Teargas, Targets and Tiny Teeth

After the Haiku reviews for the last le pub session, I wasn't sure what to do for the latest offering.  My favourites ideas were: in the style of James Joyce's, Ulysses (breaking conventional rules of punctuation) or as a series of Who's Who entries...  But with a 3,500 word lit review outstanding and two projects to finish, I thought...  Don't try to be clever, just write something/anything.   Apologies for the delay in getting this up here: I've been a bit busy.

The evening's photographers were Ryan Grimley,  Louise Hobson, Jack Latham, Sam Laughlin and Tim Sayer.  For some reason, no Photo Art students nor PFA students chose to show this month...

I'll start with Sam Laughlin.  What do I know about Laughlin and his work?  Well...  He has the reputation of being incredibly detailed, precise, well organised, thorough, knowledgeable about kit and processes.  He can talk about the way light can hit a lens or paper like a zealot peddling the afterlife.  Some would say he's a bit of a photo-nerd, but I think it is more than that, it goes deeper: he's a man in love with Photography.  Watch out any future partner – you will have stiff competition!  Anyway, his work reflects this ability to focus, to seek for perfection.  In this, his final year at Newport, he has worked with black and white large format.  He has worked at night with long exposures, or in his home-made studio, with meticulous detail.  If his work is 'Documentary' it is definitely 'Conceptual'.  He is an artist and one day his work will hang in shows that aren't just about the photograph.

 So, it was a real surprise for many people to see the colour work, 'Teargas Landscapes'.  I had seen them before and even on this second outing, they still made me smile.  Although of a dark subject (he shot them during a riot in Italy), they are beautiful.  Trails of mist-like vapour soften the landscape; there is no sign of riot police, nor protesters and it is only the title which gives a hint of what was going on.  Many photographers, especially those with an education that includes 'the narrative' would have made very stereotypical shots, of arms raised in anger, faces contorted by screams and shouts.  Missiles would have been caught flying, someone would have been grabbed by a policeman, blood would appear.  Laughlin's pictures, made with a fine artist's eye avoid all of the clichés.  Gorgeous.

The following image from the series is a temporary addition...  Until I can work out how to get real copies...

You can read a review of Laughlin's other le pub slot at: http://fothphoto.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/night-of-concepts.html

Ryan Grimley  is in the 2nd year of the Doc Phot course and has recently been working on a small Danish island (I won't tell you where – I wouldn't want to start a tourist invasion.)  The selection of images he shared are part of a wider edit, with the final choices for the set yet to be made.  The work clearly communicated that this was a quiet place, where the pace of life is slow.  A man walks along the road carrying a tuba – it turns out that he hoped to start an orchestra or band on the island;  football goals are placed close to one another, unused as the island's team no longer has enough players; and a child sits, solitary in a changing room, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

It is clear to me, that this journey was not just about finding out about the island and the life of its inhabitants (locals are worried about the school closing and the young people leaving for the mainland), but also offered Grimley a chance to develop his own working practices.  Even in this edit, you can see the experimentation, the searching for a strategy and artistic style.  The original two week shoot was extended to over four weeks, in response to this learning process and the images are stronger as a result.

Jack Latham's 'Pink Flamingo' series, shot along the Oregon Trail earlier this year is also about a journey, but this time an actual road trip of 5000  miles.  During the course of one month he drove, parked up and photographed anything that he found interesting, from the familiar shopping mall 'parking lot' and fast food 'joints' to prayer gardens dominated by 30ft high models of the Virgin Mary.  His work is about the landscape and what man has done to it, but also is about the people he meets and what connects us all.  He's having a conversation with this part of America, and its a conversation which it is a pleasure to listen in on.  

Now, there is nothing new about this sort of project.  I am a big fan of Alec Soth's work and there were definitely echoes of Soth in Latham's project; the question is – could this actually be avoided when working in daylight on an American journey and shooting 10 x 8?  I need to be clear at this point – the comparison and observation are not criticisms as ultimately, for me, the image is the thing: if I like it/appreciate it/am intrigued by it, well I don't particularly mind if it looks as though it might have been made by one of my 'heroes'.  I haven't looked at Latham's work in enough depth and detail (it's hard to do this when images are presented as a powerpoint), but I think that there was a difference in tone between them and the work of Soth.  Maybe it was the muted palette in many of the images, or the distance between camera and subject...  I'll have to get back to you on this one.  Or even better, check out the work for yourself (link to website is at the bottom of the review.)

The most lively debate about the pictures concerned one of Latham's portraits.  Made of a woman and her small dog, the image showed the sign of a well known fast food chain in the background.  The woman was rather large and one inference that could be drawn from the composition was that her size was directly related to a liking for burgers and fries.  Latham was horrified by this – when making the photograph, his eyes were on the woman and her canine friend and he did not notice the sign with its negative cultural connotations behind.  He plans to remove the sign from the image when worked on digitally.  Although I understand his reservations – he doesn't want his subject to think he was 'making fun' of her, or that he was trying to make a statement about overweight Americans and their fast-food diet – I think he should leave the image as it is.  To remove the sign would take away a couple of layers of depth.

You can read more about Jack Latham in a previous le pub review:  http://fothphoto.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/happy-valentines-day.html

Louise Hobson 's work has a particular and personal resonance for me: I am from forces stock.  Grandfather, father, two uncles, aunt, two cousins – all served or are serving in H.M. Forces.  I am an army brat.  I get a bit teary-eyed each time there is a 'Welcome Home' parade, or news of another fatality.  I just have to see a green uniform and I go all funny.  So, Hobson's work about her brother and his life in the Marines interested me very much.  

For those who haven't seen 'H Hour', this is not a piece of work designed to give us an impression of the everyday life of a soldier, in fact there isn't a single picture of a person anywhere within the set.  But Hobson does give a sense of the waiting and the preparation that goes on before troops are deployed to combat zones.  Her images lead us into the unfamiliar world of the training zones and she invites us to imagine how her brother and his colleagues interact within their environments.

Hobson's intention is to talk about the the journey her brother is making and it starts back at home.  We see a target built in the woods behind their family's house, a wall hanging in their kitchen detailing an idyllic village.  She then jumps to the impersonal details of a military bedroom before moving out into the training grounds themselves.  For me there is a problem with the suddenness of the shift: I needed more images about his connection to the family home in order to really appreciate his new experience and how different it is.  (We spoke about this at the end of the Le Pub session and this 'weakness' – my word and not hers – may be rectified in her final edit.)

The most successful images for me were the ones made on the gloomy days; the muted palette creates an atmosphere of calm and control and yet, of foreboding.  Something is going to happen in these spaces and it's going to be serious.  The square format holds the subject safe (does that sound a bit odd?)  I really like her choice of format and the way the images are composed.  I am less keen on the ones made in the mock up of the Afghan village.  Shot in harsh sunlight (appropriate I guess), they almost seem to have been made by a different photographer.  There is a brutality to many of them which is perhaps deliberate – after all, this is the true training ground for current conflicts.  Hobson's brother is due to be deployed to Afghanistan and on a subliminal level, perhaps she is expressing a strong reaction to this.  

Finally, we come to the phenomenon that is Tim Sayer.  In the history of the Documentary Course I am guessing that there has never been a student like him...  

But, where to start...  Probably at the end of the le pub night...  On the way home, I turned to one of my Italian guests (lovely students over from the Studio Marangoni in Florence) and asked what they thought of the night.  They loved it.  I asked which photographers they particularly liked and they told me.  Then I asked what they thought about Tim's work:

Me: So...  Urm...  What did you think of Tim's work.

A:  You can't call it work.

Me: Yes you can.  He works hard to make his pictures.  They are staged.  He makes props.  It

takes a long time to organise his shoots.  It is work.

A: So, he 'works hard', but he does not make work.

And this for me is one of the central issues when considering Sayer's output as a photographer.  I can see the effort he puts in, but like my Italian guests, I don't really appreciate the outcome.  

Taken singly, some of the images are actually very funny (the mother snorting coke from the belly of her baby is so wrong it is hilarious), but I just don't get the joke in many of them.  Without the narration that accompanied the images and powered the post-show discussion, they just don't make sense.  This is perhaps a reflection of my own naivety, but also highlights a real problem with the work – Sayer needs his viewers to have a certain level of background knowledge or experience to read the details within the image and appreciate fully what is going on.

The fundamental premise of the work and how it will be presented – as a series of greetings cards available on-line is pretty clever.  Ultimately, visitors to his website will be able to 'enjoy' cards that could be used to mark a range of occasions such as the birth of a child, or getting a new job.  Clicking on any of the 'cards' will then lead the viewer along to a new thread and a new project.  Choose a 'sweet sixteen' card, you will be led to a series of black and white large format nudes entitled, 'Decline of the Pubic Landscape' in which Sayer displays a variety of pubic barbering styles to comment on the deforestation of the Amazonian rain-forest.  Select 'With Deepest Sympathy' and you go to the 'Polishing a Turd' series.  Other cards will take you on alternative journeys into Sayer's imagination and view of the world.  For many people, the site will be a very interesting and engaging experience.

Sayer's aesthetic style is deliberately crude, which suits the images perfectly.  This is bad taste created by someone who really cares about it; there is no subtlety here.  In many of the images, the lighting is hard, aggressive and obviously artificial.  The 'I shot in 5 x 4 so it must be Art' Pubic Landscapes appear casually composed: we see crumpled clothes in the background which serve no purpose.  Even though the lower half of a naked woman is prone for the camera, there is nothing sexy, nor beautiful about the images.  If he's being truthful about the politics, then this is politics with no spin.  If he isn't, then the irony is cheap.

When I think that Sayer is just about to graduate, I wonder how on earth the tutors are going to mark his work.  I wouldn't like to be in their position.  When I consider his future, I imagine a series of novelty books to be sold at Christmas-time; cards purchased and passed on by blokes with a dodgy sense of humour and a career as a stand-up comedian with photography and photographers as his subject.  If he can fine tune his material, stripping out the jokes that are based on the most obvious photographic stereotypes, I can see the development of a unique comic act.  Coming soon to a comedy festival near you: Tim Sayer Polishing his Turds.

If you want to see more of the work (and I am sure that you will) check out the following:


Sam Laughlin:  http://samlaughlin.co.uk/


Jack Latham:  http://www.jacklatham.com/


Louise Hobson:  http://www.louisehobson.co.uk/


Ryan Grimley - site under construction.


Tim Sayer: Website is under construction.  But you can check out another Tim Sayer at:  http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/art-im-tim-and-im-an-artoholic-1074303.html

Haiku Reviews Part III

Work by Kristian Saunders, owner of a most spectacular new beer-can crunching dog:

Stills - visit the past.
Raw, bold, monochrome tension;
Lost community.


And then there is one more...  

Work by third year PFA student, Kaha.  Unfortunately, she hasn't replied to my request for anything to post on the blog - so the review will have to stand on its own.  In some ways, this was the hardest to write...

Even in haiku,
Nothing really worth saying:
Music Video.

Haiku Reviews Part II

Images by Sameli Sivonen:

Lock up your chickens,

he transforms eggs into stars:

Art from the mundane.

https://www.facebook.com/photosbysameli




Images by Alexander Norton:

Family album

new made with an artist's eye.

Perfect shadow.  Bliss.

http://cargocollective.com/alexandernorton

Haiku Reviews Part I

Strong boys open up,
the camera's bold gaze shows
their gentle beauty.

http://www.johanjonsson.dk/

To catch the true song
living in each frightened soul
takes stillness and skill.

Images by Briony Jane Oates (web address to follow)

Next review will be in Haiku...

I've been thinking about the purpose of this little blogette and the fact that somewhere in the tag-line I announce it to be a place for 'musing' about photography related things...  How did it then become so focused on Le Pub reviews (of too many words)?  It seems to me that at the moment, I am not doing enough mind-wandering around photography and this is an assertion that I SHALL START!

So, first stage in the plan is to shift focus away from the serious word count...  Next Le Pub reviews will be in Haiku...  If I can do it.  Three lines, seventeen syllables and a pattern of 5, 7, 5...

Happy Valentine's Day

What to do on a cold, blustery and WET Saturday afternoon in uptown Newport?  What will warm the cockles of my chilly little heart and take me away from my garret room view of stripped trees and sludge-brown roof tiles?  Ah, I know: I shall think of romance, of St Valentine and a recent Tuesday evening of carefully chosen tunes, intimate contact and gifts being exchanged.  No: not a meal with my lover, but the latest Le Pub Photo Extravaganza which just happened to be scheduled for February 14th.

The evening didn't start with romance though: no heady positivity and soft focus vibe from James Kieran Doran.  In fact, he got us ready and all set for doom and gloom with the title of his work, 'We Live, We Influence.  We Die, We Vanish'.  The Doc Phot 2nd year was very honest about the personal nature of the work charting his own emotional and thought journey.  His admission of being pessimistic and negative was supposed to be reflected in the images, but I didn't really get this at all and actually, this wasn't a problem.  Doran's work was meant to say, 'This is me; this is how I feel, but you might feel differently and read the images differently' and I did. 

The 'journey' along a disused railway line took the view through paths overhung by threatening branches, under bridges and out into the open.  An alternative reading could be that the rich palette of browns and greens speak of abundance (even in Winter) and a promise of yet more life to come in the future.  He wanted to 'use landscape to illustrate the cruel fact of mortality', but actually he simply made me want to go for a walk in the same environment myself!  The work could also be seen politically: this line once served the industry of Ebbw Vale, an industry which supported thousands of workers and their families.  With the destruction of the British Steel industry, the plants closed down and have since been demolished; all that remains are gaps in the landscape and the ghost of the railway.

(Apologies for the 'grab and paste' images and the fact they are not necessarily in the right order...)

And now for something completely different:  Eugenijus Giena Barzdžius' portraits of monks from Palendriai Monastery of St. Benedict.  Presented as 'work in progress', the series will eventually form part of a larger body of work which focuses on the spiritual community in Lithuania.  The photographer's strategy was to remove the monks from the context of their surroundings, in order that the viewer could focus on the subject without distraction.  Presented as individual portraits, shot with controlled studio lighting (Barzdžius was able to explain EXACTLY what he did – including distances between subject and light source) we notice how each man holds himself and how each black garment falls; we see the twinkle in one monk's eye and the tension held in another's neck.  There is a respectful intimacy to the portraits, we are close enough in our imagination to reach out and touch the hem of their garments (out of shot) and perhaps attain some kind of absolution.

It would have been so easy to produce a series of images which are the cliché of religious portraiture, but  Barzdžius manages to avoid this.  There is no 'light from Heaven' bathing each man in metaphorical glory; the lighting is more subtle than this.  By shooting the bodies 'side on' and allowing each man to look where he wishes, we are allowed to see a little of the private world; the monks are not instructed to look directly in to camera and therefore seem more 'real': they are individuals who have made a pact with God, rather than just representatives of faith.

My favourite is definitely the portrait of Brother Kazimieras: there is something about the life in his eyes that suggests a monk with a sense of humour and I am strangely drawn to the delicate folds in his neck.  Is that a bit odd?  (Let's leave that as a rhetorical question, shall we.)

The evening then shifted from the contemplative and holy to the cruelty of a political system which treats women as breeders who need to be controlled (almost at any cost.)  Claire Kern's work, made in India and entitled 'Silent Genocide' deals with the sterilisation of Tibetan women as part of the Chinese policy to control population numbers.  The body of work which was over a year in the organisation, saw Claire in India for three months last year, befriending Tibetan women who had fled their home country and who were seeking refuge in India.  Presented as a multi-media piece, the photographer offered a series of photographs accompanied by harrowing text and a soundtrack made up of birdsong and first person testimony (untranslated.)

The combination of the simple, almost macro close-ups of eyes, scars and jewellery and the sound of real women sharing their stories was a powerful combination.  The images hinted at lives led, hopes shattered and dreams yet to come; the musicality of the speech patterns played with imaginations and invited the audience to write each individual's story.  One fellow photographer summed up their response to the work with the phrase, 'It hits me quite hard' and another acknowledged how the strategy 'makes you search harder for the meaning.'

The discussion surrounding the issues highlighted in the work was the longest of the night and it was fascinating to find out more about how Kern worked.  She shared with us stories of political prisoners and the horrors of the 'Chinese Ring' and had a powerful effect one women and men alike.

After the last Le Pub session, I described three of the contributors as 'The Big Boys', a tongue-in-cheek bit of nomenclature which was meant to reflect their status within student photographic practice and now I find myself of adding another of their cohort to the 'gang'.  Jack Latham's sensitive project about his grandmother and the loss of her health and home was powerful, moving and memorable.  

I particularly loved the colour images made inside the walls of her former family home and felt more than one little twinge of emotion when I thought about the personal objects left behind to be destroyed by rising damp and the property developers loitering aggressively on the sidelines.  What is it about a cardboard box and a paper carrier bag filled with possessions on a bare mattress that is so powerful?  Actually, it isn't just those objects which literally suggest a life packed up, but it's the strange light fitting with its shade that appears to have  a craned neck as it searches the room for someone to illuminate.  I'm guessing that this used to be grandma's reading light: how sad that it is now redundant.

Latham forces us to look at the stains on walls and floors, on a chair which once was comfortable and a vacuum cleaner leaning in a corner.  Quiet elements of domesticity, marooned in the silence of the empty home.  Whilst the work is personal and filled with love for his own grandmother (now in her 90s and living with his family), it also stands for every older person who is forced to make a choice, who needs to leave their own home to live out the remains of their days in a different form of accommodation.  This usually requires 'downsizing', a curiously unemotional term for something which can be so incredibly distressing and Latham's images make us imagine what this would be like.  

'Empty Houses' is actually in three parts.  The second is further large format images, but this time outside the home and shot in black and white.  We see the remains of his grandmother's garden – the overgrown brambles and trees and plants cut back (shockingly, by the potential developers who did not have permission to enter the land and wreak havoc.)  The skeletal interweaving of plant-life reflects the chaos and destruction of the Eden that used to be so important.  

In the Q & A session afterwards, Latham was disparaging about the inclusion of the single telegraph pole standing cruciform in the back ground of more than one image: he hadn't even noticed it when composing the original frame, only discovering the shape on processing and printing the negative.  He referred to the cliché of the religious iconography and poked gentle fun at himself for his lack of observation.  My feeling is that sometimes a cliché is absolutely fine within an image and he really shouldn't be so hard on himself – after all, he is a big boy now.

Finally, the series ended with a picture of his new born niece Ruby.  He described his work as being similar to poetry – 'It doesn't say a lot, but it can suggest many things': the little girl invites the viewer/reader to consider the obvious ideas such as new life and hope, but perhaps too the idea that it isn't actually the material things that are truly important in life – it is the people we love.

Onto Oliver Norcott, 1st year Photo Art...  Norcott presented work that was designed to show his development as an Artist, and his move from Graphic Design towards a style which incorporates photography and other art forms.  He was obviously a very good designer and if I were him, I'd be feeling pretty confident about a future marriage between the different disciplines.

The work on Reality and Representation, using the 3d mirrored cube amongst the natural world was a big hit with some of the audience.  Aesthetically playful, the images were inspired by 'Plato's Allegory of the Cave', but as I don't know what this is and I haven't got the time at the moment to find out, I can't comment on the work's success in relation to philosophical ideas!  (Call myself a 'reviewer'?)  Another viewer suggested that the work was an exploration of photography itself and the importance of the mirror within the camera, helping the artist to reflect upon the world and its concerns. 

However, I did understand the work on 'Postmodern Dystopia' -well, the dystopia that is the large out of town supermarket.  The headless bodies of staff and customers are both unsettling and 'real'.  The brutal cropping speaks of a faceless, brainless humanity moving amongst the aisles.  But how many of us do actually look down and refuse to make eye contact when in those places?  How about a challenge – next time we go to Tesco or Sainsbury's smile at and say hello to everyone...

Norcott confessed that he likes visual experimentation; joining the Photo Art course has allowed him to explore what it means to be restricted to photographic processes.  To be tied to one discipline could be seen as a hindrance, but to Norcott it should bring real freedom.  I look forward to seeing his work in the third year!

Meg Beaumont offered a gentle and rather lovely end to the evening.  The work in progress that 'really is not finished' came with apologies and a plea to 'not rip me apart'.  The audience, already in a fine mood after a series of discussions and a few drinks was very happy to oblige.  It was Beaumont's work that made me remember it was Valentine's night as so many of the images were PRETTY.  Now, don't even begin to assume that I mean this in a negative way and that I am suggesting a saccharine, easy to swallow sort of aesthetic – not at all – I just mean that the work was visually and emotionally rather lovely and many of the images made me feel all warm and fluffy inside.

I can't remember who said that good work should elicit some sort of emotional response in the viewer (if it comes back to me I will let you know), but these uncomplicated images of coast paths, flowers and objects associated with beach huts definitely moved me.  It could have been her strategy of using a 1950's Ilford Sporty and the resultant softness of focus that suggested a dreaming and other worldliness of her experience; it could have been the slightly surreal colour palette – but whatever it was, she had me hooked.  I absolutely loved the incorporation of family slides into her work – an unidentified woman resplendent in bathing costume pins down 'her man' to the grass, her foot firmly planted against his chest.  He is bare chested, yet still wears his rather smart trousers: rather coy in the face of such a potentially amorous attack.  The image is so wonderfully joyous and innocent and I wish the world were still the same in many ways.

Later work becomes more enigmatic, and Beaumont captures bird footprints on the ground following the death of a beloved grandma (grandmothers are proving incredibly important to our photographers: if you still have one, grab her and hug her!)  We see flock wallpaper and gently billowing curtains.  The work talks about memory and nostalgia, about how things change and shift and how photography can help capture moments and hints of moments so that they won't be lost.

The work is truly lovely.

..................................................

p.s. Additional highlights of the evening included the rather successful print swap and the mobile phone link with a certain Mr Norton who was unable to attend the event in person.  Thanks Alex, once again, your contributions brought a smile to our faces.


http://www.ffotogallery.org/book-arts-fayre-2012

Interested to see more?  Here are some links

Jack Latham:                       http://www.jacklatham.com/

Giena:                                   http://www.giena.lt

Meg Beaumont:                  http://hellomegbeau.tumblr.com/

Claire Kern:                          http://clairekern.wordpress.com/

James Kieran Doran:         http://cargocollective.com/jameskieran#/We-Live-We-Influence-We-Die-We-Vanish

Palendriai Monastery of St. Benedict:  http://www.palendriai.lt/#1

Tibet and the control of birth rate:         http://www.tibet.org/Activism/Rights/birthcontrol.html

p.p.s. Don't forget ffotogallery's Book Arts Fayre on Saturday 25th Feb...  You'll be able to purchase work by some of this week's featured artists and many others.

http://www.ffotogallery.org/book-arts-fayre-2012