SA made a very strong impression on me last time and I will admit to being mildly excited to return. I had a great time, and the opportunities for documentary photography and portrait photography were many and varied.

Nyanga Township, Balls to Poverty 2008

One obvious point about the photographs, which I so far have failed to mention, and that is an area of interest to me is the relationship of the subject to the camera and to the photographer. This is becoming of increasing interest to me, I think triggered by images of Walker Evans, such as City Lunch Counter or any of the Many Are Called Series. In the first the diners must have been aware of the Evans taking the photograph, yet Many Are Called was shot with a concealed camera. Taking photographs feels such an unnatural act yet individual response are varied, people have any easy relationship and others not, and how does that change when the act is concealed? I have no answers on this, but increasingly more questions.

Walker Evans – City Lunch Counter

Walker Evans – Many Are Called

Clearly the relationship between the camera, subject and photographer is more complicated than it appears on the surface.

Even before you take a picture, the camera has already made an impression on the subject. Surveying the surroundings or studio, things that appeal to the photographers interests are exerting their influence.

The general view of photography is that it is a sequential process, you point, you shoot and you print.

But my first thoughts are that are a number of issues at play when taking photographs. Consider the relationships that exist when taking the photograph.

The photographer and the camera
You control the camera and what pictures you take. At the same time, your camera controls your image. It tells people you are observing, constructing and recording. And the camera controls the photographers experiences.

The photographer and the subject
The photographer chooses their subject and what they want to take pictures of, and yet your subjects may choose you.

The camera and the subject
Photographers can feel that taking images offers a connection to their subject.
But the camera is big mechanical instrument between the photographer and the subject. Does it not serve as a barrier, could it not, threaten, offend, and make the subject nervous.

Overall this is an area of thought and practice that I need to develop more and offers huge scope for development.

With the use of the market as the venue, the printing of the flyers and the use of the free web services, I think we were all grateful to keep the costs to a minimum. This approach did not have a big impact on the quality of the exhibition as a whole, but there were compromises.

This in part was as much to do with the lack of time and the different levels of availability for people to be involved. Not knowing any of the group prior to the start of this term I made an effort to not push certain issues that I felt strongly about and allow others to come to their own conclusions. All though I am a generally relaxed individual and happy to discuss ideas and approaches, I often want to do things my way and this is not conducive for group working.

Come the official opening of the exhibition, I was very pleased that all exhibitors had made a good fist of producing work and overall it was a much stronger and coherent event than I thought it would be.

As a group we had generally worked well as a group and supportive of the others, and that whilst they may have been some moments of tension, there were no real fall outs. Looking back however, it is surprising how little we talked about what the content of the show would be and concentrated as a group almost exclusively on process.

I have found myself thinking more about the objectives and content of the project after it’s conclusion, that I did before. This may be because I had already locked on to the idea of this project regardless of need to complete work for this module, but I think it is more indicative of the way I work and learn. This is a point I need to come back to shortly.

I need to get to grips with the broader issues of this project first. In ” The Photograph” Clarke quotes Moeller “’To speak of documentary either as a discreet form of photographic practice or, alternatively, as an identifiable corpus of work is to run headlong into a morass of contradiction, confusion and ambiguity’, a position made more problematic by the way in which the increasing, sophistication of visual technology makes it difficult to know what is ‘real’ and what has been ‘faked’.”(Pge 163). Although speaking  most directly about war and the experience of it through photography, this argument clearly spells out the problems that all documentary photography has, and for me the ambiguity is the difficutly.
My objective with my photographs was to create a narrative of the subjects (individually and as a group) that was distinct from the mainstream perceptions and clichés. These views constructed and imbedded in the social and institutional consciousness. Yet through the process of discussion, negotiation and shooting there was a willingness on both sides to present images that address the narrative we wanted.

Clearly this is a process of manipulation as stark as that which I outlined in my statement, and the conclusion can only be that the idea that documentary photography is the truth is wrong and that documentary is at best a truth. And that maybe that is only a rhetorical device for dealing with confusion.

Possibly the only redeeming factor in this project is that it used a  process that enjoys the consent of it’s subjects.

Rut Blees Luxemburg has a new book “Commonsensual” published and a small exhibition of work this month.

Her work delves into the everyday and the overlooked, the environments that we see yet ignore and is a detailed exploration of the public spaces of cities.

There is something evocative and sensual about the images. They seem to encompass a scale in width and height that pulls you in and yet leaves the viewer to experience the different parts individually. I find them fascinating.

The presentation of the individuals was settled upon through discussion between myself and the subjects. The agreed objective was for people to view the subjects as individuals and not to view them as labels or types.

I had selected 8 images from the series and decided that they would be square 10″x10″ prints. The point of the series was about the repetition of a scene, and as space was limited, I would probably have been limited to a couple prints only. The size of the prints would also illicit different response. From a distance the display would be about the uniformity of the scenes whilst stepping in the viewers attention would shift to the individuals within the frame.

I went to John E. Wrights to explore the options of printing directly on to board, but time was against me and the quote of a minimum of £100 per image was a bit steep. I’ve used John E. Wrights a few times in the past and never been particularly happy with the outcome, but as I was there and didn’t want to schlep of to Vista, I decided to give it a go. They do offer a wider range of papers than the last time I used them, so I settled on a printing on 308grm photo rag paper mounted on to 5mm foamex. I opted for the Foamex as it is more rigid, and more resistant to humidty.

I am satisfied with the final prints, although if I hadn’t been so short of time, I would have run a few test prints on different papers to be sure.