Showcase Portfolio: Lydia Page-Wright

Lydia Page-Wright

Untitled Films aims to draw from – but not provide the answers to – known visual tropes from both cinema and photography and explore how an aesthetic / narrative / subject matter may (or may not) be recognisable to the viewer. Drawing from Kristeva (1966), Alfaro (1996) reminds us ‘There are always other words in a word, other texts in a text. We [should] understand texts not as self-contained systems, but as differential and historical, as they are shaped by the repetiton and structures of other textual systems’ (Alfaro, 1996, p,268). The work aims to sit on this oscillating boundary of a nagging recognition, between the literal and the obscure, the description the photograph (and accompanying text) might seem to promise, but yet the metaphor that ultimately, it always is.

Follow Lydia Page-Wright on instagram

 

Alfaro, María Jesús Martínez (1996) ‘Intertextuality: Origins and Development of the Concept’ in Atlantis (Vol. 18, No. 1/2) December 1996.

The 12 Days of Christmas

for full session see: All I want for Christmas…

Session overview:
  • Every day – for 12 days – participants will photograph an object / create a scene which they feel relates to a Christmas heading / captiion / song etc.
  • These should be provided in advance (with dates) and participants should concentrate on one ‘caption / quote’ for each day.
  • These can be mixed up amongst a class group / more than one participant can work on the daily ‘caption’ at one time.
  • Participants should independently research the work of Lee Friedlander – Merry Christmas from Lee Friedlander (2011) at the Janet Borden Gallery, NYC.
  • Upload daily to Instagram / Twitter / social media platform
Coca Cola (1931)
some Example Christmas captions to work from:
    1. All I Want for Christmas
    2. Tis the Season to be Jolly
    3. Silent Night
    4. We Three Kings of Orient are
    5. Down in Yon Forest
    6. The Friendly Beasts
    7. Good King Wenceslas
    8. The Holly and the Ivy
    9. i Wonder as i Wander
    10. O’ Holy Night
    11. Rockin Robin
    12. O’ Christmas Tree
suggested output: daily (clASS) Instagram / book / zine
Additional activity ideas:
  • Run a Christmas Treasure Hunt: Find and photograph a ‘present’ every day for 12 days. Who is it for?
  • Pinhole Christmas: Make a Pinhole Camera:  Expose the scene for 12 days
THESE Sessions could be adapted from:

Places with a Past

on this site: the places and spaces of joel sternfeld

‘The impulse to make a picture of an event which has already happened may seem counter-intuitive, if not impossible. Unlike a painter who may recreate a historical scene, the photographer has no such leeway’ (Albers, 2015)
Joel Sternfeld (1993) Central Park, North of the Obelisk, Behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam

This is an adaptable session which aims to introduce participants to researching the history of places and spaces and the importance of aesthetics / accompanying text / context in its photographic representation. It encourages in-depth independent research into Joel Sternfeld’s practice and its commparative positioning within wider ideas regarding different ways of photographicically representing place, space and history.

Joel Sternfeld (2001) from Walking the Highline
‘The poet-keeper of the High Line is the photographer Joel Sternfeld. He has been taking pictures of it in all seasons for the year, and he has a gift for seeing light and space and color— romantic possibility of every kind— where a less sensitive observer sees smudge and weed and ruin. He would not just like the High Line to be saved and made into a promenade; he would like the promenade as it exists now to be perpetuated, a piece of New York as it really is’ (Gopnik, 2001)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

Aims & Outcomes:

  • To undertake research into the history of the local / a specific area
  • To explore the relationship between image and text / caption
  • To visually experiment with the loading of narrative into single / multiple images in sequence and series
  • To understand the difference between literal and ambigous imagery (and thier consequences)
  • To consider the context of viewing such images and how this might impact on thier interpretation
  • Participant Outcome: 5 6×4 digital prints
Ori Gersht (1999-2000) A Train Journey from Cracow to Auschwitz from White Noise
‘Without their subtext, they lose their specificity. The eye passes over the photograph but cannot penetrate it. There is no mental adjustment we can make that will give it clarity, except by recourse to place, circumstance and [ori gersht’s] intention’ (Searle, 2005)

You will need:

  • Digital cameras for all participants (and appropriate memory cards) *This session can also be run using Camera phones or Lumix cameras
  • Card readers
  • Access to computers (or laptops)
  • An Introductory Brief & Presentation for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • Some local examples of places with a past *and preferably some visual representations of them to critique / discuss
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector (powerpoint with text) or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
Richard Misrach (1999) Battleground Point from Desert Cantos
‘Where the document begins and where the aesthetic object begins is really hard to tell. That’s fairly obvious in my work; there doesn’t seem to be an illusion of a straight document’ (richard Misrach in Caponigro, 1998)

Research: the work of joel sternfeld

 

Preparation Work:

  • Research the history of a local / specific area *local libraries, newspapers and people living in the area can help here
  • Ask participants to read Kate Palmer Albers (2015) ‘Joel Sternfeld’s Empty Places available here
  • Ask participants to read Fiona McDonald (2014) ‘Thomas Demand: Making History – with paper’ in BBC Culture available here
  • Ask participants to watch the video On This Site by Joel Sternfeld (2014) available here
  • Ask participants if they have thier own digital cameras and cards
  • Make sure you have access to computers / image editing software
  • Make sure there are enough team members to support participants (never assume thier prior knowledge)
  • Decide whether you will project the work or print it.
  • If you are printing it make sure the Photo Lab are aware and be aware of timekeeping so they have space to print the work.
  • *If you are running this session off campus, make sure there is access to printers (or projectors if you are concentrating on sequencing a narrative only – create a powerpoint and include the text with each photograph)
Catherine Yass (2013) from Decommissioned
‘Catherine Yass photographed the former car showroom and dance studios that used to stand on the JW3 site once they had been decommissioned and emptied. The resulting large-format transparencies were placed around the demolition site – on diggers, under girders, in piles of glass and rubble – and then retrieved some weeks later, after they had been damaged scratched, ripped, and transformed by colour reactions on the emulsion. The images have been placed in the new building in light boxes and are in Yass’ words “small windows into a past and interior world illuminated by imagination and memory’ (outset, 2013)

Presentation Ideas: places with a past

Suggested Session Outline:

to come

Abigail Reynolds (2015) Desert Seeds
‘Making work is a strange and erratic dance of intuition, graft, brute materiality and opportunism. I allow myself to be attracted to certain images, forms and places which then become points to work away from. For me, making work is partly aversion and partly attraction. I enjoy to play with my sense of surroundings and also materiality. I also enjoy the difficulty of sculpture and the challenge of problem solving, which is always present when making anything three dimensional’ (Abigail Reynolds in Aesthetica, 2013)

 

So Many Books, So Little Time

Storytelling, selecting & sequencing: The hand-made book

‘The camera may be thought of as comparable to the eye. The difference is that the camera is not more than an eye. It does not think. Any connection with judging, choosing, arranging, including, excluding, and snapping has to be with the photographer’ (Price, 1994, p.4)
Duane Michals (1973) The Bogeyman

 

In this session, participants will explore the sequencing of photographs to create a narrative. They will consider the ambiguity (or not) of images to create a story, as well as it’s relationship with accompanying text. They will produce a simple hand-made book to display the images.

 

 

 

‘Duane Michals has continually rebelled against and expanded the documentary and fine art traditions. At the onset, he baffled critics who knew not what to say of his work, rejecting the notion of the “decisive movement,” the supremacy of the sensational singular image, and the glorification of the perfect print. As an expressionist, rather than going out into the world to collect impressions of the eye, he looked inward to construct the images of his mind, exploring the unseeable themes of life, death, sensuality, and innocence’ (Reznik, 2014)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

  • Tell Me a Story – (narrative in the single image) post to come (Jeff Wall / Gregory Crewdson)
  • (Don’t) Stop the Frame – (panorama’s) – post to come (Sam Taylor Wood / Fred Cray)
  • On this Site – post to come (Joel Sternfeld / Paul Seawright / Tom Hunter)
  • Tell Me A Story (Again)
  • Fake News?
Jeff Wall (1998-2000) The Flooded Grave
‘Like a poem, which is made up from ‘lines that resemble sentences’ but exceeds the normal way we read sentences, the poetic quality of an image transgresses the indexical truthfulness of a representation’ (Wall & Galassi, 2007, p.337)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • For participants to visually explore the nature of constructing images and sequencing them to portray a narrative through 6 images
  • For participants to understand the difference between literal and ambigous imagery (and thier consequences)
  • For participants to explore the relationship between image and text.
  • Participant Take Away Outcome: A handmade book with 6 sequenced images
Tom Hunter (2000) The Way Home from Life and Death in Hackney

You will need:

  • Digital cameras for all participants (and appropriate memory cards) *This session can also be run using Camera phones or Lumix cameras
  • Card readers
  • Access to computers (or laptops)
  • A3 / A4 card or paper *Make sure you print the photograhs at the appropriate size to fit each page
  • Scissors, Bone Folder etc
  • An Introductory Brief & Presentation for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • Some song lyrics, poems, stories *Participants can also write thier own stories e.g. remembering a dream etc
  • *If there are time constraints – you could also work in groups (with Image 1 and Image 6 being provided in pre-made books – what is the narrative in the middle? (produce 4 images to ‘complete’ the story). Here, still demonstrate how to make the book (particularly useful with younger participants)
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector (powerpoint with text) or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
‘The caption permits me to focus not only my gaze, but also my understanding’ (Barthes, 1977, p.39)

Preparation Work:

  • Practice making books yourself and decide which size you will print the photographs
  • Ask participants to read David Seidner (1987) ‘Intverview with Duane Micheals’ in BOMB Magazine, 1st July 1987 available here
  • Ask participants to watch the video Presenting The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings by Kaylynn Deveney (2011) available here
  • Ask participants if they have thier own digital cameras and cards
  • Make sure you have access to computers / image editing software
  • Make sure there are enough team members to support participants (never assume thier prior knowledge)
  • Decide whether you will project the work or print it.
  • If you are printing it make sure the Photo Lab are aware and be aware of timekeeping so they have space to print the work.
  • *If you are running this session off campus, make sure there is access to printers (or projectors if you are concentrating on sequencing a narrative only – create a powerpoint and include the text with each photograph)
Christopher Stewart (2002) from Insecurity

Suggested Session Outline: see Teresa williams’s website here

 

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