Category: Reviews etc

John Davies is a photographer who I’ve long admired and the only one of the four I know personally. I’ve written and talked about his work (I’d also written about the work of Holdt before the nomination for the prize) including an extended review of the superb large-format book of the show ‘The British Landscape‘ (2006) which was nominated for the prize.

John is included in the Urban Landscape web site which I run with Mike Seaborne, but you can see more of his work on his own site.

His work is the best presented of the four short-listed photographers, filling the gallery at No 5 (with the coffee bar) with large, well printed black and white silver gelatin prints.

John’s landscapes are panoramic not in format, but in the sense that he likes to work from a high viewpoint with a relatively wide angle of view. Simply in terms of technique, his work stands out compared to the competition, but of course that isn’t it’s main strength. What strikes me on viewing these prints is their sheer lucidity both physically and conceptually.

The prints on show are a cross-section of his black and white work from 25 years in the book – and in the larger show. The book was my choice for the photo book of the year when it came out and the even larger prints here are just slightly more impressive. I do just wonder if they are a little too large on the wall, with the grain beginning to become intrusive in some areas. But they are certainly very well printed.

I’ve long considered John to be the leading contemporary exponent of urban landscape photography (though I also love the work of others including Gabriele Basilico.) On show here are some of his classic images, although I think I am currently even more interested in his colour work, and would feel that that is now making a greater “contribution to photography” than his older black and white work. Perhaps the weakest element of John’s work are his captions which sometimes seem to me to be too prosaic and concerned with the place rather than the precise location of the picture or its content.

One curious aspect of his work in the catalogue is the warm tone of the illustrations, brown rather than the much more neutral tone of his images. I don’t think this – or the small scale does them justice.

Another issue of the on-line photography magazine Blueeyes, edited by John Loomis and his team, is always worth a good look, and the seventeenth issue which appeared recently is another fine one.

‘Little Voice‘ is a powerful essay by Lisa Wiltse (b 1977, Weston, Connecticutt, USA) who got her BFA from the Art Institute of Boston in 1999 and is now a staff photographer for the Sydney Morning Herald. Her work has concentrated on humanitarian issues in Central America, Uganda, India. In Little Voice, she looks at the consequences of the annual flooding in Bangladesh, which this year displaced some 9 million people. The country is one of those most at risk from global warming, with a sea-level rise of only 1 metre being enough to flood half the country. Her essay demonstrates the emotional power of black and white photography at its best.

Cosmin Bumbut’s work on Blueeyes is very varied, with both colour and black and white and a wide range of subject matter and approach, coming from a number of different projects. Among the best images for me are several interiors, including a fine image of a two people and two where we see through doorways. Born in Romania in 1968, he studied at the Film Photography Dept 0f the Film & Theatre Academy in Bucharest, and he is now based in that city as a freelance photographer.

Bumbut was also one of the founders of Punctum, which is a downloadable Romanian photography magazine – the latest edition includes work by Lois Greenfield. Don’t miss looking at the pictures from Rosia Montana on his own site.

Kelly Shimoda was also born in Connecticut, but in 1976, and is a Brooklyn based freelance. She studied American Civilization & Latin American Studies at Brown University and worked for six years before taking the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism certificate program at the International Center of Photography in New York. In 2005 she founded the collective Veras Images, on whose site you can see work by her and ten other photographers.

Her project on Blueeyes, ‘Last Saturday Night‘, uses richly emotional colour to look at the final nights of the last two roller disco skating rinks in New York that closed early in 2007. Some of those skating there had started as kids 40 years ago.

As well as these major portfolios there are several other contributions worth looking at, and of course the archives. Blueeyes publishes documentary photography projects that focus on social, political, and environmental issues, and welcomes submissions of suitable unpublished projects – see the simple and clear guidelines on the site. But like many worthwhile things in photography, Blueeyes is a labour of love, produced without sponsorship and advertising – and without payment to any of those concerned.

In the Guardian/Observer Newsroom at 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1, until 25 Jan 2008 you can see ‘Unknown Bown‘ 1947-67, with many of the images also on-line, in a Flash presentation that covers her photography over 60 years.

The Newsroom with some folders of the Manchester Guardian and Bown’s show

Hers is a truly remarkable career – and on-line you can see the first picture she took for the Observer on the 28th January, 1949, a portrait of Betrand Russell. In 2006, she was still taking portraits, and really not that differently, with the best perhaps her image of Dame Maggie Smith, as well as a freshly informal image of the Queen which makes her look like someone’s granny, just after the hairdresser has been in, gussied up for a trip out from the old people’s home.

The selection in the Newsroom does include some of her better-known pictures – and quite a few of those that are on-line, but also has pictures I’d not seen before, including some of the more interesting in the show. So while on-line, Southend on Sea 1954 is just her very well-seen view of two people in deckchairs from behind, in the gallery under the same title there is also a far more exciting and lively Cartier-Bressonesque group (she photographed the man himself in 1957), a man sprawling in the foreground, a woman standing holding a towel or clothing (and another man appears to be dangling one of her feet from his hand) as a boat leaves. And those hats! Similarly there is a picture from the 1957 Fuel Crisis on the wall which I find much stronger than the on-line image.

Much of this work was taken when she was herself a young mother, and there are some fine portraits of young children on the wall (perhaps just a few too many.) But throughout her career she was someone who obviously made people feel at ease – and children are perhaps more sensitive than most adults. She makes people – wherever they are – feel at home, at ease. Where some photographers set out to shock or surprise, her work usually has a warmth, a friendliness, a domesticity that appeals.

Where she does sometimes produce work that is striking is by her use of light. Perhaps her most striking portrait is that of Samuel Beckett, made in 1976, and it is certainly one that qualifies for the title ‘iconic’; on those rare occasions when I think of him, it is her image that I see. But perhaps the selection for the presentation suffers from an overdose of politicians and pop-stars, and is based rather too much on the names rather than the quality of the images. Of course they are all good pictures, but I think not always among her best images, and sometimes are overshadowed by the again iconic images by other photographers.

On show at the Newsroom is also the old Rolleiflex which I think it says cost her £50 in 1947, which seems excessive. In the 1960s she was still carrying this (or perhaps a similar replacement) to assignments in a shopping bag, though changing times and expectations led her to increasingly use an SLR from that time on.  At first it was a Pentax, but one of the things I have in common with her is that we both bought an Olympus OM1 more or less as soon as they came out in late 1972, though I think hers lasted longer, and definitely captured many, many more famous sitters. You can also see more of her work as a student, as well as a picture of her tutor, Ifor Thomas, who recognised the talent of this 21 year old who had just come out of the WRNS and enrolled on his course at the Guildford School of Art. At the time it was the only place in England where photography was not simply taught as a technical subject – though unlike some colleges today they also made sure that students learnt their craft.

I could write more, but I’ve just found two other features on her at the Guardian, Jane Bown: A biography, and an introduction to the Unknown Bown written by  Germaine Greer that perhaps tells you rather too much about Greer’s own prejudices, particularly on the subject of Diane Arbus,  but does also have some interesting thoughts about Bown and her work. Those who know their photography will also spot a few obvious errors, such as the fact that her Olympus OM1 will not be 40 until 2013 and is unlikely ever to sport a 50mm f2.5 lens. They didn’t make one, and most of us were happy with the f1.8, which was a superb performer at the f2.8 that Bown habitually set – with shutter speed of 1/60th using whatever light was available. And if she needed more, most people had a reading lamp. It’s also a discussion of her work that ignores the great cultural and photographic influences of the era in which she grew up and started work, in particular the illustrated weeklies such as ‘Picture Post‘.  While few in that era would have known the name of, for example, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and most photographs were published without attribution (as too many still are) the influence of his and other similar work was strong enough in the early 50s for young turks to feel the need to rebel against it, while others, such as Bown, developed their own style very much within its general ambit.

Jim Casper at Lens Culture has been busy lately, and I’m finding it hard to keep up with him. One fairly recent photo-essay on the site is ‘No Love Lost‘ by Michael Grieve, a visual project made in “sexual environments” – around “pornography, prostitution and stripping” in contemporary Britain.

Grieve describes his work as a “lyrical documentary metaphor in a
factual world about real fictional encounters” which is a phrase I find some difficulty with (as I do too with environments being sexual.) But he certainly conveys a feeling of spiritual emptiness in these images, some of which are more peripheral to the actual encounters than others.

His pictures are of a world with which I have little in common, though many years ago as a student I did live in a multi-occupied house where two of the other occupants were prostitutes who entertained clients on the premises. One was a very motherly woman, quite unlike anything in Greive’s pictures, with whom I sometimes shared a sociable cuppa in the afternoon (though I’m not really a tea drinker) while the other would have more readily fitted into his work, with a kind of vacancy like that of his ‘Mistress Storm.’ (All of the pictures I mention are on the Lens Culture site,)

There is a peculiar sadness about ‘La Chambre swingers’ club, Sheffield’, a rather ordinary looking corner shop except for the covered windows and red-lit name (curiously also present inverted in the image.) Above the door the sign says “YOU TOO CAN HAVE FUN”, but in the sequence on Lens Culture is followed by one of the most depressing scenes imaginable, with a sickly green light, a filthy ceiling with straggling wiring and an off-white plastic fitting that somehow makes me think of a skull above three men in black masks. A second image from the same place, largely back views of several men in a rather dimly lit room with what appears to be a gloomily painted obscene mural is perhaps even less enticing.

Perhaps the most striking image comes from a porn shoot in Peterborough, and at its centre are three feet, two of a woman wearing nothing but a gold chain around her left ankle and red nail varnish, forms an incredible conjunction with a man’s foot coming down from the top centre of the image, the shape between them and the contact having a sensuous quality lacking in the other pictures.

Click for a larger image on Lens Culture

The woman, cropped to more or less a pair of legs, is posed with these open but her left toes squash against the back of her right leg just above her heel, her hand delicately hides the meeting of her legs, her little finger pointing delicately up. Another male leg comes in a the back of the others from the left, and on the right is a second woman, her knees towards the top centre of the image, feet tucked back underneath, the frame cropping her just above the waist. It is a picture of incredible geometry, a kind of ‘Edward Weston meets pornography.’

If you actually come to these pictures in search of pornography you will I think be disappointed, although there is one simple image of a naked woman looking at the camera who I do find rather attractive. Another which appeals in quite a different way is the last in the sequence, ‘Break in porn shoot, London, UK, 2003′, which appears to be a rather impossible to unwrap reflection in which a naked couple lie entwined with a touching tenderness.

I also find a certain curious appeal in some of the captions. ‘View from brothel, Slough‘, the roofs of some very ordinary suburban houses, seen through one of those front doors with a half-circle of window in a kind of sun-ray pattern of 5 panes. Like the view from many suburban halls out through the closed front door, but the glass is red.

Slough is just down the road from where I live, but impossible to think of without Betjeman’s “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!” (perhaps the red is their incendiary fires?) and John Bunyan’s “slough of despond” that hampered his pilgrim Christian’s progress. Despond is perhaps rather appropriate for ‘No Love Lost‘, an interesting body of work that reflects on one of the sadder aspects of modern life.

Grieve was born in Newcastle, England in 1966, and after a BA in Film, Video and Photographic Arts at the Polytechnic of Central London, he gained an MA in Photographic Studies at the University of Westminster in 1997. Based in London, he worked for two years as a photographer for the Independent newspaper before freelancing as a portrait and feature photographer for various magazines. His work is now distributed by Agence Vu.

No Love Lost is his first book project, and according to ‘Vu‘ will be published soon. He is working on a second project, ‘In Passing’, on motorway and airport hotels.