Poetry is starting to defeat me as is metaphorical and visceral interpretations in photographs – I am doubting if I am an artist or just a photographer. It said that you become an artist you stop being interested in the photograph as an outcome but interested in the subject.

I need to concentrate on what the exercise is asking me interpret and react to a poem, a desperate google directed me to this website https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ and there on the opening page was this poem:

This hit a nerve straight away. In January 2017 I lost my mum to breast cancer. It wasn’t sudden but it was quick, it was my mum’s second bout of cancer but true to her nature my mum never gave up she fought that cancer to the last day, Chemo after chemo didn’t have an effect but she bravely moved on to the next recommendation. Although, this poem is American and the list of words a slightly different, the poem reminds me of my mum’s fight and it reminds of the thoughts that went through my mind as I had to return drugs to the pharmacy after her she passed away.

Losing my mum was tough as she was a significant part if my life, she was my mum, my friend and someone I looked up to. When my mum passed away I had lived away from my hometown for 19 years but we were still as close as the day I left. A large hole was left in mine and my Dad’s life.

This a poem about grief, the poet is laying her thoughts down about everything she and/or others did for a loved one who had a terminal illness. There is a feeling of helplessness in this situation you do everything you can for them, although you know in the back of your mind you know it not going to work.

I lived in Hong Kong throughout the majority of my Mum’s illness speaking to her and my Dad over Facetime every few days if not every day. And because of the 7 to 8 hour time difference every day I dreaded waking up to a text or even a phone call on the days after she had had a clinic appointment.

On 15th December ’16 Mum was hospitalised as wasn’t feeling very well, she was between bouts of Chemo, the latest one had not worked and they we looking at further option and in typical fashion Mum was fighting, I had a plan to return home to see them in late January and Mum said you don’t need to come home I’m not dying and statement that did make me laugh and actually still does. However, after a couple of days between me and my Dad, we decided it would be a good idea to go home for a visit. On Christmas Eve I booked a flight home to stay for a month, very short notice for my employers but they were initially understanding and very tough on Anastasya, my girlfriend, who wasn’t able to come due to he employment and that that we would not have been able to get her a visa at such short notice – she is Indonesian.

I spent an enjoyable Christmas with my girlfriend spending a lot of time on FaceTime with Mum and Dad and flew back to the UK on Boxing day evening. On the day I arrived home Mum was discharged from the hospital feeling better and the idea was to get her back up to strength – this started well when had steak and chips for. Over the next couple of weeks, the NHS gave my mum the best care imaginable arranging for visit from Occupation health specialist, physiotherapist and the loan of wheelchairs, Zimmers, Reclining chairs etc and I was on cooking duty. Anastasya had sent me home with the ingredients to make my mum Indonesian food, Thai Food and Chinese food along with her other favourites.

Sadly over the next couple of weeks, despite all the preparation of favourite meals, diligent drug routines, ensuring favourite TV programs and new books we available and dippy fried eggs Mum slowly lost her brave fight. This is the first time I have actually put what happened into words – it will live with me forever having to phone my Mum’s best friend to tell her not to bother coming up to visit from Essex and wait for the funeral, as Mum had slipped into unconsciousness, it was harder than phoning Anastasya later that day to say she had passed away.

Reading the poem has had me relive those few weeks and I have given this a lot of thought that time is best summed up in the picture below, it show’s the how me and my Dad survived through that time with coffee and biscuits and Bacon, the grease stains represent where thinks slipped and the headache tablets how we pulled things back; the “dippy fried egg” that was the last thing my Mum asked for tea. The Kindle was everyone’s rest bite Mine, Mum’s and Dad’s. This one was my Mum’s it became mine just after she passed because it was better than my old one and it travels with me everywhere.

I have entitled the image “What we thought worked…”

Exercise: Image and Text Poetry Part 1

The aim of this exercise (and Assignment Two) is to encourage you to develop metaphorical and visceral interpretations rather than obvious and literal ones, to give a sense of something rather than a record of it.

Choose a poem that resonates with you then interpret it through photographs. Don’t attempt to describe the poem but instead give a sense of the feeling of the poem and the essence it exudes. Start by reading the poem a few times (perhaps aloud) and making a note of the feelings and ideas it promotes, how you respond to it, what it means to you and the mental images it raises in your mind. Next, think about how you’re going to interpret this visually and note down your ideas in your learning log.

You may choose to develop this idea into creating a short series of images reflecting your personal response to the poem (or another poem). Write some reflective notes about how you would move the above exercise on.

The brief above asks us to choose a poem that resonates with us and then try to interpret it through photography. Well, I have to admit I was a little lost with this as I know the square root of nothing about poetry. It has always been a mystery to me and I have to admit in my school days I was not an enthusiastic scholar of literature.

poetry (noun) literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature

This exercise asks us to look at three Level 3 students work who explored themes that were not necessarily visible. The students were Peter Mansell with his series on Paralysis, Dewald Botha’s Ring Road and Jodie Taylor’s Memories of Childhood. I struggled to find Mansell’s work online.

All three of these projects are examples of personally driven work but they become universal when we can relate to the feelings they present by visiting our own personal histories.

• Which of these projects resonates most with you, and why?
• How do you feel about the loss of authorial control that comes when the viewer projects their own experiences and emotions onto the images you’ve created?

Which of these project resonates most with me is an interesting question. I have always found myself a little socially awkward and shy. I will keep myself to myself and hate to push myself onto others. This makes Botha’s work intriguing as he has used his camera to explore his strange new country. However, much of my own personal work is about pushing myself outside of my [social] comfort zone. Whereas Botha has shot images of places without people; my own personal work was to shot the life of people in Hong Kong (where I lived as an expat) and in one particular project to step up and approach strangers. And because of how I have handled a similar situation I can’t feel a connection with Botha’s work –it just shows a concrete jungle to me, unfortunately.

Mansell’s work shot from the perspective one some with a physical handicap again resonates to me because of my shyness. I often feel trapped in my surrounding and unlike Mansell, I have not been as successful of accepting what I have been dealt and overcoming it.

Finally, Taylors Memories of Childhood has touched perhaps the biggest nerve. I have lived away from my hometown in the Isle of Man, Hong Kong and now Thailand for 20 years now and with the events the of the past 2 years my Mums death, Dad not getting younger, unstable employment and having to live apart from my Fiancée, I am feeling the pull of home – this is a strange feeling as if asked 18 months ago I would have said I no longer feel at home in Leeds (my hometown).

I have tried wherever I have settled to make it home even though I am as I have said socially awkward, but this last move to Thailand has been stressful. I am separated from the small group of friends I did have in Hong Kong. I am doing a job which I love but I feel I’m not as at good at as my colleagues are which compounds my social awkwardness in building social bonds. My closest friends and loved one are only available at the end of a telephone line or thankfully FaceTime.

Taylors shots of remind me of childhood but more remind me of the month I spent in England with my Fiancée (who is Indonesian) last August, to show her around allowing her to absorb the culture and memories of Leeds.

How do I feel about the loss of authorial control when a viewer reads my work? Well, I should be objective and let everyone have their own opinion because I really don’t understand Dewald Botha’s work or not in the way he intends it. But of course it doesn’t happen like that I think it is only natural to defend our ideas – anyone who has been a member of a camera club knows that feeling on competition night when the image you “know” is a winner scores under 5 points…

Art is subjective and every viewer has their own opinion loss of authorial control because a viewer apricates a piece because it reminds him of something closer to his own heart should be and is a complement.

In summary here Barthes is saying the author of the written word and visual arts have often spoon-fed their audience with the information they needed to understand a work. Giving a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) phenomenon. He suggests that leads to a sterile interaction between the audience and the work and that there is, in fact, another way to do this by the focus on the work its self and not the just the intention of the artist.

Barthes other way is to have the viewer question (the images) instead of passively looking at them;  Barthes is saying this leads to a richer overall experience. Barthes believed that by restricting the information given to the audience about what they were seeing encouraged them to fill in the gaps with their own experiences, with the result that no two people will interpret an image in the same way.

He suggests that the Author is dead because using this new way of thing, the author’s input is marginalised, and the work itself becomes the focus. Which, as it happens, mirrors exactly what happens when an author does indeed die in real life.

References

Barthes, R. (n.d.). Death of the Author. [online] https://writing.upenn.edu. Available at: https://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/Barthes.pdf [Accessed 10 Feb. 2018].

This photograph shows a couple in an embrace on a bed and even without the accompanying text, there is a warm to the image.

The caption uses the past tense and suggests it was written a good while after the image was taken. The sentence structure also suggests that the photograph was taken mid-relationship, not in the new flush or its dying embers, and that the relationship is over and it was the female who initiated the break-up.

Does the image project what the caption suggests? Yes, because the text exists. Without the text the photograph is ambiguous, to me, it shows a couple holiday, perhaps pre-marriage. The picture is taken by a 3rd party, (a friend perhaps?) and reminds me of old family photos taken when my parents took a holiday to Cornwall with friends just before they were married.

Is the photograph his proof? Yes, it is HIS proof but not a definite proof to all viewers. It is the subjective proof of the caption writer.

This is an interesting situation because the photograph and the caption are inseparable and together are great than the sum of the individual parts.

References

Dcmooregallery.com. (n.d.). Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals – Museum Exhibitions – DC Moore Gallery. [online] Available at: http://www.dcmooregallery.com/museum-exhibitions/storyteller-the-photographs-of-duane-michals [Accessed 27 Jul. 2018].

Kaylyn Deveney Born March 25, 1967, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States

Deveney relocated from the USA to Wales to study for me photography masters, when we started talking to Albert Hasting an elderly neighbour, these chat turned to the photo project and the project is a reflection of what she found out and observed about Albert and also how Abert saw himself.

Deveney provides a short essay to introduce the project this acts as a relaying caption guiding my perceptions and informing me that the captions on the images were provided by Albert, not Deveney. The project is postmodern as it allows the viewer to fill in the gaps as you view them you make an assumption as they why they are there. It also comes across like an Instagram account although it does predate Instagram by a good few years, again this lead to is postmodern nature.

Without its introductory essay, I doubt I would have fully understood what the project was portraying other than the daily life of an elderly gentleman.

Screen Shot of selected images from “the day to day life of Albert Hastings”

Deveney is well connected online to promote he work

References

KayLynn Deveney Photographer. (n.d.). The Day to Day Life of Albert Hastings. [online] Available at: https://kaylynndeveney.com/the-day-to-day-life-of-albert-hastings [Accessed 23 Jul. 2018].

Deveney, K. (n.d.). KayLynn Deveney, Photographer. [online] Facebook.com. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/KayLynnDeveney/ [Accessed 23 Jul. 2018].

LensCulture and Deveney, K. (n.d.). KayLynn Deveney | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/kdeveney [Accessed 23 Jul. 2018].

Karen Knorr is a German-born American photographer who lives in London, who well connected on social media to promote and share her work.

http://karenknorr.com/photography/gentlemen/

“Gentlemen” is series of 26 images documenting the interiors of the Gentlemen’s Clubs of London. Captioned with enigmatic almost poetic caption these images reflect the granduer of where they were shot with there wide white borders. Coming from the early 1980’s I would guess this is an early example of a postmodernist narrative.

Feel that the artist is not obviously pushing in a direction on how I should view these subject but I need to make my own mind, too which I am confused. Although, the images all convey to me power that is unfairly waited to towards the inaccessible world of these clubs.

References

Knorr, K. (n.d.). Gentlemen | Karen Knorr. [online] Karenknorr.com. Available at: http://karenknorr.com/photography/gentlemen/ [Accessed 23 Jul. 2018].

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Karen Knorr. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Knorr [Accessed 23 Jul. 2018].

Knorr, K. (n.d.). Karen Knorr – Artist Page. [online] Facebook.com. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/KarenKnorrArtist/ [Accessed 23 Jul. 2018].

Sophie Calle was born in Paris, France on 9th October 1953 is a writer, photographer and artist of the unexpected (Jefferies, 2007)

For her inspiration ‘Take Care of Yourself’, Calle used an email from her ex-boyfriend, in which he dumps her,  and shared the contents with 107 women to prompt their professional responses.  In her video interview with The Tate (Tate-2008) she talks about and shows how she photographed the women reading the quite lengthy email, and accompanied these images with images of the text, plain and marked-up, in the form of a crossword, sung about and performed by an actress, additionally she included a video in her exhibitions – all of these act as relay effect captions.

Inspired by rejection, “Take care of yourself” can be seen as a form of revenge.   However, she has done worse things over her career as an artist, and it does seem a way of processing the rejection which was received in such a formal way – presenting it Relay style adds interest to this engaging body of work and allow it to accessible to its audience.

Relay style is a recurrent theme for Calle a further example is The Hotel, Room 47, in which she worked as a chambermaid to get into hotel rooms and document in pictures and writing what she found.

Calle – take care of yourself

References

YouTube. (2008). Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself | TateShots. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9E4dA0EGaM [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].

Jeffries, S. (2007). Sophie Calle: stalker, stripper, sleeper, spy. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/sep/23/sophie-calle [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Sophie Calle. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Calle [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].

Paulacoopergallery.com. (2009). Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself | Paula Cooper Gallery. [online] Available at: https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/sophie-calle-take-care-of-yourself/installation-views [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].

Tate. (n.d.). ‘The Hotel, Room 47’, Sophie Calle, 1981 | Tate. [online] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/calle-the-hotel-room-47-p78300 [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].

Sophy Rickett was born in London, England on 22 September 1970 and is a visual artist, working in London in photography, video and sound.

However, that short bio doesn’t do justice to Sophy’s story as an artist. She was diagnosed as needing eyeglasses to see clearly beyond the middle distance when she was a young child, she has an artist go on to be able to see the moon and stars clearly.  While working as an Associate Artist at the Institute of Astronomy, at Cambridge University, she was inspired by some old negatives of the night sky and met the astronomer responsible, Dr. Roderick Willstrop, retired fellow of the IoA.  Through making prints from the old negatives that maximise the artistic and tonal qualities, not the scientific nature of the images, and many meetings with Willstrop she triggered childhood memories that connected her need glasses, and her ability to see the stars.

This good example of ‘Relay’ where text and pictures combine to create a fuller picture yet still allow some degree of ambiguity and interpretation as what is happening outside the pictures is just as important to the overall narrative than the images themselves.

However, where do I stand on the images, this where I have issues because these are photographs, and the Rickett is the photographer, however, she isn’t she is the editor and the printer. I know postmodernism encourages the artist to be different and we are in Andy Warhol’esque situation admiring the perfect reproduction of what wasn’t the artist original work but it was the artist original idea to present it as art.

Perhaps this is more telling of me, that I have a limited imagination.

References

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Sophy Rickett. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophy_Rickett [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].

The Photographers’ Gallery. (2014). Sophy Rickett – Objects in the Field. [online] Available at: https://thephotographersgalleryblog.org.uk/2014/03/19/sophy-rickett-objects-in-the-field/ [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].

Exercise:

Cut out some pictures from a newspaper and write your own captions.

• How do the words you put next to the image contextualise/re-contextualise it?
• How many meanings can you give the same picture?

Try the same exercise for both anchoring and relaying.

While I’m not a fan (as a general rule) titling or captioning my own photographs, I do understand the importance of when it attached to a news story. In the context of a news story, the caption is there to point the reader in the editorial direction, to contextualise the image, and to clarify the narrative of the image.

As aspiring street photographers, we (or is just me?) tend to avoid telling the viewer what they should be seeing – because If we have to tell the view what is is the image is strong enough – or so say the members of a Hong Kong Street Photographers facebook group. Newspapers and Magazines are not Facebook groups, they are there to serve the public by reporting news – in their own style and from there own editorial/ political point of view.

Living outside of the UK for over 9 years I find it fascinating to look at UK newspaper and the degree that they are in general very sensational and very celebrity scandal orientated. So I have decided to go through today from a couple of the more popular tabloid newspaper websites – namely The Daily Mail and The Sun websites and pull a couple cutting to try and re-caption.

Originally this is a picture of Prince Harry’s fiance Meghan Markle with one of her friend who people are predicting to be a bridesmaid. However, it could just be a fashion shot or a holiday snap. I think the caption clearly anchors the viewer to what is the intended outcome – perhaps some people would recognise Meghan Markle, however, few would know the significance

Alternative captions could read:

Latest Fashions for cycling holidays.

This is shot originally of double murder Rurik Jutting being transported back to jail after his failed appeal in Hong Kong. Having lived in Hong Kong this is a notorious case Jutting is infamous for his despicable actions. However, I doubt he that well known outside HK, even in his native England, there for the caption is required to anchor the story for the view.

Sadly an alternative caption could be: “Smiling British expat transport to court/prison” which would not give an impression of the magnitude of his crimes and even suggest he is a victim.

This image is from The Sun and refers to Prime Minister Teresa May dealing with Europe and Brexit. The image of very generic of Mrs May perhaps showing a slightly angry face, therefore caption is anchoring us to the rejection of ideas in the story. However, it very generic it could show he reprimanding other ministers, it could show her a bad moment in mid-word there nothing to show definitely angry, I would this caption is also relaying a message.

Alternative captions can read: May chairs meaning of ministers or to keep the relaying idea “”Can you bring 2 coffees” says May as the meeting starts.”

Its very easy to recontextualise images and give alternative meaning – this has happened a lot on the Facepages of extreme political groups, for example, Britain First who mislead the public with a caption as reported in this Independent story.

References

Barthes, R. (n.d.). Rhetoric-of-the-image. [online] Faculty.georgetown.edu. Available at: https://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Barthes-Rhetoric-of-the-image-ex.pdf [Accessed 10 Feb. 2018].

Mortimer, C. (2018). Britain First accused of using two schoolgirls for anti-Islam propaganda. [online] The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-first-told-to-take-down-facebook-images-of-cadet-schoolgirls-they-were-claiming-to-protect-a6726066.html [Accessed 10 Feb. 2018].

Traces Of The Real. (n.d.). The Rhetoric Of The Image – Roland Barthes (1964). [online] Available at: https://tracesofthereal.com/2009/12/21/the-rhetoric-of-the-image-roland-barthes-1977/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2018].

Barthes, R. (n.d.). Death of the Author. [online] https://writing.upenn.edu. Available at: https://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/Barthes.pdf [Accessed 10 Feb. 2018].