Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto (  1948 – date) is a Japanese photographer who is described as ‘one of the worlds leading photographers’(Simon Groom, Edinburgh International Festival 2011 brochure, p56). He was born in Tokyo and went to University in Rikkyo, studying politics and sociology. He retrained as an artist in California and uses photography to illustrate transience of life. Sugimoto mainly uses a large format camera and has done series such as ‘Dioramas’ – where he photographed the dioramas in natural history museum in such a was as to fool the eye into thinking they were real.

The exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery was in two parts.

Lightning Fields.

Lightning Fields. Hiroshi Sugimoto.

These images were produced by Sugimoto experimenting with the static electricity produced by a Van der Graff generator, capturing this on photographic film in immense detail. These images often look like strange life forms. Sugimoto says ‘Specters play havoc with my darkroom- demonic specters of static electricity that haunt silver halide photography’  (Sugimoto, Nature of Light, 2009, p79). Over the years Sugimoto found that he could not completely rid his darkroom of the specters and eventually began experimenting with them, using static electricity discharges to produce images.  Initially these images were relatively crude, but he gradually learnt to control them and produced images with finer and finer detail.  He eventually tried discharging the static electricity under water, which produced very detail images resembling life forms.

Lightning Fields. Hiroshi Sugimoto.

 ‘Have I vanquished my nemesis at long last? Or have the demons wholly usurped me?Very probably there’s nu end conclusion in store. Gaining knowledge of something only leads to even greater unknowns, including the darkroom of my own mind’  (Sugimoto, Nature of Light, 2009, p85)

When I saw the original advertisement for this exhibition I was not convinced that I would appreciate it. However, when the images are shown printed on enormous canvases they are extremely impressive, and show minute and delicate details. They look like branching trees, or fungi, and some look strangely like the pictures of the worms that are found living under huge pressures in the depths of the ocean.

Tube Worms, Galápagos Islands, Emory Kristoff

They are images I can look at over and over and always find something new to see.

Photogenic Drawings.

Fox-Talbot (1800 – 1877) was one of the pioneers of photography who produced ‘photogenic drawings’ by using light sensitive paper to produce a negative,the Calotype process.

Fox-Talbot. by Herbert Lambert from an 1850s wet plate negative

Sugimoto used original Fox-Talbot negatives and scaled them up and reprinted them. This has produced a series of images that have a very subtle appeal, some with an almost ghostly effect. The colours are browns and blues, with a faint image, that need careful study. Of one Sugimoto says ‘ A simple stem of leaves, probably a sprig of rosemary….. “there's rosemary, that’s for remembrance”  and remembered it did, for we are seeing the memory of a particular specimen of a plant that existed, briefly, almost two centuries ago’. (Sugimoto, Nature of Light, 2009, p49), and rosemary can still be imaged today, although her using the modern technology of a scanner and digital manipulation.

Rosemary for Remembrance (scanned)

This is an interesting exhibiton in that it has many contrasts: old and new, soft and hard, detailed and blurred. It shows a wide range of skills in an obviously very experienced photographer and printer. One I will remember for a long time.

Tony Ray-Jones

Tony Ray-Jones (1941 – 1972) was born and schooled in England, went to Christ’s Hospital School. He then studied Graphic Design at the London School of Printing. During his 2nd year he was taught photography by Bill Brandt’s brother. In 1961 he moved to New York to Attend Yale. He stayed in America until 1965, mainly in New York during which time he developed an interest in street photography, mainly using black and white. He met with many of the now famous names from that era of American photography, including Brodovitch (who was a major influence).
In 1965 he returned to England and took photographs of festivals (formal and informal) and English culture and customs, seeing it from an eye that was partly English but altered by his 5 years in America. This was collected and published (posthumously) under the title ‘;A Day Off – An English Journal’.

When I first looked at Ray-Jones work I was not sure how to take it. Many of the scenes are evocative of my childhood, as I lived on the South Coast, near Brighton. (and we had a Butlins's).

Butlin's Holiday Camp, Clacton-in-Sea. c.1968 - Tony Ray-Jones

Initially I found the images cruel and stark (much as I had originally seen the images of Diane Arbus), but as I examined them further I found that many had a quite gentle humour and reflected the quirky nature of the English on holiday and at leisure well.

Glyndebourne, 1967. Tony Ray-Jones

‘ My aim is to communicate something of the spirit and mentality of the English, their habits and their way of life, the ironies that exist in  the way they do things’  (Tony Ray-Jones, Creative Camera 1968)

Clacton-on-Sea. 1967. Tony Ray-Jones

‘For me their is something very special and humorous in the English way of life’  (Tony Ray-Jones, Creative Camera 1968).

Boarding House, Newqyay. 1968. Tony Ray-Jones.

This final picture of his is evocative of the whole series, someone outside looking in. Although Tony Ray_Jones was English his photographic eye and mind must have been altered by living in America. The pictures give an accurate view of the times, shown with understanding and a degree of love, but still reflect someone 'looking in' at the the scene not 'partaking of' it.  I wonder what his pictures would have been like if he had lived even another 10 years.

A Long Exposure, 100 Years of Guardian Photography

Denis Thorpe hon FRPS was born in Mansfield in 1932 and joined his local weekly newspaper, with the ambition to become a reporter. After National Service with the Royal Air Force (1950 - 1953) , he decided to pursue photo-journalism inspired by Picture Post and the early Magnum photojournalism. Denis embarked on a journey through London and the provinces working for morning and evening papers, eventually arriving at the Daily Mail in Manchester. Denis became a Guardian staff photographer in 1974, covering assignments across the British Isles, and also travelling from Manchester to do special reports in Europe, the Middle East, China, India, the Soviet Union, the United States and Japan during a twenty two year career with the paper. (from the RPS programme).

Ribblehead Viaduct - Dennis Thorpe (from the programme)

Dennis Thorpe gave an interesting talk about the last 100 years of photojournalism as shown by the photos in the Manchester Guardian.

He started with the story about how, by luck, a cache of old glass plates negatives were found when someone was exploring a wet darkroom just prior to it being cleared to allow use for digital photography. They turned out to be images by Doughty, who was the first staff photographer for the Guardian, until 1958. There have been a total of only 7 staff photographers for the Guardian in 100 years, but much of the archive was lost in the 1950’s having been stored in  warehouse to avoid bombing during WWII.  The first time photographs could be printed directly to a newspaper was in 1904, prior to that an engraving was made from the photograph and that was printed.

Dennis Thorpe showed a variety of early images, Edward VIIth in 1908, the first air show together with close-ups of ‘planes in 1909, which emphasised the extreme fragility of the aircraft and  prisoners of war in Cheshire in 1915. The photographer was then ‘called up’ and designed and taught the very early methods of aerial reconnaissance, using a camera controlled by levers. He then followed though the history of the images post war, including images of the burning of Cork, and battlefields in WWII. The seceding photographers were present at, and recorded, most major events throughout the 20th Century.

Dennis Thorpe himself had originally wanted to be a reporter, but managed to get a job as a photographers assistant, and eventually became a staff photographer himself. He has also taken a wide variety of photographs across the world and at home, including images of the inside of Lowry’s house just after Lowry died, men in the snow in Japan  and many famous people , such as Margaret Thatcher. While some of his pictures show a harsh reality, others are gentle and some have a very amusing edge to them.

1986 Tokyo, Dennis Thorpe

The talk today was based on an exhibition he curated called 'A Long Exposure: 100 Years of Guardian Photography'.  together with a book of the same name. There is a vast range of images, many are dark and brooding, and many were taken with with very limited ‘portable’ equipment available 100 years ago, but the scenes and the people could often have been taken this week

.

1984, Miner'sStrike, Manton Colliey, Dennis Thorpe

He say’s I’m not afraid of finding a sort of beauty in things……. I know the real world isn’t always beautiful, but I try to find it. And doing photography has helped me to do that.’ (Dennis Thorpe, Photographs 1950 –2000, Simon Hattenstone.)

Olivio Argenti

Olivio Argenti FRPS has travelled to more than fifty countries. His projects include:

• a street-photography project ―Traits d'union‖ in Tunisia;
• Losers of a forgotten conflict, a reportage in Azerbaijan and Armenia on refugees from the Nagorno-Karabakh;
• a reportage in Peru ―Atrapados [No way out] - Family violence and juvenile deviant behaviour in Lima (2005-2008), which combines photographic images with testimonials written by boys and girls met in gangs, drug rehabilitation centres, family houses and prisons;
• Wrestlers and Wrestling, a personal view on the world of Olympic wrestling (2006-2008).

He has received international awards and has published three books. His work has been exhibited in China, Colombia, Italy, Peru, Switzerland and Tunisia. (from the RPS programme)

From the RPS programme and also the book Atrapados by Olivio Argenti

Olivio Argenti gave a fascinating talk about his photographic learning curve and his present interests. He came relatively late to photography and  says ‘I originally took a descriptive approach looking for images to illustrate my work, then moved to black and white to express emotions, and now to narrative, how life can be hard, and bringing emotion into the story’.
‘Photography captures my soul… I want to let other people know what I feel is going on in the world’
‘I look for beauty, often there is suffering but beauty is .. capturing the pain in someone's eyes with dignity and respect… a moment that is unique’.
He then described and showed images of several projects he has been working on:

• Wrestling: a selection of images of wrestlers before and after their matches, including in training. They show a great physicality,  movement, and often a sense of pain and exhaustion together with pride and machismo.
• Refugees in the forgotten conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan with images of people from both sides. It is impossible to tell which are from which side, both are exhausted, and down-trodden.
• Atrapados – a long piece of work with the street children in Lima, where he talked to the people and got their stories and linked them with the photographs.Many are children who are put out of their families because of violence and abuse and find living with the gangs the only safety they have. Often they then go to a centre for 'rehabilitation’ where they are further abused. ‘a circle of poverty and violence they cannot break’.
• The Columbian Army Battalion de Sanidad -  is an on-going project looking at the rehabilitation of war wounded soldiers, often very severely injured, and thinking about what will happen to them in the long time.

Olivio says that to work with these people and to get meaningful photographs the ‘key things are: to have respect and sincerity, to say something they can hear,and to listen and not judge.’
The images ranged from the startlingly beautiful to ones that showed great despair.  The audience was left stunned and quiet for a few minutes at the end.  Many used extremes of contrast and movement, none were pretty but many will remain in my mind for a long time.. Olivio hopes to use his work to publicise the violence still common in the world. I wish him well and remain in awe of his courage and vision.
Words in italics are Olivio’s own.
I have his book  Atrapados, the words are in Italian, but are not needed to allow me to recall the fervour with which Olivio tells the children’s story and the pictures speak for themselves.

www.oliviioargenti.it

Brin–Braghi.J.Ingibergson

Bragi J. Ingibergsson FRPS (also known as Brin) is an amateur photographer, born in Iceland 1961. Photography has been his favourite hobby for a very long time, he got his first camera when he was 12 years old and has been taking photos ever since. Bragi travels a lot which fits well with his love for photography, since he is mostly interested in nature and landscapes. His work has been published far and wide and has won prizes in many photo contests, for example the overall prize in Digital Camera's photo competition 2009 which gave him the nomination "The Photographer of the year".. (Description from the RPS programme).

Phot by Brin, (from the Dunfermline weekend programme).

Notes from Brin’s talk: quotes in italics

‘its not only vision its sensation’
‘searching for the light’
‘find my creative self….. freeze the moment’
‘ the most important photos are not always the most obvious ones, they are the ones that make the viewer look for the meaning and ignite strong emotions’.
Brin grew up in the country in Iceland and now lives and works there. He says he feels it is important to know your camera well so that you can be relaxed when taking picture and that it is also important to spend time at a place, learning about it  and its history. You should assess the light and colour each time making ‘a photo in the mind, learning the colours and feeling’ so that when it comes to post-processing you knows what you are looking for in an image.
He describes three important features:

1. Light - one needs to watch the light carefully, especially in Iceland where it can change very fast, look for contrast in light and shadows and seize the one moment when the light is good.
2. Colour – colours should be part of the composition and support the main subject, being strong or soft according to the mood of the image
3. Lines – it is important to always ‘look at the environment in frames’ even without a camera to ‘train the eye’. You should use the lines in the photo to lead the eye around the picture and encourage the viewer to stay with the image for a while.

Brin described a photo as being similar to a poem, it is made up a many small details which you may not notice at first, but which are important, just like a poem is made up of individual words and phrases. The whole is the ‘filtered though the experience of the reader. In both a poem and a picture both metre and form are important to allow ones inner awareness’.
Brin illustrated his talk with a variety of photos of Icelandic scenery and wildlife. The colours and shapes were always striking, sometimes somewhat exaggerated, and always beautiful. He clearly communicated his love for his country and made me wish for the opportunity to travel there, even for a short time.

http://brin.1x.com - Brin's website

Burke and Norfolk

Simon Norfolk is a British photographer who has recently undertaken an extremely interesting project. He has undertaken a joint project on photographing Afghanistan and the effects of the war there with another photographer, John Burke. The unusual facet of this is that John Burke died in 1900. He had accompanied the British Expeditionary force to Afghanistan between 1878 and 1880, and taken images of the place, the people, both British and native, and the equipment used. Norfolk, who had been in Afghanistan 10 years ago, returned there and used Burkes’ images as a basis for his own, not replicating them completely , but aiming for a similar feel.

‘variations on a theme by John Burke’, to think ‘what would he photograph if he were there now?’ because he had such an inquisitive eye. So it was more kind of using him as a guide book, like  Lonely Planet Kabul 1880 edition’  (interview with Simon Norfolk for the magazine Don’t Panic.).http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/radar/simon-norfolk

The book is a very beautiful production with photographs by both intermingled.It is divided into 3 sections, the place, the people and the military (although they are not directly called that).

Sha Shaid , The Bala Hissar Gate. John Burke.

Jaw Akar Faizal Nahman and his daughter. Simon Norfolk.

Landholders and Laborers. John Burke.

A De-mining Team form the Mine Detection Centre, Kabul. Simon Norfolk.

and my personal favourite

Timur Shar's Mosque.

The book gives a fascinating glimpse into the Afghanistan of the past, and as it is now, there are probably more similarities than differences, in spite of the high rises and modern vehicles. The mountains still overshadow all, the land is as harsh and the people are as proud.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is probably one of the most well-known photographers there is, many of whose images are instantly recognizable, such as the man at Gare Saint-Lazare jumping over a puddle. He made the term  ‘decisive moment’ a familiar one, and was one of the founder members of Magnum. In his early years he was involved in the Surrealist Movement, who believed that the main purpose of art is to show instinct over reality, which may be achieved by removing an object from its usual environment to give an unusual clarity to it. Throughout his long career he was involved in both still photograph and making films. He was a very disciplined photographer and would frequently look for the perfect position, move to it and then wait for the subject to move into it. ‘To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second,the significance of an event as well as the precise organisation of forms which give the event its proper expression’ (Cartier-Bresson, The Decisive Moment, 1952).

 Madrid 1953

Cartier-Bresson photographed an enormous variety of subjects, from Communist China to office workers in New York, to portraits of famous personalities. His portraits often showed a gesture that was representative of the person, as is shown here in the portrait of George Balanchine.

Cartier-Bresson was always more interested in where he was going next and the next photo than what was happening to photographs he had already taken. His work, by the end, reached across the world and though  a lifetime of major cultural changes. He wrote in The Decisive Moment ‘ It is though living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.’

On looking at a large collection of Cartier-Bresson’s images very soon after looking at the images of Claude Cahun I was struck by the extreme difference between them, in spite of the similarities in their social class, imprisonment by Nazi Germany, time span (at least for the first half of Cartier-Bresson’s life) and early influence by the Surrealists.Cahun has ‘internalised’ her work, all is about self and changes to self, while Cartier-Bresson has ‘externalised’ his, all is about looking at the world with a clear, almost dispassionate, view.

I found Cartier-Bresson‘s images en masse  stunning. The range is fascinating, and the sheer clarity of his view amazing. Some are, inevitably, more engaging to me than others, but overall they are images I will return to regularly.

 Hamberg, Germany 1952-1953

(with thanks to my tutor  Alan Whetton for pointing me in this direction)

Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun (1894 -1954) was a writer, photographer and political activist who loved in Jessey during WWII. She was fascinate with gender and identity and took  a series of photographs, often self-portraits, that explore gender and her own identity, often portraying herself in a guise where it is difficult to immediately decide whether the image is of a male or female.

Cahun was heavily involved with the surrealists and this clearly affected her thinking, and was described as a 'curious spirit' by Andre Breton (letter to Claude Cahun, 1932). The surrealist view of women was unusual for the time as they were often shown as objects of men's desires, and it is interesting that although Cahun was involved with them many of her self-portraits are asexual, or at the very least, showing an unusual view of sexuality.

This exhibition of photographs is the first solo exhibition to be shown in the UK.  The prints are small, often only 6-8 inches  in height, therefore need close studying. The immediate impression that I was left with was of a kind of narcissistic collection, that although it avoided any overt sexuality actually emphasised it by its sheer absence, which I found disturbing. These are not images that I would wish on my living room wall, although there were a few I found strangely beautiful.

Dan Holdsworth–Blackout

Dan Holdsworth 1974 –.(http://www.danholdsworth.com)  is a contempory photographer who studied in London. He has had several solo and joint exhibitions. The latest is ‘Blackout’ at the Baltic Centre in Newcastle. It consists of a series series of 21 large-scale (226 x 177 cm) c-prints of  the other-worldly glaciers in Iceland that have taken up to a year to process and show detailed images with a black sky and an intense contrast with the mainly white or pale blue of the glaciers. The impact of the images is enormous and clearly demonstrates the cold and isolated nature that has been photographed. The effect is magical and overwhelming when standing surrounded by them.

I have recently been reading ‘the photograph as contempory art’ by Charlotte Cotton and am trying to work out what category this image fits into. It is certainly contempory and definitely ‘art’, well, beautiful,stunning and seen hanging on a gallery wall.  I think the description the fits most closely is ‘Deadpan’. This is described by Charlotte Cotton as ‘a cool, detached and keenly sharp type of photography’ with ‘monumental scale and breath-taking visual clarity.’ and ‘photography as a way of seeing beyond the limitations of individual perspective, a way of mapping the extent of forces, invisible from a single human standpoint, that govern the man-made and natural world.’ (Cotton, the photograph as contempory art, Chapter 3).

Seeing, Observing and Thinking – August Sander.

‘By means of seeing, observing and thinking, and with the aid of a camera and a date, we can capture world history and influence all humanity by means of the expressive potential of photography as a global language.’ August Sander, Photography as a Universal Language 1931.

August Sander (1876 – 1974) was a photographer who lived in Austria and Germany. His aim was to photograph series of ‘archetypes’ that described the Germanic people of his time. To that end he took thousands of portraits of people ranging from labourers, through tradesmen, artisans and professionals to the upper classes of society. These portraits were posed and often showed a background that would help to place the person in their work, such as a bricklayer carrying a hod or a pastry cook in the kitchen. He undertook a major project ‘People of the Twentieth Century’ with the aim of showing the individual as part of society and recording accurately the German people as a whole.

Sander also took many photographs of the countryside around his home, recording both natural beauty and the effects of human activity on the world. He took both distance pictures, such as ‘The Rhine near the Erpeler Ley rock (1930s)’ and details, for example, ‘Grapevine Snails (1930s)’.

A further series he undertook was of details of the human body such as hands.

It has been suggested that August Sander was the forerunner of many of the photographers of the later 20th Century such as Diane Arbus, and indeed he took a similar broad range of people including in his studies midgets, disabled people (blind) and circus performers. His portraits are, however, much more posed and formal and  less disturbing than hers.

On seeing a recent exhibition of his work I found that some of his portraits were very memorable such as ‘The Sage’ 1913 who was portrayed looking into space and dressed more like a wise countryman than a philosopher or an intellectual, and the ‘Red Cross Nurse, 1921’ who exuded an air of calm and placidity. There was also some interesting contrasts shown such as ‘The Soldier', 1940’ – newly uniformed and  confident as compared with ‘The Non-Commissioned Officer, 1944’ with a rumpled and worn uniform and a ‘1000 yard stare’ in his eyes.

                                                                                         The Soldier

Diane Arbus (1923-1971)

Reading the first chapters of The Photograph (Graham Clarke,1997) reminded me of seeing the Diane Arbus Exhibition at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh In May 2010. Seeing the photo of the twins immediately recalled the powerful impact of her photographs en masse. At the time I found the majority of them disturbing. This was not because of the types of people photographed as I work with disabled people on a daily basis, but because of the starkness of the images. This was overlaid with a consciousness that in the highly politically correct present time people would be very reluctant to take similar photographs because of a perceived lack of dignity. I suspect that these type of photographs were unusual then too  as when many of these were taken ‘asylums’ were part and parcel of everyday life, but also somewhere where disabled people were shut away from the general public awareness. In fact, many of the photographs of the learning disabled look as though they are delighting in being shot, this may be because of the level of intense interest Diane Arbus was showing them or simply because of a complete lack of self-consciousness.

“What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's.... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own” (Diane Arbus)

"There's a kind of rightness and wrongness and sometimes I like rightness and sometimes I like wrongness," (Diane Arbus)
Both photographs by Diane Arbus.