>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Soth on Adams

One of several posts I’ve been reading that have severely delayed me getting down to my own work this morning was Moving forward, looking back by Alec Soth on his Little Brown Mushroom blog. In it he takes a look at the book which most changed him as an artist in the past year.

His choice is ‘Prairie’ by Robert Adams, a small volume that came out in 1978 and was reissued with a different cover as “a new expanded edition” in 2011, with an essay by Eric Paddock and around a dozen extra pictures. At $35 it perhaps seems expensive for such a slim paperback volume, but it is described as “a future collector’s item.” The tritone reproductions are probably superior to the original clear and precise Rapaport printing, and although I can’t remember how much this cost me in 1978, the cheapest secondhand copy I found in a short online search was now $230.

If you don’t own the original, I’d certainly recommend buying the new, though as a volume that may expand your own horizons rather than an investment opportunity.

Soth homes on on the way that Adams uses repetition – and the three examples he gives are also in the original work, produced in conjunction with an exhibition at Denver Art Museum, although in the third pair the two images have changed places. Soth talks about “use of repetition to quietly investigate time and perception“, though I think in the third it is perhaps more about viewpoint.

‘Prairie’ was I think the third Adams books I bought back in the 70s, after the weightier ‘The New West‘ and ‘Denver‘ and I think in some ways one of my favourites. It’s smaller size and fewer pictures make it easier to get to know. But all were good investments, both in terms of my own work and their current value.

Hetherington’s Last Post

Another superb Duckrabbit post Tim Hetheringtons last photos and their presentation on the Guardian, which together with some interesting and informed comments explores pretty fully the kind of rather unformed misgivings I’ve had about this and several other features on war photography over the past year or so.

It’s worth too taking the time to watch the almost 15 minutes of video on the page, made by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, where Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta of the 173rd Airborne tells his own story of the events in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley which led to him being the first living Medal of Honor recipient since the Vietnam War. There are also more clips about their movie ‘Restrepo‘ on YouTube.

Restrepo was shot entirely in the Korengal Valley, focussing on a 15-man outpost which gives the film it’s name -and which was named after a medic killed in action there at what was considered one of the most dangerous military postings. Hetherington and Junger’s statement on the front page of the movie site includes this:

“Our intention was to capture the experience of combat, boredom and fear through the eyes of the soldiers themselves… Their experiences are important to understand, regardless of one’s political beliefs. Beliefs are a way to avoid looking at reality. This is reality.”

New Year Honours

Definitively the most heartening list of the year end was described in The Guardian as the “impressive list of the great and the good, packed with scholars and sportsmen, authors and artists” who have for various reasons snubbed our outdated and discredited honours system, long used by both parties when in office to reward nonentities for long service to the party or donations to the cause, along with a smattering of those who deserve public recognition and assorted celebs tagged on in facile attempts to improve the party image.

The list, prepared by civil servants possibly to avoid further embarrassing refusals – although it does contain some serial refusniks – was leaked to the Sunday Times before Christmas and has been published in part in most of the newspapers. The highest accolade must surely go to L S Lowry, who refused on 5 occasions, including when he was offered a knighthood. The list doesn’t give any reasons for the refusals, and most of those on it have not commented on their motives, which in some cases were simply a desire to keep out of the limelight. And certainly a few felt a little insulted at being offered only a minor award when they felt they deserved top honours. Some of them did also accept other honours at a later date.

Among the others in alphabetical order are Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, JG Ballard, Honor Blackman, Alan Bennett, David Bowie, Roald Dahl, Albert Finney, Lucian Freud, Michael Frayn, Dawn French, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, David Hockney, Trevor Howard, Aldous Huxley, John le Carré, George Melly, J B Priestley, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Saunders, Alastair Sim, Evelyn Waugh and Benjamin Zephaniah. I’m not sure what lies behind the Times paywall, but possibly the fullest list is on Wikipaedia, which even includes Oliver Cromwell.

Only a very few of them have broken the tradition of silence in refusing awards. Ballard, certainly one of my literary heroes, went public in stating that he turned down the offer of a CBE because of his opposition to the whole “preposterous charade” of the system, and Benjamin Zephaniah also went public, refusing the offered OBE as a protest against the years of slavery and brutality in the British Empire and against the invasion of Iraq.

Perhaps the most upsetting thing is that not a single photographer appears on this list – unless you count Hockney, who I think continually fails to understand what photography is about and what it can do. Although I enjoyed seeing some of his ‘joiners’ I lacked the ignorance that allowed him to convince himself and others that there was anything novel in what he was doing (photographers had indeed started doing it with daguerreotypes.) But if you can draw like him there is perhaps little need to understand photography.

There are of course other awards, and certainly the most entertaining list is The Photo Follies 2011 Awards from Jeremy Nicholls on his Russian Photos blog. It does include quite a few things I’ve mentioned here over the year, and is certainly a fine compilation of idiocies.

My 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
Protester wearing Egyptian flag opposite the Embassy
Solidarity with the Egyptian Revolution
Egyptian Embassy, South St, London. Sat 29 Jan 2011

I started thinking about New Year Resolutions, but the one I’ve come closest to keeping was the one about not making resolutions, made after looking back at the last set that I published here as my 2008 To Do List.

There are just a few things in it I’ve made progress on. No 3 on the list was “check my camera settings more often when taking pictures” and though I still often get things wrong, switching to wearing glasses when taking pictures has improved things a little, as I can now actually see the camera settings and read the top plate display.

I need bi-focals, which mean that when I look straight ahead or into the camera viewfinder I’m using the relatively slight distance correction I need, but looking down at the camera the strong ‘reading’ correction (a consequence of ageing) comes into play. Working without glasses I could use the dioptre correction on the viewfinder to get a sharp image in that, but had to fiddle around searching for my glasses to see the camera settings. A second pair of bi-focals also gives me a slightly clearer view of the computer screen, which has also improved things.

I’m not sure if I’ve really got very far on any of the other 11 tasks, though perhaps I’ve made a little progress on some of them – and at the start of 2009 I was very liberal when I claimed around 3/10, though deciding I really still had so much to do that I didn’t need a new list.

But at the start of 2010 I wrote about my decision not to photograph the London Parade, which I felt had lost most of its interest for me and become an event arranged for TV, and also thought that it was time for a change for me. I’m not sure that change has happened, although on 1 Jan 2011 I felt happy enough with the work I’d done to put up a page with a picture from each month of the previous year. Stupidly I did end with a resolution, “take fewer (and better!) images.” But last year I actually took 4800 more than in 2010, a total of almost 88,000 – though this is 8,000 less than in 2009. As for quality I leave that to others to judge.

Once again I’ll put together a page with an image from each month of 2011, though as I explained at some length last year these are not necessarily my favourite or my best pictures from the year, but chosen to represent the range of events that I covered. So here are the other 11, together with the captions and event headings from My London Diary:

© 2011, Peter Marshall
Today’s headmistress had an orange umbrella that we followed to the TSB
UK Uncut Lecture in TSB
Oxford St, London. Saturday 26 Feb 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
Mothers and children wait for the march to start
Mothers March for Survival
Trafalgar Square to SOAS, London. Sat 12 March 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
At the start of the march on Wandsworth Road
Who Killed Smiley Culture?
Vauxhall to New Scotland Yard, London. Saturday 16 April 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
The march comes through Trafalgar Square
Keep The NHS Public
UCH Euston Road to Whitehall, London. Tuesday 17 May 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
The parade makes its way across Hungerford Bridge to the South Bank
Refugee Week Umbrella Parade
Embankment Gardens to South Bank, London. Sunday 19 June 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
The Rev Billy reaches out as he moves to lay hands on the BP logo inside the Tate Turbine Hall
Rev Billy’s Tate BP Exorcism
Tate Modern, London. Monday 18 July 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
Muslim women show their support for Palestine
Al-Quds Day Protests in London
Portland Place to Trafalgar Square, London. Sunday 21 Aug 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
Children lead the march after a short stop for prayers in the centre of Wickford
March Supports Dale Farm Against Evictions
Wickford to Cray’s Hill, Essex, UK. Saturday 10 September 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
‘Anonymous’ protester in ‘V for Vendetta’ mask gives V sign and holds up notice in front of St Paul’s Cathedral
Occupy London Kept Out Of Stock Exchange
St Paul’s Cathedral, London, UK. Saturday 15 Oct 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
There were some very ‘fifties’ dressed women in the Fawcett organised march
Don’t Turn The Clock Back
Embankment to Westminster, London. Saturday 19 Nov 2011

© 2011, Peter Marshall
Protesters urge the UK to stop supporting Kabila whose election victory was fraudulent
Congolese March to Downing St
Gt Portland St – Downing St, London. Wed 14 Dec 2011

One day, perhaps in 2012 (but no resolutions) I’ll put together a larger selection of images from 2011 in a Blurb book, like the 2006 one which finally emerged a month ago, details in 2006 – Hot From the Press, which has around 70 images from that year. The special offer on this book of £25 including postage to any UK address ordered direct from me will continue at least until Blurb raise their prices yet again – and the offers on the other books too. And a bit cheaper still if you collect a copy or buy from me in person.

Foto8 Archive

Traditionally at this time of year newspapers and the media go back over the year, printing or reprinting the photographs which they think were the highlights of the year. It’s a practice I’ve seldom found illuminating but I suppose it does take a bit of pressure off and let editors and journalists take a bit of a break at this time of year, though of course events around the world keep on even if they are not reported in depth. And this year perhaps the most important of these events are taking place almost hidden from the press, who largely have to rely on bloggers and those taking part in the uprising in Syria for any information.

Domestically the two big stories of 2011, so far as the papers etc are concerned, were a wedding and the outbreak of looting and in particular arson in August following the police shooting of Mark Duggan, or more precisely following the police refusal to engage sensibly with the public after that shooting, and the beating of a young woman who questioned them on the street.

There was of course no news about the wedding, an almost entirely predictable circus of little or no consequence. Flames do however make for some dramatic images, and there were many photographers who went to take pictures, often at considerable risk, of the events on our streets. But though I admire them and some of the images that were made, I do perhaps wonder how much these tell us about what was happening and more importantly why it was happening. Almost certainly there are photographers who have been working on longer-term projects in our inner-cities whose work would cast more light on the issues, but lack the drama and the topicality that would attract the media money.

One publication that since it’s inception has published photo stories that look at issues around the world in greater depth, often printing work that has failed to find other outlets, is Foto8 magazine. I’ve been a subscriber to the magazine since its foundation in 2002, and somewhere around the house have all the 29 issues, which now are published twice a year. These can now also be read on-line and it is a fine collection. You can also of course buy the print issues on-line, including the current issue, though at present it does not appear to be possible to become a Foto8 member. Foto8 also has a gallery with regular shows and runs various photography events as well as publishing material on-line.

So if you get bored with looking at similar pictures of the same events in every newspaper and news programme, take a look at the last ten years seen through very different eyes on Foto8, along with some thought-provoking articles about documentary photography.

Scopophilia

I was impressed by Nan Goldin‘s work when her The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was published in book form here around 1989 (the well-thumbed copy is still on my shelf), but it was really seeing the slide show on which the book was based in 2002 that truly made me appreciate her work, and to write about her at some length in Nan Goldins Mirror on Life. (The previous post is a shorter piece, Nan Goldin – Police swoop about one of the sillier reactions to her work which led to me re-writing and posting the earlier piece here.)

I’ve not seen her most recent show, Scopophilia, (there is an installation video too) which closed in New York just before Christmas, but it was interesting to see some of the reviews of this show which “pairs her own autobiographical images with new photographs of paintings and sculpture from the Louvres collection.”

Joerg Colberg noted that this statement from the press release gave him a queasy feeling, and I read it too, thinking things like ‘Oh Dear!’ and ‘pretentious crap’ and there was more to follow.

But then James Danziger on his The Year in Pictures blog praised it as “The one exhibition not to miss before Christmas“though he did go on to say that his favourite part of the exhibit was one of Goldin’s “trademark slide shows.” Certainly for anyone not familiar with these, that would have made a visit worthwhile, and for those of us who have already experienced them (and I watched all at the Whitechapel through at least twice in 2002) a pleasant reminder.

But presumably Colberg took that as read, and his review concentrates on the work photographing the artworks at the Louvre which were shown paired with some of Goldin’s earlier ‘autobiographical’ images. It’s worth reading what he has to say about the exercise, which he concluded made “an incredibly pedestrian exhibition.” I have a strong feeling I would have been in complete agreement.

Truth and Falsity

I’ve written on several occasions, here and elsewhere about the work of Errol Morris and his ideas about truth in photographs, and his contention that “all photography is posed” and that there is “always an elephant just outside the frame”, or that the photograph always de-contextualises its subject.

On The Guardian site you can watch a fairly short video of him talking about his ideas, and you can still read my pieces about his study of Fenton’s two Valley of the Shadow of Death pictures at Cannon Balls to Fenton (2007) and a two part Speculation on Photographs, (Part 2) where I make some comment and express some reservations about his ideas.

Perhaps his doggedly exhaustive investigation of the Fenton did convincingly tell us something about the leaves, but told us nothing more about the trees, let alone the forest. Of course Fenton’s images need contextualisation, but that isn’t achieved by the study of minutiae.

If Fenton came across a road which had been cleared of cannon balls and decided to return some of them to produce a second picture that perhaps more clearly reflected the ‘reality’ of the situation, does that make his work any more or less important in documenting the war in the Crimea? Or would we think any less of his work if we found he had cleared the road because he felt the contrast between the empty road and the cannon ball strewn landscape made his a stronger picture of what was surely in either case a death trap?

Finally November

Finally the last story from November has made it to My London Diary

though it isn’t a performance I was happy with. I was with the Occupy London banner (above) as they ran with it from Piccadilly Circus to Haymarket and on to Panton St, and photographed it as they ran into Panton House.

And I even saw it going up the stairs inside, but instead of following it, I turned around to photograph the flares outside, so missed the story of them getting on to the roof, lowering the banner from the top and being arrested.

But I did get some stories earlier in the month, and a few pictures placed here and there. But you can see them all (or rather a selection of them) on My London Diary:

November 2011

March For Justice in Bahrain
In Solidarity with Tahrir Square
Hampton Hill Christmas Lights
Berkshire Walk
City of London Anti-Apartheid Group
Speakers At Occupy London
Bank of Ideas & Finsbury Square
Don’t Turn The Clock Back
Saturday Morning Occupy London
London Xmas Decorations
Anti-Abortion Prayer Protest
Day to Defend the Egyptian Revolution
Somalis Protest Obama’s War
London From St Paul’s
Lord Mayor’s Show
Lord Mayor’s Show – Occupy London
Students March Against Cuts & Fees
Sparks At The Shard
OccupyLSX March to Parliament
Syrians Protest At Downing St
Jarrow March Ends In London
Occupy London Respond to Preacher
Photomonth Photoparty & Photo Open
OccupyLSX at St Pauls

The Year in Pictures

It’s that time of year when every publication is pushing out it’s version of the year in pictures (and while last year one of my pictures featured in at least one of them, I don’t anticipate it happening again.) But looking at one of the better examples of such reviews my mind went back to a picture taken on 12 May 1937 by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Judging from the New York Times, the ‘milestone’ of the year in Britain in 2011 was a royal wedding (though they also have a fine picture by Facundo Arrizabalaga of the riot police in Croydon) , and the wedding image, while well-timed and perfectly exposed is frankly rather boring and anodyne – just like almost all the rest that the press used from the event. Cartier-Bresson was photographing a coronation rather than a wedding, but a very similar royal event, and managed to make a picture that has a great deal more to say.

I tried hard not to photograph this year’s wedding, but literally had to step over the people camping out in Westminster as I went to photograph a protest on International Workers Memorial Day, so I did take a few pictures of them which you can see in Waiting For Will & Kate.

On the day itself I kept well away, though I did take a few pictures at Republic’s Not the Royal Wedding Party and just one or two on my way home through Soho, where the event was certainly seen as a good excuse for a party.

© 2011, Peter Marshall
Of course you can see my own record of the year at great length on My London Diary, although so far it only goes more or less to the end of November (which I’ll say more about when I’ve given it a final check.)

It is of course events in London not shown in the New York Times or My London Diary or elsewhere in photographs that are having a great effect on the world economy, but people clicking mice or working on a keyboard generally make for boring stock rather than news photos. If you want to understand more about how banks and financial organisations working in the City of London, largely unregulated since the Thatcher-inspired Big Bang (and, yes it was them and not Gordon Brown, David Cameron, George Osborne or us spending recklessly on credit cards or even dodgy mortgages) have destroyed the UK economy and threatened the world, there is a graph of G10 Debt Distribution which deserves to be featured in every review of the year, produced by Morgan Stanley. It shows the UK’s financial sector with a debt of over 600% of our GDP, dwarfing the relatively small government and household debt.

There is a section in the NYT year about the Occupy movement, which has raised many of the issues (or, as the politicians and press like to say, doesn’t seem to know what it wants), but good as some of the photography is, it is also an illustration that it is the moments of conflict and drama that attract us as visual people, while for me the Cartier-Bresson image with which my thoughts started perhaps leads us to think more deeply about the issues. But I doubt if it would make the papers today.

Back To The Fifties?

I don’t know what I had done to deserve that little glance, perhaps a hint of anger or at least annoyance, but together with the lighting that was just catching her face it lifted this image of a blonde from the others that I had taken of her and her fellow leopard skin fur wearer (I’m sure they were synthetic) holding their ‘Feminism Back By Popular Demand‘ posters.

The Fawcett Society had decided to highlight their claims that government cuts were in danger of putting back the gains towards equality that women have made back to the 1950s by asking its members to attend the march in 1950s dress, and there were certainly some interesting examples of this, as well as those who came bearing kitchen implements, brooms and other symbols to represent their perception of the government’s “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” attitudestoward women. David Cameron certainly stirred up an enormous resentment with his patronising sexist House of Commons put-down of Labour MP Angela Eagle “Calm Down Dear!” and if he really intended it as humour it was abysmally judged and few took it as a joke.

Of course I wasn’t there as a fashion photographer, but it was certainly hard to resist the opportunity.

And so I didn’t, though I think almost all of the time I was trying hard to show these women in the context of the march, for example by very carefully positioning the background Fawcett Society placard in several images.

More pictures and more about the march in Don’t Turn The Clock Back on My London Diary.