Month: April 2020

Developing a Sequence

| Phil Hill
Figure 1. Phil Hill (March – April, 2020) Cephas, primary school caretaker and Window image.

I have found editing my WIPP quite challenging in create a cohesive narrative that others are able to follow and understand.  I have been quite keen to create a narrative that interlinks all of the elements that I have photographing: My environment, the sale of my house, portraits of people in my community, how we are now living with Covid-19. However, due to the disparate nature of the work the sequencing only truly makes sense to me. Initial editing together, I put together portraits with the abstract windows (Fig. 1), which received a positive initial response from my peers during a webinar, however it was noted during this critique that I might want to explore putting some space and distance between these images to see how they might ready differently. It was also noted that in isolation the meaning of my work was not coming through with the sequence I put forward.

Figure 2. Phil Hill (March, 2020) Darcie colouring during the daily briefing and an empty swing set next to a quote from ‘In Praise of Shadows’
Figure 3. Phil Hill (March – April, 2020) Light reflection onto the kitchen floor and the for sale sign next to the text in the estate listing.

I aimed to develop my approach by incorporating some text to contextualise my images and create a sense of my dominant reading and intent. Here I took elements from my research, for example a quote from the book ‘In Praise of Shadows’ (Tanzinaki, 2001, p. 62), which I felt summed up the need for all of the community to retreat into the home as the Covid-19 crisis developed (Fig. 2) and is an ode to the beauty of domestic aesthetics. I also wanted to create another development in how I used the estate agent text, which aimed to create a link to my own disconnect with the community, owing to the lack of being able to put down roots (Fig. 3), this was originally at the core of my approach to my project, inspired by my research into the idea of social capital, where Robert Putnam states: “Nevertheless, for people as for plants, frequent repotting disrupts root systems. It takes time for a mobile individual to put down roots. As a result, residential stability is strongly associated with civic engagement” (Putnam, 2000, p. 204), my own link to community had been continually disrupted because of regular travel and moving from house share to house share. I also attempted to include a couple of quotes collected from other forms of community: via community social media platform ‘Nextdoor’ (Fig. 4), and a headline from the local Watford Observer Newspaper (Fig. 5), which aimed to bring more of the local community into my sequence and edit. Lastly, I also put the text and quotes onto a muted yellow page, which was to create an intertextual hint at the way leaflets and directories, such as the Yellow Pages display information for the community which they serve.

Figure 4. Phil Hill (April, 2020) Site of a police raid after the discovery of a “Plant Farm” to grow cannabis, which was shared on social media site ‘NextDoor’
Figure 5. Phil Hill (March – April, 2020) construction happening within the community that surrounds my home next to a quote from a Watford Observer article “Watford’s Manhattan” (Collins, 2019),

Again, I found that the initial reaction from my peers was on the whole quite positive, Michelle found however that my approach was still confused, which potentially in part was linked to how she viewed my presentation on my work and the discussion on my intent, which at this stage is potentially not quite synchronous. I started my oral presentation by stating that my project is about community connection and connective decline, which in part is a way of considering the way that I fit into it, or have not fitted in. This is not completely obvious in my presentation yet, which looked at the theory quite heavily. One of the main points of feedback that I have received from my presentation was that I really need to bring the focus of my review back onto my own practice wherever possible and relevant to the theory, or how I actually apply it. Michelle’s feedback was extremely valuable in getting me to consider that I might actually start to create more of a synergy between the way I am explaining my intent and the way that I am showing it through my WIPP.

Additional feedback on the way that I created this layout was that there is potentially too much disparate imagery happing within the context of this WIPP and potentially less is more when it comes to the edit. I had further discussion with Michelle who suggested that I could resolve this by splitting the portfolio and editing two bodies of work and use the mitigating statement to justify the reasoning behind this, which would be the impact that covid-19 has had on the direction of my work.

WIPP Evolution

Figure 6. Phil Hill (February & April, 2020) ‘Clare, volunteer litter picker at Harebreaks wood in Watford’ and ‘Window #2214’

Following from this feedback, I have decided to consider the connection to community again. My original intention was to explore the idea of my connection to community, I wanted to shoot portraits of people within my local community as they exist and operated within the community, which is also linked to the idea of social capital and the relationships that allow it to function (Fig. 6). These are also all of the people that I live idiorythmically, in the same space, the same community, yet are unaware of who they are and what they do, which considers the social abstract.

Figure 6. Phil Hill (February & April, 2020) ‘Helen, volunteer litter picker at Harebreaks wood in Watford’ and ‘Window #2233’
Figure 8. Phil Hill (March – April) ‘Stephen, member of the Watford Deaf Society’ and ‘Window #2082’
Figure 9. Phil Hill (March & April, 2020) ‘Mark at Elim Food Bank’ and ‘Window #2225’

For example, Clare, who volunteers to clear litter from a local woodland (Fig. 7) so that it can be enjoyed by the wider community; when something is discarded, it becomes someone else’s problem, do we ever consider that person that actually comes along to collect it? Stephen, a prominent member of the Watford deaf society (Fig. 8), exists in a hearing world not built for him to easily operate. Mark who has been attending the food bank across the street from my house for the last 19 years and is also a patron (Fig. 9). These examples, are all people who exist within my community, and up until now I was unconcerned with the details of their individual rhythm (Johansen-Stene, et al., 2018, p. 1).

Voyeurism

There is a voyeuristic nature to the portraits that I am presenting here, that until now, I have been unaware of their idiorrhythmic existence and now choose to engage with. With these images, I am still not fully part of the community that I photographing, it is more of a topology of subjects that make the community around me. Potentially, the natural evolution of this work would be to go into greater depth with these subjects to truly understand the sense of community they have and I do not. However, the interruption of Covid-19 has had a fundamental impact on the community and inevitably on my project, yet I do not see this change as detrimental. I have been considering the idiorhythmic and the isolation presents an opportunity to photograph my own individual rhythm. By focussing on my windows, I can continue the voyeuristic connection that is somewhat present in my portraits. In this new edit of the work, I have placed my most abstract window images next to the portraits (Fig. 7,8,9), to create a heightened sense of the voyeuristic. This also serves to place me into the work, potentially resolving the challenge of showing my connection. The abstract series of windows are from my house and are my only connection with the community, my view of the outside world. In essence, this is now my connection to the community. Yet, as a society, we have been asked to stay indoors, which again brings me back to how Barthes view the idea of the rectangle being the most basic form of power (Barthes, 2012, p. 113); they are the homes in which we live and now form the boundaries of our community. The window is another boundary which allows some semblance of contact with the outside but is controlled and measured through the glass that separates the interior from the exterior (Fig. 10).

Figure 10. Phil Hill (April, 2020) View through the living room window

The Pathos of Distance

By placing portraits with the windows, I feel really starts to explore the idea of the idiorrhythmic by showing a glimpse into my subjects’ individual rhythm, albeit disrupted by the intrusion of my direction, or how Susan Sontag stated “photographing people is that you are not intervening in their lives, only visiting them” (Sontag, 1979, p. 42). This disconnect that links to my initial intention is portrayed through this topological visit in which I place an image of an abstracted window because I can no longer engage with the community, even if I wanted to. Barthes’ also places value on distance, which in a reference to Nietzsche termed as “the pathos of distance” (Barthes, 2012, p. 132) and has a particular resonance when we consider the current pandemic. For everyone, this connection of the community has been severed, or at least extremely reduced, so when looking at my windows, there is a sense of this connective decline and pathos that Barthes’ suggests (Fig. 11). So, this is where I can position this sequence, whilst still under the intent of exploring community, even when the image is abstracted.

Figure 11. Phil Hill (April, 2020) View through the rear window

Second Sequence and Plato’s Cave

When planning this module in my project proposal for positions and practice, there was an idea to photograph the environment of community as a way of bridging the gap during the period of building the relationships that I needed to shoot more portraits. From this approach, I have created a significant number of images that created a challenge in terms of the sequencing of the work as a whole. Since the onset of the pandemic however, these images have started to make sense through the sequencing of before and after diptych images (Fig. 12). I have placed images from before the lockdown next to images in the current situation, which create more metaphore than the straight portraits that John Berger would describe as an “actuality” (Berger, 2013, p. 8).

Figure 12. Phil Hill (March & April, 2020) ‘White Washed shop window’ taken before the impact of Covid-19 was known, and ‘Spider Plant on the Bedroom windowsill’ taken just after the lockdown was announced.
Figure 13. Phil Hill (March & April, 2020) ‘Harebreaks community Hub’ and ‘View through the rear window’ sequenced together

For example, I mirrored an image from a local community hub with one of my less abstract window images as aesthetically there were compositional synergies between the images (Fig. 13). Metaphorically, I also considered the allegory of Plato’s cave, in part owing to the opening chapter of On Photography (Sontag, 1979, pp. 3-24), and also after listening to Nick Waplington discuss its use for some of his painting practice (Waplington in Smith, 2019). The exterior is projected onto the interior, albeit abstract and is a sense of the reality that we are becoming accustomed to; will we recognise the world after the lockdown is lifted? And for my project, will we recognise the community in the same way again after being socially distant? Moving forward, there is potential to take these ideas into the post Covid-19 world as we seek to connect all over again.

For Sontag, the allegory of Plato’s cave is linked to the photograph as ‘truth’ and how our reality is shaped by the images that we consume, the images become the shadows projected onto the cave walls: “Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a photograph” (Sontag, 1979, p. 5), which is something that I have been exploring throughout Informing Contexts. I have been interested in experimenting and exploring the idea of how ‘evidential’ my images are to really unpack the way that I construct my images in this way so allowing a more metaphorical approach to play its role.

Figure 14. Phil Hill (February, 2020) ‘Moth Trap’ from a series of ‘evidence’ images I created when we were told our rented house was going to be sold. Created in a documentary aesthetic, which utilises black and white and directional lighting

I have been exploring this based on a documentary aesthetic to create a form of evidence and ‘truth’ where the images are considered authentic and and an actuality, albeit constructed and not a complete ‘truth’ (Fig. 14). Moving forward with the development of this work, I have attempted to use this intertextually; all images are considered ‘authentic’ as Barthes’ suggests: “the important thing is that the photograph possesses an evidential force” (Barthes, 1981, pp. 88-89). Therefore, as I discussed in a previous development (Fig. 15) there is no need to create the images in that overt documentary aesthetic, which has been employed by Alec Soth and Eli Durst (Fig. 16 & 17), as the evidential element to the images are pre-existent; even when they are constructed, it exists in all of the photographs that I am making.

Work in Progress Development
Figure 15. Phil Hill (March, 2020) Discussion on the ‘Documentary Aesthetic’
Figure 16. Alec Soth (2012) From ‘Songbook’
Figure 17. Eli Durst (2019) from ‘The Community’

I have discussed the idea of existential dread playing a part in the work before, however I think in my previous edits, this has either not come through in how they are read, or it has been so obvious this has not worked either. For this development, I have attempted to create a subtle sequence of the work, which builds on the lessons I have learned during the module. For example, I have placed the image of the for sale sign next to an image of my kitchen floor (Fig. 18), which aesthetically mirrors the shape of the sign in the light projected onto the vinyl tiles and seeks to show that the home is in poor condition and a comment on the rental trap, or current housing crisis. This placement is more subtle than the way that I put these images together in figure 3 and without the text, however they ask more questions and utilise Uta Barth’s idea of ‘experiential looking’ through the removal of this central subject allowing the reader to ascribe their own narrative to the work. I am undecided wether to utilise the text in this current sequence as I fear this may lead to an unsubtle obvious reading of the work once again. However, I am considering a foreword of some kind, which might be in the form of the mitigating statement we have been asked to submit with this WIPP submission.

Figure 18. Phil Hill (March & April) ‘For sale board’ and ‘light on kitchen floor’
Bibliography

Barthes, R., 1981. Camera Lucida. 1st ed. London: Vintage.

Barthes, R., 2012. How to Live Together: Novelistic Simulations of Some Everyday Spaces (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism). Translation Edition ed. New York: Columbia University Press.

Berger, J., 2013. Understanding a Photograph. London: Penguin.

Collins, R., 2019. Watford’s Manhattan should not come as a surprise. [Online] Available at: https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/18115564.watfords-manhattan-not-come-surprise/ [Accessed 12 April 2020].

Johansen-Stene, K., Refsum, C. & Schimanski, 2018. Living Together – Roland Barthes, the Individual and the Community. Wetzlar: Verlag.

Putnam, R., 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. 1 ed. New York: Simon Schuster Paperbacks.

Sontag, S., 1979. On Photography. London: Penguin.

Tanzinaki, J., 2001. In Praise of Shadows. London: Vintage Books.

Waplington, N., 2019. A Small Voice: Conversations with Photographers – 118 Nick Waplington [Interview] (21 November 2019).

Looking at Alec Soth

| Phil Hill
Figure 1. Alec Soth (2015) in conversation with American Suburb X

I had been avoiding Alec Soth, as I very much like his work and also very familiar with it visually. However, It was mentioned to me that my work has some similarities (albeit i’d argue tenuous), so I decided that it might be good to look at Soth for this task, which has turned out to be a revelation to how I am approaching my own practice. The interview that I am using is a conversation that Soth had with American Suburb X (Soth in ASX, 2015).

Figure 2. Alec Soth (2014) from Songbook.

I found his discussion about the work ‘Songbook’ (Fig. 2) particularly interesting as Soth quickly moves into the way he created this work aesthetically, utilising black and white images with direct flash, which he is mimicking the look of press photography of the 1950s. This is something that resonated with me immediately as I have been writing about a documentary aesthetic, which has been driven by the look of this style of photography from the earliest FSA imagery and also how the look of press photographers, such as Weegee, who Soth also referenced in this interview, which was a nice validation for a post I did earlier in the module (Fig 3). Soth states “the work is referencing another time,” which is how we look at the period of the post war era as a sense of wonder, and how people have a deeply romanticised version of the past. From here Soth also makes reference to community and how there is a sense of loss of it, yet it has never really gone away. I had also been looking at a recent publication by Eli Durst, called ‘The Community’ in which he also creates images using this aesthetic, and seems to also reference another time. I have been discussing this aesthetic in relation to my own work, which is colour, however I don’t think that I have been able to truly resolve the reason why I have not created my work in black and white despite choosing to reference and research a range of black and white photography until listening to this interview. I believe that my work exists on the spectrum of the documentary aesthetic, however unlike Soth and Durst, my project is based on the present, so to use Soth’s conscious referencing to a romanticised past would be confusing and my use of colour makes sense in this context.

Work in Progress Development
Figure 3. Phil Hill (March 30, 2020) Discussion on the ‘Documentary aesthetic.

Soth also referred to a range of his works, which might be aesthetically different but are connected to each other and that every project that he creates is what Soth termed “Stuff that happens in America” but they are also about himself and some of the work is more inward looking than others. I have been struggling to resolve my project in terms of the editing of my work in progress portfolio, owing to a range of disparate imagery. My intention is to look at my connection to community, or lack thereof, which also makes my project a kind of autobiography in where I fit in. It has been useful to re-examine Alec Soth in relation to my own work. I think that in terms of how he resolves the autobiographical elements of his images could prove useful in the editing of my own WIPP.

Another interesting question posed to Soth was regarding his association with Magnum Photos, in what interviewer Brad Feuerhelm termed “the slippery position of being an artist and working with Magnum,” however after all our examination of National Geographic a few weeks ago, the statement of the ‘Magnum Artist’ feels like an oxymoron when considering how we perceive Magnum as a collective of documentary photographers. However, Soth states that Magnum has been misunderstood as being a news agency and confused by some its founding photographers who were closely linked to war photography, citing Robert Capa and Heri Cartier Bresson as “surrealists who exist in the real world,” and I wonder wether this statement sums up what I am aiming to say about this documentary aesthetic, which gives off the assumed authority of veracity but are aesthetic constructions in the same way National Geographic utilises similar tropes in the pursuit of empirical authority and arguments that have been put to the work of Sabastiao Salgado that we looked at a couple of weeks ago.

Bibliography

Durst, E., 2019. The Community. [Online] Available at: http://www.elidurst.com/the-community [Accessed 30 March 2020].

Soth, A., 2014. Songbook. 1 ed. London: Mack.

Soth, A., 2015. Brad Feuerhelm of ASX in conversation with Alec Soth [Interview] (4 November 2015)

Critical Review of Practice Draft & Feedback

| Phil Hill

Figure 1. Phil Hill (April, 2020) Critical Review of Practice Draft presentation

I have put together an initial draft of my critical review of practice into a 10 minute video (Fig. 1). It was a bit rushed putting this together and I would have liked to have recorded the audio a little cleaner. However, I am hoping that the bulk of the review is done and the feedback will inform how to develop.

Feedback & Reflection

Feedback felt generally positive, even though for me the presentation was quite rushed and I really struggled to get it in under the 10-minute limit. As a result, I am talking quite quickly and I think that it is always more challenging to listen over reading with the option to go over the words multiple times. It would be quite easy for me to go into the technical aspects of the presentation itself, which is not necessarily the point of this exercise, although moving forward the technical aspects of the delivery would become more of a priority for a future assessed oral presentation.

“It’s a really interesting presentation with a lot of content to consider. I particularly enjoyed the second half when you moved into discussing the current work. The section on the window as metaphor but also a job you hadn’t got round too and then it being like a broken element in relation to community was a really nice way to link the everyday or mundane with the conceptual. The world being experienced through a window and relating that to both looking out and in was really strong and it was all tied into the current situation. It felt really reflective and analytical and then you placed it into professional spheres for its dissemination which all felt relevant to it. The quotes broke things up and I think you must be meeting all of the learning outcomes clearly.  I think the images look really strong as well and they reminded me of John Darwell’s work which I thought you might like. I think they simpler you go the stronger they get. I felt like there might have been too much content perhaps as there was a lot of text and you sounded like you were catching your breath at times and I found the language really academic at the start which I slightly struggled to follow but that could just be me. I enjoyed it when you brought yourself into it more, as at the end.“

Figure 2. Ross Trevail (April, 2020) Feedback on Week 10 forum.

It is fundamental however, that the content of my delivery is articulated well and understood by the person reading the work and considering that I aimed to mirror the structure of my critical review, this is an area of clear development. For example, Ross noted that my presentation was reflective and analytical and that how I am looking at where the work might be viewed particularly strong however, he also commented that he struggled to follow some of the language and I should be focusing more on how I relate to this practice and placing myself into the work more (Fig. 2). And this line of feedback was common throughout the responses that I received as well as during the webinar where Michelle mentioned that I should always be aiming to bring the review back to my own practice.

You’re ideas are obviously really well thought out, and critically and contextually backed up so you’ve signed off well on LO3 and LO5 . For me personally, I just couldn’t follow the language, no matter how much I tried, it became impossible, so I actually only got half way through (sorry ). There’s nothing wrong with this if you audience is academic of course, but for me it was just too much, however I may well not be your target audience by a long shot, and thats ok. So my suggestion would be, I would look at LO6, if your project is purely for academics then you will of signed off on LO6 as you are communicating with your audience, however, if you are wanting the general public to engage with the project then you may want to look at that. The flip side of this is, this IS a critical review, so it is an academic exercise, and the ‘issue’ may well be more with me than you ! 🙂

Figure 3. Bekkie Graham (April, 2020) Feedback from week 10 forum

I did find Bekkie’s response interesting (Fig. 3) as the focus of the feedback seems to be on how the audience is reading the presentation. This is an important consideration and as she states, part of the way in which I am communicating with my audience, which relates to Learning Outcome 6. My assumption of this assignment was that it is an academic report, so I have looked to reflect this in the way I wrote the review and in the way that I articulated my ideas so I am not sure how much weight to put on her comments. Bekkie noted that she stopped watching my presentation half way so potentially missed some vital information that may have led to it being more accessible and easier to understand, which seems to be supported by the others who viewed the whole video. That said, I should work to develop the first half of my review so that the intent is clear right from the very first sentence. It would be easy to disregard Bekkie’s comments after not giving my video the full time, however it is important to understand that if people are unable to follow the content then my work will be hard to decipher and easily dismissed, or that my dominant reading of the work will be misinterpreted.

I have some work to do on my review. The linking of the ideas and the research to my practice needs to be much clearer and I need to work on a concise method of discussing some of the bigger ideas in my project that are inclusive and less esoteric.

Additional Feedback

The current pandemic certainly has brought difficulties for your project, your portraiture and concept is very strong, so I understand your frustration of not being able to capture any more people in your community. Your sense of community is probably a bit like mine after having done a bunch of globetrotting. That said, I do feel that your work will come together, I really like the dirty windows and the portraits together. Also your images referencing Rinko Kawauchi  which you showed in the webinar. Your work will take a shift, and I really feel that it will bring lots of good things to the table, especially ones that you didn’t expect. Your intent is clear, and as Ross has already said your are definitely on track with your learning outcomes.

Figure 4. De Ferrier (April, 2020) Feedback on week 10 forum

Great ideas and concepts contained in your presentation. Am particularly drawn to the connections you are thinking about: yourself within a community; the barriers that exist; alienation; the ‘rectangle’ shape that defines us. I also like the way you are thinking about the end of your project, as seeing the finished article as a book. I am interested to see more about how you fit into this or rather, how you develop within the project, as you push your conceptual work. 

Figure 5. Tim Stubbs-Hughes (April, 2020) Feedback from week 10 forum