Category: Theory & Practice

Re-Defining (dis) Ability?

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Objectified objects / positive portraits

‘All photographs, be they of people with disabilities or of other subjects, contain visual rhetoric, patterns of conventions with a distinct style that cast the subject in a particular way’(Bogden, 2012, p.1)
Wirestone Advert (2010)

 

This session encourages a comparative and ethical approach to advertising campaigns / visual approaches which aim to promote disability awareness. Participants are encouraged to consider the potential for the objectification (or not) of disability, as well as the importance / function of text to potentially anchor our interpretation.

‘The body becomes the signifier of difference for disabled people’ (Hevey, 1992, p.30)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) for Walt Disney Pictures

 

‘Movies have tended to show disabled people as objects of pity or even comedy, a different breed whose condition subjects them to isolation’. (Cox, 2012)

 

 

Aims & Outcomes:

  • To investigate the ethics of the representation of disability in advertising / visual culture
  • To reflect on positive / negative / stereotypical representations
  • To visually consider the impact of these at provoking our ‘concern’ and action
  • To explore the role of text within the adverts to convey / support the message
  • Participant Outcome: 1 x A3 print advert
‘The impairment is what limits and thus defines the person. The focus here is on the failure of the individual to adapt to society as it is, and thus the impairment is regarded as the cause of disability’ (Evans, 1999, p.274)
The Spastic Society Advert (1982)

‘

The text constitutes a parasitic message designed to connote the image, to ‘quicken it’ with second order signifieds’ (Barthes, 1977, p.25)

You will need:

  • A selection of visual adverts and representations of disability
  • 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) and imaging software
  • An Introductory Brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
‘By defining that person wholly by their impairment, the charities speak for disabled people implying they cannot speak for themselves’ (Hevey, 1992, p.26)
Muscular Dystrophy Association Advert (1995)

 

‘Only disabled persons, constructed as a particular kind of people, are subject to a process of image specialisation advertising, as such their image can be constitutied as a transaction in the public sphere. Charities are advertising a product who happen to be people’ (Evans, 1999, p.279

 

 

preparation work:

  • Ask participants to read Jessica Evans (1999) ‘Feeble Monsters: Making Up Disabled People? in The Visual Culture Reader (Hall & Evans eds. 1999) available here
  • Ask participants to read BBC (2016) Disabled models and athletes outraged by Brazilian Vogue Paralympic campaign photo (26th August 2016) available here
  • Ask participants to read Tara Campbell (2019) ‘Exploring Mental Health Through Photography’ in Creative Review available here
  • Ask participants to investigate the artists interviews available though fragmentary.org available here
  • Ask participants to watch and discuss Pro Infirmis (2013) ‘Becasue Who is Perfect?’  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 Reprographics are aware and be aware of timekeeping so they have space to print the work – or use A3 colour photocopiers.
  • *If you are running this session off campus, make sure there is access to printers or projectors
‘The focus [on] the ability not the disability’ (Barnes & Mercer 2003, p.98)
Mencap (1990) Kevin’s Going Nowhere Advert

 

 

‘The implications of this is that for charity advertising to be successful in its aim of raising funds, it may be undermining another objective: to ensure people are afforded civil rights and seen as of equal value to others’. (Bender, 2003, p. 124)

‘Imagining disability as ordinary, as the typical rather than the atypical human experience, can promote practices of equality and inclusion that begin to fulfil the promise of a democratic order’ (Thompson, 2001, p.360)

Presentation ideas: Objectified objects / positive portraits

 

Linda Dajana Krüger (2014) from Real Pretttiness

‘Why can’t Down Syndrome people be exaggerated or wear too much makeup if they like it? You see all kinds of people expressing themselves with fashion or makeup that is more or less a costume. It’s a common habit’ (Krüger in Griffin, 2014)

 

 

 

Diane Arbus (1970-1971) from Untitled

 

‘We can stare at these portraits in a way that we couldn’t stare at these women and girls if we met them on the street. We can be fearful and curious and safe all at once. They are Other’ (Dorfman, 2009)

suggested Session Outline:

  • Ask participants what knowledge.they have about disability (both physical and non physical) Remind participants that not all disabilities are visually discernable.
  • Give the Presentation above. Invite participants to compare the adverts? What are the similarities and differences? Pay attention to the time they were made / positive or negative messages and use of text as message. Is is successful? Which adverts / images are more positive? Why?
  • Brainstorm ideas and (stress) ethical concerns about the images. *Participants might make a more ‘positive’ versison of a pre-existing advert / image / character etc.
  • individually / in groups make an advert (include text) which aims to inspire change and makes a positive representation of the individuals / issue.
  • Print / Project and critique the images with these intents / ethics / aesthetics / use of text in mind and considering how we might overcome compassion fatigue and the visual objectification of the differently abled.
Muscular Dystrophy Association Advert (1985)

 

‘They had me stand in leg braces and they told me the caption was going to be: ‘If I grow up, I want to be a fireman.’ I was 6 years old. I was told I had a normal life expectancy at that point and I did not want to be a fireman. So I was quite upset… I knew I couldn’t be a fireman. That was absurd… It felt untrue. It felt exploited’ (Mattlin, 2012)

The Unbearable ‘Thingness’ of Being

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Still(ed) Life

‘We do not want objects to fall back into a bare thingness. We want to see them as symbols, emblems, metaphors. We want them to remind us of states of mind or soul. And yet how can they do such a thing?’ (Glover, 2011)
Juan Sánchez Cotán (1602) Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber

This session encourages participants to consider the relationship between the still life in painting and photography. It encourages in-depth independent research into Laura Letinsky’s practice and its positioning within wider ideas regarding the nature of photographic representation of the object without human presence. Participants should consider issues of perspective, scale, point of view, time and metaphor.

‘in quince, cabbage, melon and cucumber no-one can touch the suspended quince of cabbage without disturbing them and sending them rocking in space. Thier motionlessness is the mark of human absence’ (bryson (1990) in Hall, 1999, p.66)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

Louis Daguerre (1839) Shells & Fossils
‘The beginnings of photography were epitomised by the stillness of the images which the new medium generated’ (Williams in Newton & Rolph, 2006, p.6)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • For participants to explore the construction of meaning in within a still life ‘genre’
  • For participants to consider time, perspective, scale, point of view, composition, juxtapositions and the absence of human presence in their photographic practice.
  • For participants to conduct in depth research on the work of Laura Letinsky and her  influences and apply these ideas to thier photographic practice.
  • Participant Outcome: 1 final 10×8 digital print
‘Metaphor and allegory and the hint of something bigger are instrinsic to still life, the oldest study of objects through art and the most traditional of genres’ (Bright, 2011, p.109)

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)
  • A selection of objects and material to make backdrops / dioramas *black velvet would work here
  • Flash-guns, lamps (or tin foil) to demonstrate lighting ideas *or studio lighting
  • An Introductory Brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • Prepared demonstrations on using apertures to effect the depth of field and using flash / reflected light / studio lighting
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
‘In painting, the iconography has significant and symbolic meaning known to those familiar with the language of art history. In contemporary photography, tends to avoid the weight of such a history, it’s connotations and baggage and instead turns to those ordinary and everyday objects that might be passed by, ignored or not worthy of becoming the subject of art. Such contemplation makes us, as viewers, think about everday objects differently, possibly as art objects rather than as merely funcitonal ones’ (Bright, 2011, p.109)

Research: the work of Laura Letinsky

preparation work:

  • Ask participants to read Sophie Arkette (2009) ‘Olivier Richon / Anima(l)’ in Studio International (26th February 2009) available here
  • Ask participants to watch Ori Gersht & His Still Life Series (2017) from The Guggenheim Museum available here
  • Ask participants to independently research the work of Laura Letinsky
  • Ask participants if they have thier own digital cameras and cards
  • Make sure you have access to computers
  • 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 (10×8) 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
Giorgio Morandi (1955) Still Life
‘Morandi gives us silence, observation and a deep love of vision itself, divorced from interpretation. He invites us to see, rather than read’ (uta Barth in Ollman, 2008)
Uta Barth (2017) from In the Light and Shadow of Morandi
‘Seeing the same information in repetition so often creates a very contemplative state of mind. Much like Morandi painting the same few bottles and crockery for most of his life, the images become a sort of mantra and allow us to tune in to the subtlest, the most ephemeral information that I am trying to chase down’ (uta Barth in Soto, 2011)

Presentation ideas: Still(ed) Life

Suggested Session Outline:

Advertising Objects

Pringles Advert (2012)

 

 

Acting the Part

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Out of Character / Into Character: Photographic Chameleons

‘the mask offers a powerful disguise that gives photographers the chance ot redefine themselves, and to challenge the ways in which identities have commonly been represented and understood’ (bright, 2010, p.101)
Claude Cahun (1928) Self-Portrait

This session encourages participants to consider the nature of the performed portrait, and the construction of the self into a ‘disguised’ personae. This use of masquerade transforms the photograph into a stage. Lighting, props, costume, styling and location are also important considerations,

 

It is a theatrical reminder that identity is a construct, a mask we wear. ‘Under this mask, another mask’ Cahun wrote. We could even think of her work as a comment on race, as she frequently inverts colours and plays with contrast in one photograph. With her head shaved, holding her collar as if to hide from our gaze, seemingly tanned or edited to seem so, with her image duplicated by the mirror next to her – reinforcing the duality or multiplicity of identity, and the roles we play. (Emelife, 2016)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

Hippolyte Bayard (1840_ Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man
‘A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows they’re being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks’ (Avedon in Fuqua & Bivar, 2010, p.149)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • For participants to explore the nature of a performed’ and disguised self. Is is all a mask?
  • For participants to respond photographically to identified personal / political issues though the act of masqerade
  • For participants to consider the different ways in which the self might be represented. Do we have multiple selves? Are we stereotyped?
  • Participant Outcome: 1 10 x 8 digital print
Man Ray (1920) Rrose Selavy (Marcel Duchamp)
‘i pose, i know i am posing, i want you to know i am posing, but…this additional message must in no way alter the precious essence of my individuality’ (Barthes, 1981, p.12)

You will need:

  • Participants may identify and define thier own ‘characters’ / disguises /scenarios or you could use a list of Vladimir Propps characters as a prompt:The Hero / The Helper / The Villain / The False Hero / The Donor / The Dispatcher / The Princess / The Princess’s Father
  • Any props you might 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)
  • Flashguns (or a Studio) to practice lighting techniques
  • An introductory brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
Shigeyuki Kihara (2013) from Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
‘Portraits are representations, not documents’ (West, 1997, p. 53)

Preparation Work:

  • Ask Participants to read Sean O’ Hagan (2010) ‘Self Portraits as an Art Form’ in The Observer 8th August 2010 available here
  • Ask participants to explore the Tate resources and select one feature of thier choice to read available here
  • Ask participants to independently research the work of Cindy Sherman and watch Hal Foster (2016) Under the Gaze: The Art of Cindy Sherman available here
  • Ask participants to identify bring a selection of props they might need
  • Ask participants if they have thier own digital cameras and cards
  • Make sure you have access to computers
  • 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.
  • Decide whether you will introduce location / studio lighting
  • 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
Aneta Grzeszykowska (2006) from Untitled Film Stills

Research: The work of Cindy Sherman

‘The desire to ‘become someone else in front of the camera, if only for a moment, is often irresistable. masqerade in self-portraiture may allow an artist to vicariously act out fantasies or address a political issue through someone else’s voice, which is both liberating and transgressive. Such tactics can also be used for fun or to indulge personal vanity’ (bright, 2010, p.101

Presentation ideas: Acting the Part

suggested Session Outline:

Save the World

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The aesthetics of Apathy: advertising the Environment

‘An image is drained of its force by the way it is used, where and how often it is seen’ (Sontag, 2003, p.105)
Greenpeace Advert (2014)

This session encourages a comparative approach to advertising campaigns which promote environmental awareness and concern. Specifically, participants are encouraged to consider the potential for compassion fatigue in our image saturated world, the use of aesthetics / shock tactics in these adverts, as well as the importance / function of text within the adverts to spur us to take action (or not).

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

World Wildlife Fund Advert (2010)
‘Those who design these actively campaign to awaken public consciousness over misuse of the environment and shape their communications to create and reinforce that message’ (Gold & Revill, 2004, p.3)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • To investigate the aesthetics of environmental issues in advertising
  • To consider the impact of these at provoking our ‘concern’ and action
  • To reflect on the success / weakness of each of these practices considering the intent / visual approach of the adverts
  • To consider the role of text within the adverts to convey / support the message
  • Participant Outcome: 1 x A3 print advert
‘Environmentalists picture the environment as ‘suffering’ too. These are all compositions that invoke a kind of visual ‘pain’ in the viewer’ (Bate, 2009, p.119)
Greenpeace Advert (2011)

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) and imaging software
  • An Introductory Brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
‘A photograph that brings news of some unexpected zone of misery cannot make a dent in public opinion unless there is an appropriate context of feeling and attitude’ (Sontag, 1977, p.17)
Greenpeace Advert (2012)

Presentation: The Aesthetics of Apathy

‘Shocking ads traditionally worked because the message became so deeply lodged in a person’s consciousness that they were eventually forced to act upon it. However, if the same message and same tactics are being used all the time, then it just becomes wallpaper to a person and makes it far easier to ignore’ (Gardner in Williams 2009)
Society for the Protection of Animals Advert (2015)

Preparation Work:

  • Ask participants to read Aimee Meade (2014) ‘Emotive Charity Advertising: Has the public had enough? in The Guardian (24th September 2014) available here
  • Ask participants to read Fiona Shields (2019) ‘Why We’re Rethinking the Images we Use for our Climate Journalism in The Guardian (18th October 2019) available here
  • Ask participants to read Matt Williams (2009) ‘Close Up: Does Shock Advertising Still Work?’ in Campaign (24th April 2009) available here
  • Ask participants to watch and evaluate ‘Rang Tan’ Iceland Advert (2018) 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 Reprographics are aware and be aware of timekeeping so they have space to print the work – or use A3 colour photocopiers.
  • *If you are running this session off campus, make sure there is access to printers or projectors
‘If an ad is too shocking, for example, you run the risk of people deliberately avoiding what you say – they look away, change channel, turn the page. Also, if you start adding unnecessary layers of drama, people see through it, they feel they’re being manipulated (Brazier in Williams, 2009)
Animal Advert (2010)

suggested Session Outline:

  • Ask participants what environmental they have concerns about globally / locally
  • Give the Presentations above. Invite participants to compare the adverts? What are the similarities and differences? Pay attention to aesthetics and use of text as message. Is is successful? Which adverts enourage you to ‘care’ more? Why?
  • Brainstorm environmental issues and select issues that participants care about. How has this been represented visually? which aesthetic approach works best?
  • individually / in groups make an advert (include text) which aims to inspire change and encourage people to ‘care’ about the chosen environmental issue.
  • Print / Project and critique the images with these aesthetics / use of text in mind and considering how we might overcome compassion fatigue.
 ‘To aestheticize tragedy is the fastest way to anaesthetize the feelings of those who are witnessing it. Beauty is a call to admiration, not to action’ (Sischy, 1991, p.92)
Greenpeace Advert (2012)

Postcards from Home

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the Photogenic or the real?

‘A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it – by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into a souvenir (Sontag, 1977, p.9)
Paul Reas (1993) Flogging a Dead Horse, Constable Country, Flatford Mill

This session aims to consolidate ideas of the Picturesque and introduce ideas of the ‘image world’ / simulacra through critical analysis of vernacular tourist and postcard imagery. It encourages in depth research into Corrine Vionnet’s practice and the recycling of photogenic imagery as it ‘becomes’ the truth. It asks participants to be critical about the presumed truth of such imagery and position thier own practice accordingly.

 

‘Every day the urge goes stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of it’s likeness, it’s reproduction’ (Benjamin, 1936, p.23)
Martin Parr (1990) from Small World
‘It seems positively unnatural to travel for pleasure without taking a camera along. Photographs will offer indesputable evidence that the trip was made, that the program was carried out, that fun was had’ (Sontag, 1977, p.9)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

Jennifer Bolande (2017) from Visible Distance/Second Sight
‘Postmodern culture is often characterised as an era of ‘hyper-representation’ in which reality itself begins to be experienced as an endless network of representations’ (Mitchell, 1995, p.16)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • To consider vernacular / stereotypical postcard representations of the land / local environment / landscape
  • To investigate the relationship between postcards and more subjective photographic practices as it applies to representations of place / landscape
  • To understand the nature of the vernalular postcard as it ‘tames’ and transforms the land into an advert
  • To introduce the idea of an ‘image world’ / simulacra
  • Participant Outcome: 1 10×8 digital print
‘It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real’ (Baudrillard, 1994, p.2)
Corrine Vionnet (2006 – 2019) from Photo Opportunities
‘Photo Opportunities tries to speak about our collective memory and the influence of image through films, advertisements, postcards, the Internet, etc. It attempts to raise questions about our motivations to make a photograph and our touristic experience. It tries to speak about our image consumption and how ubiquitous images actually are’ (Vionnet in Jones, 2013)

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)
  • Tripods
  • Flashguns if you plan to practice lighting techniques
  • An Introductory Brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
John Hinde (c.1965+) from The John Hinde Collection
‘Hinde hoped to create a visual rendition of happy holiday memories – seen now, the postcards seem to indicative of a breezy post-war optimism’ (smythe, 2018)

Research: The work of Corrine Vionnet

‘Famed landmarks appear to float gently in a dream-like haze of blue sky. Each construction espouses the ‘touristic gaze’, its distorted visual referent functions as a device for memory transport by funneling many experiences into one familiar locale.’ (Yale, 2018)

Preparation Work:

  • Find a number of postcards / tourist information / vernacular representations of the local environment / landscape / place
  • Ask participants to read Gregory Jones (2013) ‘Corrine Vionnet and the Democratic Snapshot’ in The Inbetween 23rd February 2013 available here
  • Ask participants to read Diane Smythe (2018) ‘Picture Postcard Perfection with the John Hinde Collection’ in The British Journal of Photography 29th August 2018 available here
  • Ask participants to read Jonas Larsen ‘The Aspirational Tourist Photographer’ in Either / And available here
  • Ask participants to watch Tony Ray Jones & Martin Parr: Only In England (2014) in National Science & Media Museum 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

Presentation Ideas: the Photogenic or the real?

‘The most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us a sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads, as an anthology of images’ (Sontag, 1977, p.3)

suggested Session Outline:

  • Show participants a number of postcards / tourist iconography of famous / local scenes. Have they visited them? Why do they recognise them?
  • Give the Presentation (above). Invite participants to compare the tousist work with its reality. What are the similarities and differences?
  • Provide participants with a list of local areas / and postcards of these (or they can think of thier own). Identify the key elements of the scene and its aesthetic. Is it authentic?
  • Identify how these might be translated in new / more realistic ways
  • Sketch out / brainstorm initial ideas
  • Location lighting induction. How does light colour / black and white / aesthetics influence the scene?
  • Shoot the image individually / in groups
  • Print / Project and critique the images with the original tourist ‘scene’ in mind /  on view and considering aspects of a subjective response / aesthetics  / audience respsonse
Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Advert (c.1940)

The Environment & Eye

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This beautiful world?: The work of Sebastião Salgado and Nick Brandt

‘In these last decades ‘concerned’ photography has done at least as much to deaden our conscience as to arouse it’ (Sontag, 1977, p.21)
Sebastião Salgado (2009) from Genesis

This session takes a comparative approach to Sebastião Salgado’s Genesis and Nick Brandt’ s Inherit the Dust. Participants are encouraged to considet the intent of both of these practices, and evaluate thier success (or not) in encouraging us to care about our planet, as well as the use of aesthetics / shock tactics etc in their respective photographic approach.

 

‘Making suffering loom larger, by globalising it, may spur people to feel they ought to ‘care’ more. It also invites them to feel that the sufferings and misfortunes are too vast, too irrevocable, too epic to be much changed by any local political intervention’ (Sontag, 1977, p.3)
Nick Brandt (2015) from Inherit the Dust

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

International Fund for Animal Welfare (WWF) (2012)
‘Why can’t beauty be a call to action? Being politically correct does not signify much unless the work is both visually and conceptually compelling. To be compelling there must be tension in the work’ (Strauss, 2003, p.9-10)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • To investigate the aesthetics of representations of the environmental issues
  • To consider the impact of these at provoking our ‘concern’ and action
  • To reflect on the success / weakness of each of these practices considering the intent / visual approach of the work
  • Participant Outcome: 2 10×8 digital prints
Environmental Investigation Agency (2014)

 

‘The key to good ‘shocking’ advertising is to make sure that the public think the issue is important enough to validate the use of shock, and make sure the execution doesn’t go too far’ (Bath in Meade, 2014)

 

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 (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments

Research: Sebastião Salgado (2009) Genesis

Sebastião Salgado (2009) from Genesis

 

I thought the only way to give us an incentive, to bring hope, is to show the pictures of the pristine planet, to see the innocence. And then we can understand what we must preserve’ (Salgado in Hattenstone, 2004)

‘It is a pictorial depiction of the lands and lives of a still pristine planet. I feel Genesis also speaks urgently to our own age by portraying the breathtaking beauty of a lost world that somehow survives.  It proclaims: this is what is in peril, this is what we must save’ (Salgado in Lebus, 2013)
‘Salgado is far too busy with the compositional aspects of his pictures, with finding the ‘grace’ and ‘beauty’ in the twisted forms of his anguished subjects. And this beautification of tragedy results in pictures that ultimately reinforce our passivity toward the experience they reveal’ (Sischy, 1991, p.92)

Research: nick brandt (2015) inherit the dust

Nick Brandt (2015) from Inherit the Dust

‘If we fail to act, future generations will be inheriting the sad remnants of a once-vibrant living planet. They will be inheriting dust’ (Brandt, 2016)

 

 

‘It’s not about their beauty. Yes, I might see the Christy Turlington version of a lion, but I will also shoot a blind old buffalo’ (Brandt in Kurcfeld, 2016)
‘An image is drained of its force by the way it is used, where and how often it is seen’ (Sontag, 2003, p.105)

Preparation Work:

  • Ask participants to read Ingrid Sischy (1991) ‘Good Intentions’ in The New Yorker (9th September, 1991) 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
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) (2007)

suggested Session Outline:

  • Ask participants what environmental they have concerns about globally / locally
  • Give the Presentations above. Invite participants to compare the Salgado’s and Brant’s work? What are the similarities and differences? Pay attention to aesthetics and the way that the practitoners discuss thier intention in the work. Is is successful? Which body of work enourages you to ‘care’ more?
  • Brainstorm environmental issues and select issues that participants care about. How has this been represented visually? which aesthetic approach works best?
  • individually / in groups make one beautiful image and one shocking image to inspire change and encourage people to ‘care’ about the issue.
  • Print / Project and critique the images with these aesthetics in mind and considering aesthetic choices in the constuction of the images.
Endangered Wildlife Trust (2010)

Picturesque Perfect?

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a MYTHOlogical Arcadia (or not?)

‘Does landscape photography remain encoded within the language of academic painting and the traditions of landscape art which developed during the 18th and 19th Centuries’? (Clarke, 1997, p.55)
Karen Knorr (1986) Pleasures of the Imagination: Connoisseurs

In this session, participants are encouraged to consider a historical relationship between painting and photography in the context of thier own landscape environment. They will consider ideas of the Picturesque and considerations are made as to how such visual mofifs may be culturally / visually reproduced to create a myth of the constructed land as a rural arcadia – as it is transformed into a land-scape.

Participants are encouraged to independently research the Pictorialist movement in photography and the work of Peter Henry Emerson

‘A ‘landscape’, whether cultivated or wild, is already artifice before it becomes the subject of a work of art. Even when we simply look, we are already shaping and interpreting…Landscape pictures will breed landscape pictures.’ (Andrews, 1999, p.1)
Claude Lorrain (1629-1632) Landscape with a Piping Shepherd

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

‘Whether noble, picturesque, sublime or mundane, the landscape image bears the imprint of its cultural pedigree. It is a selected and constructed text’ (Bright, 1985)
Roger Fenton (1859) Mill at Hurst Green

Aims & Outcomes:

  • To consider vernacular / stereotypical representations of the local environment / landscape
  • To investigate the relationship between painting and photography as it applies to representations of the land
  • To understand the nature of the picturesque as it applies to photographs of the land / a ‘tamed’ land
  • Participant Outcome: 1 10×8 digital print
Ingrid Pollard (1988) from Pastoral Interludes
‘The picturesque is enlisted in the definition of what the country means: it becomes a patriotic term, a touchstone of national characteristics’ (Taylor, 1994, p.25)

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)
  • Tripods
  • Flashguns if you plan to practice lighting techniques
  • An Introductory Brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
Uta Kogelsberger (2007) from Picturing Paradise
‘The act of naming is an act of taming. From its inception photography has been involved in investigating and detailing environments, helping culture to appropriate nature’ (Wells, 2011, p.3)

Research: Pictorialism & work of Peter Henry Emerson

Preparation Work:

  • Ask participants to read Fergus Heron (2018) ‘Built Worlds: Photography, Landscape &. Different Natures’ from Photography & Landscape / The Photographers Gallery available here
  • Ask participants to watch Jem Southam in Conversation (2014) from the onLandscape Conference / Green Room 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
Takashi Yasumura (2003) from Nature Tracing
‘It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real’ (Baudrillard, 1994, p.2)

Presentation Ideas: A mythologicAL Arcadia (or not?)

suggested Session Outline:

 

Places with a Past

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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)

 

Tell Me A Story (Again)

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Knowing Narratives: Into a Sea of Stories

Intertextuality: The accumulation and generation of meaning across texts, where all meanings depend on other meanings. The self conscious citation of one text within another as an expression of enlarged cultural self consciousness’ (Barker, 2008, p.482)
Paula Rego (1989) Baa Baa Black Sheep

 

In this session, participants will explore themes of intertextuality and originality in thier images by constructing images in direct response to another (visual / written) ‘text’. They will consider the levels of ambiguity (or not) of such images and thay are encouraged to undertake in-depth independent research into Tom Hunter’s practice and its positioning within wider ideas regarding the nature of photographic representation and narrative within the constructed image.

‘Practitioners of staged photography invent their motifs, freely combining the real and the invented, photography and painting, photography and stage design, weaving historical and mythological references into their works, and do not hestiate for a moment to manipulate reality’ (Kohler, 1995, p.8)
Oscar Rejlander (1857) The Two Ways of Life

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

Anna Gaskell (1998) Hide
‘A text is… a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations’ (Barthes 1977, p.146)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • For participants to visually explore the loading of narrative into the single image
  • For participants to understand the difference between literal and ambigous imagery (and thier consequences)
  • For participants to respond photographically to recast / recreate another ‘text’
  • For participants to investigate the relationship between ‘texts’ and consider the notion of originality
  • Participant Take Away Outcome: 1 exhibition quality 10 x 8 print
‘Movies can shape a layer of memory, leading us into a shared past, sometimes false, dreamlike childlike, but a past we’ve all agreed to inhabit’ (Don De Lillo in Lewis, 2014)

You will need:

  • A selection of paintings, fairy stories, photographs, films, nursery rhymes, music video’s etc (a mix of visual and written ‘texts’)
  • 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)
  • Flashguns (or a Studio) to practice lighting techniques
  • An introductory brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments

Research: the work of tom Hunter

Preparation Work:

  • Ask participants to read Helen Simpson (2007) ‘Femme fatale: Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber’ in The Guardian, 24th June 2006 available here
  • Ask participants to read / watch interview with Richard Tuschman on Hopper Meditations available via Lens Culture (2013) 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
Martina Sauter (2011) Treppenhaus

Presentation Ideas: into a sea of stories

Suggested Session Outline:

  • Show participants the trailer for Shrek the Third (2007) (above). Ask them to count and write down every intertextual reference they can see in the clip. Does it matter if we don’t recognise all of them? How does it recast its reference points into a new narrative?
  • Give the Presentation (above). Invite participants to compare the intertextual work with its ‘original’ text. What are the similarities and differences? Is it a straight ‘copy’ or something new and original? How does the new work change or play with this ot create new meanings and narratives? Is it merely a literal / descriptive ‘copy / illustration’ or a more ambiguous image. Do we need to recognise the original source ‘text’?
  • Provide participants with a list of visual / written ‘texts’ (or they can think of thier own). Identify the key elements of the ‘text’: narrative, people, objects, places and motifs etc.
  • Identify how these might be translated in new ways (e.g. a ‘cauldron’ could become a microwave / a ‘princess in distress’ might be female / a ‘forest’ might be a playground / park or garden. How might the ‘text’ be translated in more ambigous ways? (e.g. the absence of people / the ‘feeling’ of the original text / a modern update)
  • Sketch out / brainstorm initial ideas (thinking of props, locations, characters etc)
  • Location lighting or studio induction. How does light colour / black and white / aesthetics influence the scene?
  • Shoot the image individually / in groups
  • Print / Project and critique the images with the original ‘text’ in mind /  on view and considering aspects of originality / description v’s ambiguiy / the construction narrative within the single image / audience respsonse
Thomas Demand (1999) Tunnel (video)

 

Fake News?

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reading is believing (or is it?)

‘The caption permits me to focus not only my gaze, but also my understanding’ (Barthes, 1977, p.39)
Dr R.K. Wilson (1934) Loch Ness Monster in The Daily Mail (21st April 1934)

This session aims to introduce participants to Barthes (1977) idea of the caption ‘anchoring’ photographs with meaning and they way we view / understand photographs in relation to such ‘informatory’ text, as well as the context they are viewed in. Using real-life news captions, participants will explore the veracity of the photograph (or not), as well as specifically practicing thier technical skills in construction and story-telling.

‘Photography’s plausibility has always rested on the uniqueness of its indexical relation to the world it images, a relation that is regarded as fundamental to its operation as a system of representation. For this reason, a photograph of something has long been held to be a proof of that thing’s being, even if not of its truth’ (Batchen, 2002, p.139)

This Session could be run in conjunction with:

John Baldessari (1973) from The Meaning of Various News Photos to Ed Henderson
‘In the Photograph, the power of authentication exceeds the power of representation’ Barthes, 1980, p.89)

Aims & Outcomes:

  • For participants to explore the construction of photographs in response to real-life captions
  • For participants to consider the reality of the photograph (or not) and how our understanding may be led by caption / title / headlines and the context we consume them in
  • Participant Outcome: 3 (edited) final 6×4 digital prints
‘What is true of photographs is true of the world seen photographically’ (Sontag, 1977, p.79)
Donald Trump (2016) I Love Hispanics Twitter post

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)
  • A selection of real life news photographs (for participants to write captions). You can devise your own or there are some useful examples and questions here
  • A selection of real-life captions (for participants to make photographs)
  • An introductory brief & Presentation (below) for participants to outline the ideas and provide examples
  • A booked room to critique participants work (either via a projector or via print)
  • Blue tack to pin the work
  • Costings and Risk Assessments
Joan Fontcuberta (2001) from Sirens

‘Various theories are being considered that would explain its exceptionally well preserved state. The arched posture of the spine and the fact that the front limbs are close together and the cranium side-on reveal that this hydropithicus was buried rapidly while it slept, which would also explain why the bones have not broken up, despite the disappearance of the soft parts (muscles, ligaments etc). The cause of death and subsequent covering up of the skeleton could be an underwater landslide’ (Fontcuberta in Cotton, 2004, p.202)

Caption ideas:

*You can also make your own using news stories, Twitter etc / or you might ask participants to find / bring them and swap with a partner.

  • Woman Finds Hat in a Tree (Harrogate Advertiser)
  • Yellow Object Spotted in the Sky (Metro Herald)
  • Anger at Recycling Banks Removal (Falmouth Packet)
  • Cows Lose thier Jobs as Milk Prices Drop (The Balitmore Sun)

  • Day of the Triffids gets real as horrific sheep-eating plant grows in Truro (Cornwall Live)

Presentation ideas: Is reading leading?

Preparation Work:

  • Ask participants to read Sandra Phillips (2017) ‘A History of the Evidence’ in The Paris Review, 3rd May 2017 available here
  • Ask participants to watch the video Joan Fontcuberta Stranger than Fiction (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
René Magritte (1929) The Treachery of Images

suggested session outline: