Exercise – Nigel Shafran

For this exercise, we are asked to go to Nigel Shafran’s website and look at his series Washing-up as well as his other work. Shafran’s Washing-up project can be seen here. The course book talks about the captions that accompany the images in this series, Shafran’s website is royally useless as it does not contain the caption, which are really fundamental to understanding the work – or they are in my opinion. I have done some searching and I have found 3 images with a caption that I have created into a gallery here for casual viewers to understand, although I suspect the assessors and my tutor know this work like the back of their hands.

Did it surprise you that this was taken by a man? Why?

It’s a cultural perception that many of us have grown up with – that men don’t do housework, that cooking and dishes are women’s work. This was never the case in the household I grew up in, nor when I lived in a domestic partnership and as I am now living alone it would be downright impossible as I would just end up living in squalor if I didn’t do these things . Unfortunately there are many household the world over where this perception is still very much alive and well. So does this image surprise me that it authored by a man? No, but not because I have grown up doing the washing up but because it a very male thing to the do record what they do. When I read the captions I see that they possible taken buy man who suddenly found himself in the more domestic of the role in a household and decided to record it.

In your opinion does gender contribute to the creation of an image?

Of course. Men and women see things differently and even if they both photograph the same subject, the end result would look completely different as a result of their different points of view and perceptions. This does challenge feminism in some way but that not the intent. In general, men photographers are more reluctant to show their own image in their pictures – I know I am. Is this motivated by the influence of Western Culture, where the female figure is notoriously more represented in art than the male body? “active looking has been accorded to the male spectator ‘Woman’ becomes the object of his gaze.” (Wells, p.326). This no doubt must influence male photographer, who are influenced old stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity. In my last module Introduction to Film Culture I read a lot about gender and gender representation – what I too form that is that sex is binary, the gender traits we portray are and should be more fluid due to the influences on us from our environment and the modern world is happening more. Shafran’s work echoes to me of a modern man starting to go through this process – he is becoming more domestic but still wants to retain the tradition male matter of fact-ness.

What does this series achieve by not including people?

A mystery created in this series by not featuring people. Even without referring to the captions ( which I feel really are needed for to understand the piece) I am intrigued by the ever-changing scenario around the sink; the variation from natural light to fluorescent or tungsten leaves little clues as to the time of day and therefore meals the washing up is from.

The captions like “16th March 2000. 1.30pm Second photograph of the day. Breakfast crumpets and tea [mine with cottage cheese and honey, Ruth’s with Marmite with Jose and Claudio who I think washed-up]” add a different dimension. Yes, we are given a description of the meal that we can wonder about, but the caption are so matter-of-fact you know they are from a male. Therefore, you start to wonder why on earth is he taking pictures of a sink. I wish this was my project, I really do.

Do you regard them as interesting ‘still life’ compositions?

Why not? The images are full of detail they fit well together as a set there is a repetition about them, however, each image gives a little more information on the subject. Within some of the pictues, there are elements that raise questions the “N” & “R” behind the taps does that relate to the artist and his wife, the paintbrush. Also, the sink and location changes did they move house? I said above I wish these was my assignmemt

References

Nigelshafran.com. (n.d.). Washing-up 2000 [2000] : Nigel Shafran. [online] Available at: http://nigelshafran.com/category/washing-up-2000-2000/page/13/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].

weareoca. (n.d.). Still Life with Nigel Shafran – #weareoca. [online] Available at: https://weareoca.com/subject/photography/still-life-with-nigel-shafran/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2018].

Wells, L. (2015). Photography: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.