History of Photography

There are 5 posts filed in History of Photography (this is page 1 of 1).

Preliminary Research – Francesca Woodman

Continuing on from my previous exploration/research in female photographers, I stumbled upon Francesca Woodlman, an Italian self-portrait artist whose astounding body of work resonates deeply with her photographs and her eventual death. I am looking primarily for photographers, that are female whose body of work speaks with my frame of mind (for the finals and my current work).

In her notes, the conversations and letters she sent to friends and lovers, it seems odd to realize that maybe she was not all that lonely nor suicidal. To me, she seemed healthy but sometimes rather awfully energetic and possibly too much for the people around her.

Her photographs speak a lot of the energy of the living. Through the possibility of photography, I could honestly feel that way. 

Many of her photographs were often self-portraits of herself, commonly nude and often herself posed doing weird things. The emotional of her work begins to seep through a possible loneliness; a mental loneliness so to speak. 

The exploration of the body becomes apparent as she is the subject itself. Through staging and posing, we get a feeling of an artist is a direct part of her work. To me, this is significant as I begin to explore to the idea of using the self as the concept of aesthetic projection. The notion of the body as a meter of performance, an object and also as a device to convey these feelings. 

To me, her work is generously tender. The aesthetic elements of a young, naive human being simply (implying) to access the idea of the (tender?) soul.

I can see a few direct references from her works. Contemporary Photographers like Yatender or even Ryan McGinley often use nudes as a way to convey a story. They are often self-portraits but also portraits of others. And maybe only by being bare can they accessibly enter the human soul — to rid of any material bearings. 

Maybe her death is as timely as her photographs were taken. Maybe it was a way to cope with life. As she often wrote journals or diary entries, the entire series of work must be compellingly felt and seen through her writing. Her letters are quite mundane, often about her life in RISD etc. but what felt rather provocative was the lack of signs foreboding her suicide. And sometimes I feel that it resonates in me.

At her age, it is impressive to see how far she got to explore the idea of female nudity in front of the lens. Not only are his photographs aesthetically surreal, I can’t help but deny the idea that many of these photographs would somehow or rather forebode the death. Lonely but also tender, often weird and absurd but intensely lovable.

Untitled 1975-80 Francesca Woodman 1958-1981 ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/AR00351

Preliminary Research (finals) – Library Visit

Female Photographers

My interest in female photographers became slightly more apparent ever since the Frederick H. Evans project. Having that point as a juncture, I felt the need to revitalize my interests in photography. I was concerned, quite deeply with the lack of sensuality and affection that existed in most of my photographs (as of the time I wrote this).

Furthermore, I began to seek an interest in female photographers, both historically and also within the stages of our contemporary world.

A few female photographers that have had a pronounced effect on me are Harley Weir, Nan Goldin, Hiromix, Rinko Kawauchi, and Lina Scheynius. 

To start things off, I wanted to research more about Nan Goldin — a photographer whose creativity, tenderness and photographic gaze I look up to.

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (Nan Goldin)

In this book, it is a curated photo book from the slideshow format Nan Goldin has utilized since her days in Boston. Coming from over 1000 slides, the photo book manages to squeeze a large number of profound imageries into approximately 70 pages. But yet what it cannot reveal is the fluidity as to how it was presented — the slideshow format. 

In the foreword by Guido Costa, Goldin’s images are not about the documentation of the times, her times. It is not about the documentation of the transvestites or the gay community blossoming in New York City. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency attempts to encapsulate her essences in life — the tenderness, loss, and death. It is a visual record, primarily meant for her but what is provokingly beautiful is the followed absence that we can feel, ’it is as if a small piece of our own past were falling back into place’.

To me, The Ballad is less so about the documentation of a lifestyle. It is a narrative of her lifestyle, recorded and carved in stone. Goldin says so herself, people mistake The Ballad as some kind of documentary about the 80’s, about the Gays, about LGBT in NYC. It was always been, about her life. To deny revisionism of her own life, as she tries to reclaim it from what she lost — her beloved elder sister. So maybe The Ballad tries to tell that, her emotions, or what emotions really are to her because, in the contemporary present context, nearly everyone in her images is no longer here. 

What interests me was that I found out there were many iterations of The Ballad. For each gallery, she would carefully curate the images and the accompanying soundtrack. Some would last for 30 minutes, some an hour. It depends. But the fluidity of it just works. 

What I like about Nan Goldin and how I can quite closely relate to her is the nature of the snapshot, that she is well known for. To her, quite simply put; it is about memories. About holding it, carving it in stone. As for the nature of the slideshow, it is about re-curating her own memories; the act and process of recalling without the destruction of any photographic honesty. Honesty, in this context — the story behind the images and the feeling of it.

 

Hiromix (Girls Blue etc.)

A Japanese photographer who rose to fame after winning the 10th Canon New Cosmos of Photography award. 

Submitted a 36-page photo diary of random snapshots; of her friends, herself, animals and streets. A diaristic storytelling that has no narrative per se. Almost images of themselves, leaving the viewer to subscribe into a particular narrative that they can only believe in.

Her following book, Girls Blue included images from the earlier photo diary. But at an even greater intense level, we see a further development of the diaristic, vernacular language that she attempts to convey. 

But I find the most convincing is the honesty of the entirety in this content. Arguably, she had curated the work seriously — images of her cool musician friends and her life are aspects she is aware of and what she honestly curates. Yet so amazing remains the energy that these photos attempt to convey. A young, pretty, Asian woman who bares herself open of her own life — in a possibly highly sexualized world. She sexualizes herself — her selfies, bottom-less images, semi-nudes forebodes the Instagram age. She becomes the object willingly, and only by doing so does she reclaim her photographic honesty.

It’s a female gaze thing. A female photographer asserting her own rights over her own body. The feeling is not simply raw — its tender, its fun but the best of it all? It is hers. And rightfully so. 

 

Thoughts – Photography beyond the Pictorialists and the ‘Salon’ aesthetics & Japan

After Zhang Wubin’s excellent lecture with regards to the trans-national movement of the Pictorialist movement into Asia, Wubin tended to exclude/include Japan within his discussions. As the ‘Salon’ Photography aesthetics (for a lack of a better term) seems to be still prevalent in the Asian world of Photography, I am intrigued as to what actually happened in Japan.

Based on my own research derived from a deep interest in Japanese contemporary photography culture, at least past WW2 — there exists a certain degree of ‘Salon’ Aesthetics still deeply imbued within. And perhaps the moment that shifted Japan’s photographic culture could be a result of the ‘Provoke’ Era. An era that possibility defined photography beyond the means of visually-pleasing aesthetics of the eye candy and a more informed consensus towards the nature of politics, discourse, and its inclinations into the world of art and photography.

Photographers within this period and who started this ‘Provoke’ movement were Takuma Nakahira (a personal favorite), Takahiko Okada, Yutaka Takanashi, Kôji Taki and later on the now infamous Daido Moriyama. We could also include Nobuyoshi Araki in (who currently has a show on @ DECK) but I think they were not too fond of his commercial leanings back when he was still a young photographer.

Takuma Nakahira – Adieu A-X

For a Language to Come

Takuma Nakahira had published a few essays that I believe was first introduced in the first edition of For A Language To Come. I found a (possibly) accurate translation in PDF here.

From A Language To Come

From A Language To Come

The nature of the ‘salon photography’ is still prevalent in Japan and many photographers do start out that way. You undergo a mentorship and after a period of time, you live it out by yourself. Some pine for awards to build a career out of it and some just do what they want, and successfully so.

But the photo competition nature still exists in Japan and as much as the Provoke Era artists were concerned about post-ww2 capitalism and socio-political economics, competitions still exist till this day.

Then this seems to beg the question as to how much did the Provoke Era really defined the contemporary photographic culture in Japan? The decision to disband after just 9 months, 3 (popular) publications and its Are-Bure-Boke (grainy, out of focus, ‘rough’) aesthetics gaining mainstream popularity going against what they believed in? The rejection of the capitalist ideology and its interception into art during its formative years and suddenly having the Provoke Era being part of this ecology. Maybe Takuma Nakahira did the right thing, as his works often tried to deal with the re-contextualization and the possible means of photography.

To me, it seemed that there will never be a break away from the ‘Salon Photography’ aesthetics. Nude/semi-nude/soft-core porn photography is widely prevalent within the photographic culture in Japan. Similarly, the popular nature of photography in Japan (I noticed that I saw more people holding cameras (excluding iPhones) in Japan than in Singapore) narrows down to the ‘Salon Photography’ aesthetics as a more accessible and viable medium to understand what photography is about.

There is nothing to say about the cliched, derivate images these hobbyists in camera clubs could produce under the aesthetic labeling of the ‘Salon Photography’. But what seems to be true, to me at least is that it feels difficult to break away from it.

Most photographers in Japan that I am aware of contributed greatly to magazines. Magazine work was a way to earn, build a portfolio and make a name out of yourself. We could possibly constitute anything that falls into a magazine as somewhat falling into Salon Photography.  Continuing on what Zhang Wubin’s suggestion that it could be an apolitical medium, magazines must first cater to a group of people. And with people comes ideas and consequently a political struggle of some sort. Therefore, taste becomes a prevailing topic here. Having an apolitical medium to bring in a varied taste ensures a good coverage of content vs readers and also pushing the aesthetics of a particular medium. In this case, magazine works were somewhat political, as each camera magazine would have a photographer convening his visuals and aesthetics through photography.

Iconic ‘camera club’ style magazines in Japan were Asahi Camera, Camera Mainichi, and Nippon Camera. These magazines often had iconic photographers such as Masahisa Fukase, Nobuyoshi Araki, Moriyama, Hajime Sawatari, Hiromi Tsuchida, Shunji Dodo and even Takuma Nakahira himself or the members of the Provoke movement.

 

 

Interesting to note that these camera magazines were catering to amateur/hobbyists photographers. It was about gear, less so about the images and yet most of these magazines were contributed by non ‘Salon Photographers’ per se, but art photographers/artists themselves. The editor of Camera Mainichi, Shoji Yamagishi had a big role in introducing more artistic work into a magazine catered for amateurs.

This begs to question — what is Salon Photography in Japan anyways? If an artist were to contribute work (that does not categorically fall into ‘Salon’ aesthetics) but succumbs to the ecology of the Salon Photography capitalist model, does the work loses its inherent quality of art?

But I think after doing this write-up, it was cool to see how much of an impact/no impact the Provoke Era had. A post-ww2 art collective/movement that strived against the modus operandi of the capitalist ecology soon become a part of it. Its style is still prevalent. Internet ‘street photographers’ champions and mimics Moriyama’s photographs without knowing the inherent intention of his work. You dump a few filters and ta-da! you get a Moriyama-esque photo. Take photographs of your spouse and be the next Nobuyoshi Araki.

Jokes aside, it is definitely not as easy then how I had written it. The Salon Photography aesthetics and culture seemed to have made a legitimate art form/movement/aesthetics into the means of highly derivate style.