because it puts someone who is completely vulnerable and poisoned by a vicious addiction and makes them look human. This has taught me to treat my work with empathy, and to bring out something real to provoke reaction in my work.

Influences: Jackson Pollock

I have also recently found inspiration in Jackson Pollock (1912-1956). He was an American Abstract Expressionist Artist known as ‘Jack the Dripper.’ This name nickname was given to him by art critics after he developed the dripping technique to create much of his artwork. The dripping technique was an evolved form of Breton’s Automatism. Pollock would lay out huge canvasses onto the floor and drip liquid paint onto its surface. Using this technique, Pollock believed that he was inside the painting, that his artwork was a part of himself. “My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.” (Pollock, 1951) His paintings taught me not to be afraid of trying something new in terms of technique. After all, it could be the foundation of something amazing.

Influences: Frank O’Hara

As well as literature, I am a huge fan of poetry. My favourite poem is by a Post-Modernist American poet named Frank O’Hara, Why I am Not a Painter.

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”

“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.

This is a poem about the creative process and how inspiration can come from anywhere at any time. O’Hara wrote this poem about his collection of poems Oranges: 12 pastorals and a painting named Sardines by his friend, Mike Goldberg. This poem taught me the importance of evolving my work, I start off with a small idea for a project and eventually it becomes so much more.

Influences: Lewis Carol

From childhood to adulthood, I have always read books. I am always reading a book, typically before I go to sleep or when I’m traveling long distances. Lewis Carol is probably one of the most influential authors in history. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to this day is one of my all-time favourite books. The imagination involved is absolutely incredible. There have been hundreds of re-creations of this classic and all of them bring something different to this strange, but lucid world that Carol invented. This imaginative world paired with incredible writing brought one of the most influential children’s books in history. There are even philosophical lessons to be learned from the book. This book completely sparked something in me I didn’t think I had, and it was a love for writing and creating stories. A skill easily transferable to my photographic work.

Influences: Stanley Kubrick

I grew up watching Stanley Kubrick films and they blew my mind aesthetically. Kubrick, an auteur in cult cinema created these incredible and beautiful shots that are perfect in composition. One point perspective in drawing, cinematography and photography is when it has one vanishing point on the horizontal line. Kubrick typically uses corridors and small rooms with doors at the end. He uses these scenes because of the parallel lines of the walls, are directly within the viewers eye line or directly perpendicular. The parallel lines then congregate at the vanishing point of the frame. For me, this is absolutely beautiful aesthetically. Kubrick used this shot regularly in his films, making him an auteur in his field. His cinematography is not only influential to me as a photographer, but also to me as a critic. Kubrick’s one point perspective shot taught me the importance of composition and I take this lesson into consideration every time I press the shutter.

Kubrick // One-Point Perspective from kogonada on Vimeo.