Photography in the Street and Studio

This was a study day accompanying the exhibition of the same title at the Tate Modern on Saturday 5 July.

The event started at 10.30 but I was late due to not having paid attention to the London Underground email telling me that Jubilee line trains would go no further than Green Park on Sunday. I had to change trains and go to Waterloo, then running along the Southbank for 15 minutes rather than being able to take the shorter walk from Southwark. I was further delayed by the lady at the entrance to the auditorium who insisted that I finish the cappuccino I had grabbed on the way before she allowed me in.

Anyway, I had only missed the introduction, and after getting a few strange looks for squeezing my way to somewhere in the middle of a rather full row of seats, the fun began.

The contribution by Steve Edwards entitled Documents and Pictures dealt with the development of realism in photography from its origin to the present. It touched on early (portrait, hence studio) photography keeping close to paintings in composition and subject matter, then freeing itself from this convention and finding its own feet. It ended with some rather open questions on the documentary value or perceived lack of it in street photography.

The second presentation, given by Russell Roberts, was about Mass Observation & Photography. It referred to the photographic movement of the same name in the UK during the 30ies and 40ies, focusing on the documentary nature of street photography but alerting to the fact that there were two approaches to documentary authenticity in the movement’s own photography. One was to take pictures of things as they were, purely as an objective observer, the other was to stage the photograph in order to convey the idea of a particular situation. I found this argument rather interesting.

Next came Bettina Kaufmann, one of the curators of the show, telling us about how the whole idea came about. Street and studio photography seem to be mutually exclusive, and the idea behind the exhibition is to show that in fact, both have been feeding off each other pretty much from the very beginning. This statement is illustrated with photographs from the early days of the medium to the present, mainly in chronological order, sometimes focusing more on a particular contrast between competing – or really complementary – tendencies of the day, like on the one hand August Sander’s portraits of working people in their own environment but posing stiffly for the camera, whereas Friedrich Seidenstücker pictured working men in the middle of their work, sometimes unaware that they were being photographed.

She went on to say that this was the first ever exploration of the theme and by no means intended to be comprehensive and final, but rather an attempt to get the debate started and to hopefully see further events dedicated to the subject.

There was time for lunch or a visit to the exhibition. I chose the latter but found that 1 1/2 hours was not quite enough to look at everything closely, especially after all the information I had been given during the morning.

The afternoon session started with Joy Gregory, a practicing photographer talking about her Cinderella Tours Europe show. It was a commission for the millennium and raised some interesting questions against the background of the more theoretical lectures of the morning. In view of her own background as a UK born photographer of Jamaican descent, her project focused on the identity of ethnic minorities, illustrated by interviews with Jamaicans and other Caribbeans about their ideas of Europe and Europeans, and then the counterpart, i.e. the ideas Europeans have about people elsewhere. She illustrated both with images from all over Europe, all containing a glamorous pair of high-heels she had brought back from the Caribbean, symbolizing the absent person and his or her idea of Europe, contrasted with images showing what Europeans understand to be Caribbean, like gollywogs in window displays.

I learned from this presentation that documenting a subject involves more than just gathering a few images of an interesting subject matter. It means being prepared to delve very deeply into your chosen subject and to structure your visual arguments well, constantly re-evaluating what is required, in order to do it justice in the end.

Stephen Bull talked about the development in celebrity photography since the 20ies, when actors and actresses were seen as demi-gods, to the current obsession with images of physical imperfections and misdemeanours of today’s stars. The interesting note here was that some of the lumpy bits of skin are as photo-shopped as the airbrushed perfection of advertising photography.

Karen Knorr ended the day with another practical project presentation, in her case taking images of posh properties, be they gentlemen’s clubs or museums or heritage sites, and trying to convey a special atmosphere by first including text with her images, then turning the text into some visual oddity in the image, something that didn’t belong into the scene to trip up the viewer, to finally producing complete fantasy images with wild animals or exotic birds (images of live or stuffed animals included digitally) seemingly taking over rooms and salons in mansions and castles. Her images are documentary in the architecture they depict but the rest is pure flight of fancy and, if I understood well, contains a healthy dose of ironic commentary about the people inhabiting or frequenting such places.

After each session there was a fair amount of time for questions from the audience, answered by a panel consisting of all the presenters of that particular session. There were some questions from people who, I think, wanted to impress either the presenters or the audience or even themselves by stringing together lots of lovely words of Greek or Latin origin but there were some down-to-earth contributions from people simply interested in photography, as well.

All in all, I found it a worthwhile experience and good value for money at £15, seeing as admission to the exhibition alone costs a tenner. I will definitely keep my eyes peeled for other similar events.

holdthatgallery

Tags: Art and Literature, Exhibitions

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 15:05 and is filed under Art Room . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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