‘Fragments of a vessel which are to be glued together must match one another in the smallest details although they need not be like one another.’
(Walter Benjamin, [1936] 1999, p.79)
The Walter Benjamin quote above expresses the idea that a collection should reflect a single coherent idea, but you’ll also need technical rigour to match the photographs to each other ‘in the smallest details’. Start by choosing your focal length, aperture and viewpoint combination in advance.
Visually, similarities correspond so they’re easy to look at, but be careful of duplicates because repetition is boring. Differences are interesting because they contrast, but randomly changing your framing or allowing a confusion of detail into your backgrounds will distract from the viewing.
Brief
Create a series of between six and ten photographs on one of the following subjects:
- Things
- Views
- Heads
Albert Renger-Patzsch’s photobook ‘The World is Beautiful’ upset Walter Benjamin when it first appeared in 1928 and he railed against it in his famous essay ‘A Short History of Photography’ (easily available on the internet). He thought that this kind of photography denied social contexts – ‘the world is beautiful’ because that’s all you’ve got to say about it. However, Renger- Patzsch’s book was originally called ‘Things’ and rather than present a superficial beauty the point was more to let things speak quietly for themselves.
In ’ひろしま hiroshima’ the Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako takes this approach when photographing clothing and other personal items collected from the atomic bomb site at Hiroshima. The photobook can be seen on Jörg Colberg’s Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/csVx_QRPvps?controls=0&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&loop=0&fs=0&hl=en&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Flearn.oca.ac.uk&widgetid=1Play Video.
In ‘Species’ OCA tutor Andrew Langford recalls the sense of dislocation that he experienced visiting natural history collections as a child,
‘These specimens were very carefully arranged within the total black picture space and, for me, evoked a personal memory as a child of visiting natural history collections and experiencing the highly detached, organizational systems of presentation. These systems seemed so at odds at the time with my real life sense of ‘the natural’ as a fully integrated phenomenon, to which I sensed that I was seamlessly connected’.
http://www.andrewlangford.co.uk/projects/species/
Ed Ruscha’s collection of views ‘26 Gasoline Stations’ became another point of origin in photography. If you’re curious about why read around it a little online to gain an understanding of it within its own time. http://www.tate.org.uk/about/projects/transforming-artist-books/summaries/edward-ruscha- twentysix-gasoline-stations-1963
And for a theoretical discussion on the distinction between landscapes and views have a look at ‘Photography’s Discursive Spaces: Landscape/View’ by Rosalind Krauss (also available online).
For ‘Views’ you’ll probably either need a driver or be prepared to do some walking. Either way if you keep the weight of your equipment to a minimum you’ll see more.
From deadpan views to deadpan heads: http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/
‘The resulting portraits aren’t what you’d normally expect from portraiture. The subjects are not engaging with me or with the camera, it is almost as if they are in a different world’.
(Bettina von Zwehl (2007) p71)
You can find more on von Zwehl’s approach to portraiture in Charlotte Cotton’s ‘The Photograph as Contemporary Art’ that you will have received when you started EYV.
Heads don’t have to be deadpan, or even human. There’s a fair amount of variation in Mårtin Lange’s ‘Citizens’ series but there is no questioning its overall visual coherence: https://martenlange.com/works/citizen/#1
Some of the examples given above are for collections of photographs, others for photographs of collections, but whichever way you go, your set will be stronger if it relates in some way to your interests in life and photography.
Research
“…In order to photograph with any degree of continuous passion, you must have a fascination for the subject…”
Bill Jay on ‘The Thing Itself’
Looking at the photographers mentioned above, I was drawn to Andrew Langford’s Species because of its abstract look at everyday objects and how they looked like cross-sections of shells and orchids.
I really like the symmetry in the everyday objects viewed from a different perspective.
26 Gasoline Stations by Ed Ruscha reminded me of the village petrol stations you see in the more rural parts of this country, not as shiny as the big name petrol companies, run down and kind of rustic. This could be an angle as there are a couple of independent garages near to where I live. During my research, I came across a modern tribute to Ruscha’s work by Eric Tabuchi, a French photographer, taken 45 years after the initial publication.
Initial ideas
Things to take from the brief:
- You’ll need technical rigour to match the photographs to each other ‘in the smallest details’
- Start by choosing your focal length, aperture and viewpoint combination in advance.
- Similarities correspond and are easy to look at, but be careful of duplicates because repetition is boring.
- Randomly changing your framing or allowing a confusion of detail into your backgrounds will distract from the viewing.
I will try to stick to these guidelines as much as I can with the equipment that I have.
Of the 3 subjects I wasn’t initially sure which to choose.
Heads: This was the the one that inspired me the least. Living in a small village limited my subject matter, not sure how the local residents would react to a bit of street photography and would I get the chance to get several together? Portraiture could be a possibility, with limited subjects.
Views: This seemed to be fairly open ended subject and gave options for the view from the windows of the house, to venturing further afield to the moors or the coast.
Things: this subject had me referring back to the Bill Jay quote about familiarity with your subject matter. This got me thinking about other interests of mine such as rugby, scuba diving, DIY, food and the garden.
Things
I decided to go for ‘Things’.
Andrew Langford’s Species had reminded me of some of the photography I have in one of my cookbooks from my previous life. Unlike most food photography, the shots in Modernist Cuisine are a bit more abstract and show the food and cooking processes in a whole new light.
This was given to me as a gift from my wife and I was instantly captivated by the tome’s imagery and how the shots had been composed.
The photographs were taken by Nathan Myhrvold, ex-Microsoft Research founder and prominent scientist. Myhrvold holds a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics, as well as a master’s degree in mathematical economics, from Princeton University. His master’s degree in geophysics and space physics, as well as his bachelor’s degree in mathematics, are from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Food and cooking have been passions of Myhrvold since childhood. While at Microsoft, he worked nights at a Seattle restaurant with chef Thierry Rautureau and then obtained a culinary degree at Ecole De La Varenne in Burgundy. In 2007, he founded The Cooking Lab, a culinary research laboratory, photo studio, and publishing company. In 2011, he published a five-volume, 2,500-page cookbook, Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. That book and its 2017 sequel of even greater length, Modernist Bread, both won James Beard cookbook awards. His one-volume book Modernist Cuisine at Home (2012) has been translated into seven languages. Building on his 2013 book The Photography of Modernist Cuisine, Myhrvold opened a gallery of his food photography in Las Vegas in 2017. Modernist Cuisine Galleries have since opened in New Orleans, Seattle, and La Jolla.
Source: http://www.nathanmyhrvold.com/index.php/about
Of the images created by Myhrvold, the macro shots were probably the ones that I could take inspiration from even though I don’t own a macro lens…yet! I wanted to see what I could create in a similar vein to this. I wanted to create something that wouldn’t be instantly recognisable and somewhat abstract at first where the eye initially can’t distinguish what it is looking at.
Without a dedicated macro lens I’d have to make do with what I had.
I wanted to create something using food, so I started with raiding the fridge. This didn’t prove too fruitful(pardon the pun!) and all I could find was some broccoli. But I thought that I could at least practice on the broccoli and see what I could get from the greengrocer’s later in the week. I was surprised what I could achieve with the lens I had…
I was really happy with the abstract feel of this shot. I wasn’t sure to use it in full colour or black and white, which I also liked…
Next was a trip to the shops to try and find something a little more exotic than some broccoli! My trip was reasonably successful, as much as it could be in sleepy Devon and I tried to recreate my earlier success with the brassica.
I found it hard to recreate an image in a similar style to my first image and couldn’t achieve the same success in black and white. This answered the question about colour or black and white. The ‘collection’ idea would come from the subject matter rather than the image style due to my lack of success replicating my initial success.
I decided upon playing with different scales and visual depth to add interest to the subsequent images with varying success.
The Collection
Reflection
Once I found a direction that I could use I found this assignment enjoyable. I was impressed with what a telephoto lens could achieve in regards to macro/micro photography. The level of detail that could be seen and the depth of field that could be achieved, especially at such high magnification and zoom. I also liked the way that it isn’t completely obvious in some of the shots what the subject is. I could have gone a step further and just used black and white imagery, but I don’t think I could’ve achieved the same amount of contrast and vibrance that the coloured versions give.
I personally think that my initial broccoli image is the strongest and chives what I set out to do. The others aren’t as strong, but they do work as a collection.
References
The Online Photographer. 2021. Bill Jay on ‘The Thing Itself’. [online] Available at: <https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2020/07/bill-jay-on-the-thing-itself.html> [Accessed 22 June 2021].
Andrew Langford BA MA PhD. 2021. Species (1999-2002) – Andrew Langford BA MA PhD. [online] Available at: <http://www.andrewlangford.co.uk/projects/species/> [Accessed 22 June 2021].
LensCulture, E., 2021. Twentysix Abandoned Gasoline Stations – Photographs by Eric Tabuchi | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: <https://www.lensculture.com/articles/eric-tabuchi-twentysix-abandoned-gasoline-stations> [Accessed 22 June 2021].
Food & Wine. 2021. 8 Crazy-Smart Kitchen Tips from the Team Behind Modernist Cuisine. [online] Available at: <https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/8-crazy-smart-kitchen-tips-team-behind-modernist-cuisine> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
Modernist Cuisine. 2021. The Photography of Modernist Cuisine – Modernist Cuisine. [online] Available at: <https://modernistcuisine.com/books/photography-of-modernist-cuisine/> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
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