Falmouth Photography BA Top-up PHO610 CRJ week3
15 October, 2019
As I mentioned on the Week 2 CRJ, my biggest challenge was shooting street photographs in the middle of the crowded Tokyo city which I also had never tried before. Also, use of new equipment, ORION anamorphic 40mm lens and CineStill B&W film, was another challenge.
The initial plan was to practice staged photography and portrait, however, I couldn’t arrange the shooting within a short time frame. Therefore, I chose to express a crowded urban environment and snubbed atmosphere of this city, inspired by Jacob Aue Sobol's work in Tokyo. This time, I focused on Shinjuku or Shibuya area.
For capturing the callousness of the city, I thought I needed to capture indigeneous community such as workers in a rough red-light district or street people who usually do not want to be taken on film, sometimes they fiercely protest to my behaviour. In particular, this time I choose a huge anamorphic lens which is quite noticable even in the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. People who reminded me as a journalist or a paparazzi put up guards instantly. Susan Sontag mentioned this tendency as “To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have”(1978, p. 17). Occasionally, communication set things straight, but I understood the need of prior elaboration of plan for shooting more than that. My project is obviously close to the week two’s diaristic approach as I give the names of the practitioners mentioned in that week’s lecture.
The most favourite picture is the one which shows crowded bench in front of the mass home electronics retailer near the Shinjuku station. Every one who sits around this small area was watching their phone without a word surrounded by the loud shop's music and a salesman’s repetitive advertising phrase. I felt the situation really weird. Due to the quality of the lens and the film I used, the shot has dreamlike fantasic look which I had not estimated. However, I could express the initial idea to contrast the brightness of the retailer and the darkness of the front where everyone looked down on their phone.
The resulted images are far away from the style of Jacob Aue Sobol whose work is sharp and contrasty. They are more similar to the work of Daido Moriyama’s blurry image in the late 1960s; he call this ‘are-bure-bokeh’. Another practitioner I come up with is Igor Posner who recently published Past Perfect Continuous(2017) which contains series of photos taken while returning to his home country, Russia, between 2006 and 2009. Lev Feigin compared his work with Daido, and wrote that Igor’s grainy, often deliberately blurred, disjunctive, obscure work “testify to a gaze that feels a sense of belonging only to memory and evanescence”(Feigin, n.d.).
Paul mentioned pushing ISO two or three stops or using faster film such as Kodak Tri-X to obtain sharper image. I agree with this opinion if I pursue to create sharp grainy texture like Daido or Jacob. However, it is interesting to note that just choosing different equipment that I have not getting used to brought me another visual expression unexpectedly. Apart from the concept and theme I am pursuing, I reaffirm that thorough familiarity with equipment and photo development method is inevitable to create precisely what I intend to do.
It is interesting to decipher pictures of Diane Arbus(1972a) with its preface. She was explicit about subjects that she feels interested in, and also strategical enough to attract good fortune. She said that she was very ingratiating and extremely likeable with the photographed. She utilised its innate ability to capture “the gap between intention and efffect”(Arbus, 1972b, p. 2); an unintentional fact that a photographer come across while close investigation of the photographed. At a glance without reference to historical context, she just photographed personality quirk. However, I could glimpsed the whole idea of her artwork for the first time.
I bumped into interesting article of talk between Rinko Kawauchi and Stephen Gill about creative process of photography. Their conversation is quite similar to what Diane said in the introduction of Diane Arbus. Gill is deeply concerned about current tendency of staged and tableau photography as implied by the word "Perhaps photographers have a tendency to put too much pressure on the photograph to try to steer and direct them instead of listening to the work”("IMA 2019 Summer Vol.28," 2019, p. 111). Also, he said that "sometimes with photography, the photographer’s ego holds back the subject”(p. 111). In reply to Gill’s opinion, Rinko stated that "things like coincidence, magic or synchronicity are important keywords in photography. To finish the work, you need a little bit of magic and it’s the most essential thing for me”(p. 112). Aiming to construct, but plenty room of accidentalness and unintended consequences. That is the most important point I learned so far.
References:
Arbus, D. (1972a). DIANE ARBUS. NEW YORK: MUSEUM OF MODERN ART.
Arbus, D. (1972b). Diane Arbus : n Aperture monograph. New York: Aperture Foundation. Feigin, L. (n.d.). Back to Petersburg: Past Perfect Continuous. BOOK REVIEW. Retrieved from https://www.lensculture.com/articles/igor-posner-back-to-petersburg-past-perfect-continuous
IMA 2019 Summer Vol.28. (2019). IMA : living with photography, 2019 Summer Vol.28.
Masur, L. P., & Recorded Books, I. (2010). The Soiling Of Old Glory : the Story Of A Photograph That Shocked America. Retrieved from http://rbdigital.oneclickdigital.com
Moriyama, D. (1969). Untitled. In (pp. from the October 21).
Posner, I. (2017). Past perfect continuous.
Sontag, S. (1978). On photography.
Yamaguchi, T. (2019). Guided Project 2. In.
For capturing the callousness of the city, I thought I needed to capture indigeneous community such as workers in a rough red-light district or street people who usually do not want to be taken on film, sometimes they fiercely protest to my behaviour. In particular, this time I choose a huge anamorphic lens which is quite noticable even in the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. People who reminded me as a journalist or a paparazzi put up guards instantly. Susan Sontag mentioned this tendency as “To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have”(1978, p. 17). Occasionally, communication set things straight, but I understood the need of prior elaboration of plan for shooting more than that. My project is obviously close to the week two’s diaristic approach as I give the names of the practitioners mentioned in that week’s lecture.
Stills from Guided Project 2 (Yamaguchi, 2019a)
The most favourite picture is the one which shows crowded bench in front of the mass home electronics retailer near the Shinjuku station. Every one who sits around this small area was watching their phone without a word surrounded by the loud shop's music and a salesman’s repetitive advertising phrase. I felt the situation really weird. Due to the quality of the lens and the film I used, the shot has dreamlike fantasic look which I had not estimated. However, I could express the initial idea to contrast the brightness of the retailer and the darkness of the front where everyone looked down on their phone.
Untitled, from Guided Project 2 (Yamaguchi, 2019a)
The resulted images are far away from the style of Jacob Aue Sobol whose work is sharp and contrasty. They are more similar to the work of Daido Moriyama’s blurry image in the late 1960s; he call this ‘are-bure-bokeh’. Another practitioner I come up with is Igor Posner who recently published Past Perfect Continuous(2017) which contains series of photos taken while returning to his home country, Russia, between 2006 and 2009. Lev Feigin compared his work with Daido, and wrote that Igor’s grainy, often deliberately blurred, disjunctive, obscure work “testify to a gaze that feels a sense of belonging only to memory and evanescence”(Feigin, n.d.).
Untitled, from the October 21 (D. Moriyama, 1969)
Untitled, from Past Perfect Continuous (Posner, 2017)
Paul mentioned pushing ISO two or three stops or using faster film such as Kodak Tri-X to obtain sharper image. I agree with this opinion if I pursue to create sharp grainy texture like Daido or Jacob. However, it is interesting to note that just choosing different equipment that I have not getting used to brought me another visual expression unexpectedly. Apart from the concept and theme I am pursuing, I reaffirm that thorough familiarity with equipment and photo development method is inevitable to create precisely what I intend to do.
It is interesting to decipher pictures of Diane Arbus(1972a) with its preface. She was explicit about subjects that she feels interested in, and also strategical enough to attract good fortune. She said that she was very ingratiating and extremely likeable with the photographed. She utilised its innate ability to capture “the gap between intention and efffect”(Arbus, 1972b, p. 2); an unintentional fact that a photographer come across while close investigation of the photographed. At a glance without reference to historical context, she just photographed personality quirk. However, I could glimpsed the whole idea of her artwork for the first time.
I bumped into interesting article of talk between Rinko Kawauchi and Stephen Gill about creative process of photography. Their conversation is quite similar to what Diane said in the introduction of Diane Arbus. Gill is deeply concerned about current tendency of staged and tableau photography as implied by the word "Perhaps photographers have a tendency to put too much pressure on the photograph to try to steer and direct them instead of listening to the work”("IMA 2019 Summer Vol.28," 2019, p. 111). Also, he said that "sometimes with photography, the photographer’s ego holds back the subject”(p. 111). In reply to Gill’s opinion, Rinko stated that "things like coincidence, magic or synchronicity are important keywords in photography. To finish the work, you need a little bit of magic and it’s the most essential thing for me”(p. 112). Aiming to construct, but plenty room of accidentalness and unintended consequences. That is the most important point I learned so far.
References:
Arbus, D. (1972a). DIANE ARBUS. NEW YORK: MUSEUM OF MODERN ART.
Arbus, D. (1972b). Diane Arbus : n Aperture monograph. New York: Aperture Foundation. Feigin, L. (n.d.). Back to Petersburg: Past Perfect Continuous. BOOK REVIEW. Retrieved from https://www.lensculture.com/articles/igor-posner-back-to-petersburg-past-perfect-continuous
IMA 2019 Summer Vol.28. (2019). IMA : living with photography, 2019 Summer Vol.28.
Masur, L. P., & Recorded Books, I. (2010). The Soiling Of Old Glory : the Story Of A Photograph That Shocked America. Retrieved from http://rbdigital.oneclickdigital.com
Moriyama, D. (1969). Untitled. In (pp. from the October 21).
Posner, I. (2017). Past perfect continuous.
Sontag, S. (1978). On photography.
Yamaguchi, T. (2019). Guided Project 2. In.