Surfaces and Strategies PHO703

Zine making and Reflecting

| Phil Hill

I have found the process of zine making a really valuable experience, which has forced me to consider other voices in my own creative process. Working with others means that it is possible to draw on a range of skill sets that are not particular strengths of my own, which results in a much stronger outcome that I might have been able to achieve independently. This was really valuable during the editing and compiling stage of the zine making. I was also able to input some of my other skill sets to support and collaborate in the project, including illustration. In any kind of team project, there is potential for members to become side-lined, however everyone in our zine group was able to contribute something valuable.

Figure 1: PANTONE (2020) Pantone colours listed under ‘Ginger’

At the very start of the week we discussed potential roles for the zine. Tim had a clear experience and background so was made team leader and was able to provide really insightful background on zines, their history and significance. Outside of photography, I was unaware of zines outside of photography. Victoria and Isabelle offered to source and create content, together with Ross who suggested that he could also picture edit, having some experience there. Andy has experience writing so offered to provide some copy and create a short text, which provided the context for the zine’s opening page. This left me to support the design and layout with support from the others.

Figure 1: UK Government (2016) Cover from EU referendum leaflet, which uses Helvetica as its typeface.

I wanted to incorporate some illustration to create a zine with a multidisciplinary approach but which maintains it photographic underpinning through the method of remixing images. I also have a fair amount of experience with InDesign so wanted to offer my support there.

We all came up with a range of ideas initially, which were discussed by the group. There were a number of politically and topical ideas, which on balance we decided to move away from owing to the short amount of time in which to do these kinds of subjects’ justice. It was also felt that looking at the current pandemic as a subject was leading to a kind of over saturation of the topic and again in order to really do it justice, some distance would be need together with time. ‘Ginger’ was decided as the subject, in all of the ways that the word might be interpreted. We collectively thought that the process of this week’s task would be the most value, so by focusing on a word, it was a good way to explore the very different ways that it could be represented in a zine format.

Figure 3: F37 Type Foundary (2013) ‘F37 Ginger’ Typeface example.

The theme created an opportunity to define some of the design features of the zine through the colour scheme, and typeface. Colour theory has an important role to play in semiotics, so this it is important to understand how the colour of our zine would be read by the audience. I utilised colours that are titled ‘ginger’ from the Pantone range (Fig: 1) as it provides a quick way to input the values from these swatches into InDesign and the other Adobe software that we were using, which maintains consistency across the design. Typical for Zines to have a kind of handmade aesthetic, I felt it important that the main text and anything that we wanted to flow through the pages as a narrative would be legible and able to be picked up quickly by the audience. Sans Serif is the obvious choice for this, owing to its legibility and graphic quality. For example, Helvetica is used by a range of governmental organisations because of its authoritative way of conveying information (Helvetica, 2007) such as the government leaflet on Britain’s exit from the EU (Fig: 2). This together with images can have a fundamental impact on the reading and the narrative of the overall message. For ‘Ginger’ I discovered that there was a really great sans serif called ‘f37 ginger’ (Fig: 3), which felt perfect for the project, however this was a commercial typeface, which was cost prohibitive for our purpose. Instead, I settled for an openly available typeface from google called ‘oswald’ that had a similar look to ‘f37 ginger.’

Figure 4: Phil Hill (2020) Ed Sheeran Illustration

Figure 5: Gareth Cattermole (2019) Ed Sheeran reference image.

Figure 6: Phil Hill (June, 2018) Illustration made using reference photographs

I contributed two main artworks to the zine, the Ed Sheeran illustration and the Binary Ginger page. The Sheeran illustration (Fig: 4) was created by utilising a reference image (Fig: 5) to remix and create an appropriated illustration that can be edited to change the hair colour. This is a process that I have been doing for a number of years through an Instagram account called @hell0_Philip, which I use reference and appropriation to construct images to illustrate emails sent to me (Fig: 6). I had not necessarily considered the practice inherently ‘photographic’ until we started looking at remixed photography and it would not be immediately obvious that they could be considered so, compared to, for example, Cold War Steve who creates photo shopped composites of images in order to create new meaning from them (Fig: 7).

Figure 7: Cold War Steve (2019) Composite image made with Photoshop
1A0000114N01110
2B0001015O01111
3C0001116P10000
4D0010017Q10001
5E0010118R10010
6F0011019S10011
7G0011120T10100
8H0100021U10101
9I0100122V10110
10J0101023W10111
11K0101124X11000
12L0110025Y11001
13M0110126Z11010
Figure 8: 5 digit binary code to letter conversion table

The binary image is something that I was experimenting with prior to the zine making task as an extension to the Ed Rucha task. I wanted to see if there were any other ways that I could present a body of images and also include additional information about them. To do this, I utilised a 5-digit binary code system of ‘1s’ and ‘0s’ that can be converted back into the alphabet (Fig: 8), for example: 00001 would equal the letter ‘A’ in binary, which can be converted into an image sequence where each image might equal a number ‘1’ and a ‘0’ would be represented by a blank square, or coloured one. For my experiment, I used my blossom images from my Rucha response to spell out the word ‘Covid-19’ in binary as this was the underlying theme to that series (Fig: 9). The challenge then was to differentiate between letter s and numbers, so I created a different version of the image that used red squares to denote numbers, and black squares to denote letters (Fig: 10). I also produced a sourced image version of Rucha’s ‘Twentysix Gasoline Stations’ in binary (Fig, 11), and a less successful version where each ‘0’ was replace with a letter, however this is quite a busy and confusing layout (fig, 12). From these approaches, I created the ‘Ginger’ binary layout using sources images and a binary code that spells the word ‘ginger’ (Fig, 13).

Figure 11: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Twentysix Gasonline Stations from sources images using 5 digit binary to spell ‘Twentysix’
Figure 12: Phil Hill (June, 2020) 0s replaced with letters
G:00111
I:01001
N:01110
G:00111
E:00101
R:10010
Figure 13: Phil Hill (June, 2020) The word ‘Ginger’ in 5 digit binary – code shown on the left.

Ginger zine is an A5 booklet that would have a middle fold out section to feature the images of Victoria tasting ginger, which makes an interesting mini-narrative as it is folded out of the main body of the zine.

Figure 14: Phil Hill et al (June, 2020) Ginger Zine
Bibliography

Helvetica. 2007. [Film] Directed by Guy Hustwit. UK: Veer, Swiss Dots.

PANTONE, 2020. PANTONE 15-1020 TCX. [Online] Available at: https://store.pantone.com/uk/en/colorfinder/index/acfproduct/code/15-1020+TCX
[Accessed 22 June 2020].

Why Black and White?

| Phil Hill

Vilem Flusser notes that black and white are concepts, which are theoretical and exist only as states of things, although we consider some things in terms of black and white, this does not exist in the real world, only as hypothetical lines in which we draw for certain topics (2000: 42):

“Black and White do not exist, but they ought to exist since, if we could see then world in black and white it would be accessible to logical analysis”

(Flusser, 2000: 42).

The use of black and white in the documentary aesthetic might be a means in which photographers can attempt to answer questions about their subjects, or at least aim to create the space that these subjects might be more readily analysed. The paradox is that when creating work using black and white you are removing a lot of the information from that subject, which can be argued is part of the representation of them. One possible understanding of what Flusser is stating above is that the black and white image simplifies the process of conveying its message as it can be read in terms of its formal qualities other than colour.

Figure 1: Alec Soth (2014) From ‘Songbook’

I have discussed before that black and white has been used by other contemporary photographer purposefully to convey a sense of nostalgia in the work, and this is a key reason to explore its use during this module. The idea of how we connect to the community is closely tied to the perception, or reality of its decline. Alec Soth has stated that he made the decision to utilise black and white for the book ‘Songbook’ (Fig: 1) owing to how similar images from the 50s, 60s, and 70s all have a particular look and feel owing to the technology that was employed during these decades. Soth notes a post-war sense of wonder of the 1950s which creates “a deeply romanticised version of the past” (Soth in Fuerhelm, 2015). People believe that there is a decline of the community because of their own selective histories today. This tied in quite well to research on the decline of social capital, which also cited the 50s as this coincided with the mass introduction of the television (Putnam, 2000), spending more and more time indoors.

This rose-tinting of a past community that is now lost is partly created because of the images that we consumed in our youth, which is part of a significant shaping of the way that we nostalgically view lots of culture, that was ‘better in my day’ is linked to how our brains develop during the ages of 12 – 22 and the emotional maturing that happens during the same time (Stern, 2014). If you grew up during a time of black and white imagery, some of which have cone to define how we assume documentary and photography to look, then this aesthetic will instantly transport you back to that time: “It makes sense, then, that the memories that contribute to this process become uncommonly important throughout the rest of your life. They didn’t just contribute to the development of your self-image; they became part of your self-image—an integral part of your sense of self.” (2014).

In the beginning of the medium, all photographs were black and white due to its technical limitations, now this can be a creative choice, as Flusser also argues that colour is even more of an abstraction as it is merely a chemical representation of a colour and not the actual existent one within the concrete world. I wrote about this for an essay I created between the modules, stating ‘what about the choice of different film stocks? What about the nostalgic Kodachrome versus its Fuji equivalent? Each of the constituent ingredients in the film creates an aesthetic synonymous with the brand’ (Hill, 2020: 3), which essentially considers the way that an emulsion of a film, and even that of a camera’s digital sensor is just another interpretation of the world created by a human actor on it; colour according to its design and manufactured values that Flusser then attributes as a kind of concealment of the origin of then subject.

My choice to use black and white is intentional to create a link to a nostalgia perhaps of a life that we had before the outbreak of Covid-19, when we are all being asked to consider a ‘new normal’ as opposed to the life that we were used to before. The sense of longing for the past, especially within the community setting is quite tangible for all of us as we are talking about a time that was only a few months ago. My images, paradoxically, are all taken in our present as to acknowledge a sense of the past that we might learn to go back to.

Alys Tomlinson
Alys Tomlinson (2019) Untitled from ‘Ex Voto’
Figure 3: Alys Tomlinson (2019) From ‘Lourdes’

I recently listened to Alys Tomlinson discuss her ‘Ex-Voto’ series (2020). It was interesting to understand that Tomlinson started her study on the religious site of Lourdes by shooting the series in colour for the first three years of visiting the site. The colour work in itself feels like a well resolved piece of work, however it clearly has a different look and feel to the body of work Ex-Voto even though it was created in the same location (Fig: 3). Tomlinson herself understood the difference as this colour study of Lourdes has its own gallery on her website and is well placed to promote her commercial practice (Fig: 4).

Figure 4: Alys Tomlinson (2019) Screen shot of Tomlinson’s ‘Lourdes’ series on her website

Caroline Molloy also notes the referencing of August Sander in Tomlinson’s portrait work, which something which I have been suggested to consider reviewing in my feedback for the last module and also during my first webinar with Cemre. Molloy makes particular note of the process in which Tomlinson’s work is created, which is in direct opposition to the hustle of what Lourdes is in many ways and seen through Tomlinson’s other work on the site, the portraits of Ex-Voto are considered, and as Molloy points out ‘Not of this time’ (2019), which is another intertextual use of black and white within a project. Tomlinson also utilises a 5X4 camera to slow down the image making and turn the act of photography into a ritual. I found that this resonated with me as I could benefit from slowing my process of images making down, which would ultimately lead to better engagement with my subjects. There is a particular theatre to the way that a photographer uses apparatus to differentiate themselves from a general understanding of photographers. It is worth noting that although a black and white aesthetic gives a sense of the familiar in the visual, when out taking the images, cameras such as 5X4 large format and even medium format film cameras are relatively rare with the assumption that a professional photographer will have some kind of modern DSLR. For me, this provides a talking point and metaphorical ‘foot in the door’ when approaching people to take their photograph. Since I started using a medium format 6X7 camera for example, people have been quite intrigued as to what it is that I have. It is the theatre, which attracts people to be photographed and shows that I can be taken seriously, Joel Meyerowitz also made a note of this when discussing his 8X10 large format portraits shot in Provincetown, where he makes particular reference to this as a kind of performance (Meyerowitz in Perello, 2020).

Bibliography

Flusser, V., 2000. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. 2018 Reprint ed. London: Reaktion Books.

Hill, P., 2020. Gettier and the Pyramids. [Online] Available at: https://philhillphotography.com/sketchbook/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Gettier-and-the-Pyramids_Phil_Hill.pdf [Accessed 15 June 2020].

Meyerowitz, J., 2020. The Candid Frame – Episode 500 [Interview] (27 January 2020).

Molloy, C., 2019. Alys Tomlinson. [Online] Available at: https://www.1000wordsmag.com/alys-tomlinson/ [Accessed 15 June 2020].

Putnam, R., 2000. Bowling Alone. 1 ed. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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

Stern, M. J., 2014. Neural Nostalgia: Why do we love the music we heard as teenagers?. [Online] Available at: https://slate.com/technology/2014/08/musical-nostalgia-the-psychology-and-neuroscience-for-song-preference-and-the-reminiscence-bump.html [Accessed 15 June 2020].

Tomlinson, A., 2020. A Small Voice: Conversations with Photographers – Episode 123: Alys Tomlinson [Interview] (5 February 2020).

Collaboration or Participation?

| Phil Hill

I have never really considered many of these terms and how I might fit into them. However, as I think back to my commercial practice, I would regularly work with a team in order to realise a client brief. In terms of a collaborative, though not necessarily in the strictest sense, I have often worked with a writer in order to realise and illustrate elements of that text.

Figure 1: Phil Hill & Darius Dabrowski (March – June, 2020) ‘Casiobury Park, Watford’

During the MA, I have explored the idea of collaboration much more and during the last module I invited people I had started to build a relationship with and photograph to also photograph themselves using a camera that I provided. Owing to the current situation I have not been able to develop this approach, but I did start to use some of these images for the re-photography task as a way of responding to these images (Fig: 1). This first exploration, I merely gave cameras to individuals with little instruction to see what I would receive in return. I think moving forward, I would be keen to work with the people more closely to discuss how they might want to photograph for their own representation, and my roll could then be to facilitate how they could do this from a technical perspective. In a similar way to how Anthony Luvera approaches collaboration (Fig: 2).

Figure 2: Anthony Luvera (2019) Assisted Self-Portrait of Joe Murray from Residency

For the work that I have been producing, which are primarily portraits. I would usually contact people I would like to photograph in advance so that I can make my introductions, set out my aims, and build a relationship with the subject and this is more of me seeking to find participants. Sometimes, I would not even use my camera on the first meeting so that we can discuss the project and most importantly how we would work together to take the photograph. I am keen to better represent the subjects that I am photographing and am acutely aware that there is still a heavy bias towards the way that I am setting up and taking my images, which I think is a confidence thing. My approach in this way is very much like how Alys Tomlinson approached her subjects for Ex-Voto (Fig: 3), where she arranged an appointment and then photographed them at a later date.

Figure 3: Alys Tomlinson (2019) Unamed from ‘Ex Voto’

For this module, I have struggled to approach people in the same way due to the lock-down and the usual channels of contact being on hold for now. I actually find the process of approaching people without an initial introduction, or in the case of me being hired for a job, a reason for being there. However, my challenge has been to approach people coming back together in the open community spaces as the restrictions lift. This method of seeking participants had the potential to become quite a quick exchange as my own reticence to approach might turn into quickly taking the image and walking away. Instead, I have chosen to shoot this module using a medium format film camera to introduce some theater into what I am doing (which breaks the ice), and also slow my process right down so that I have the space to engage with my participant and talk with them (Fig: 4). This still needs developing as I really need to develop an approach that is much more inclusive of the participant to include their voice and a direction that also considers how they want to be represented much more.

Figure 4: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Portrait of Wais at Callowland Recreation Ground

A collective is fairly new to me and this week’s zine project will be very good for this area of development. I am fairly used to working independently as a photographer so it will be useful to come together with others that have different ideas to my own.

Strategies in Entering

| Phil Hill

I have been aiming to compliment my studies by entering a range of competitions and two bursaries during this module. I have aimed to conduct research and really consider my reasons for entering these together with any potential benefit should I be successful. Alys Tomlinson mentions a selective approach when entering awards, and that she actually enters very few of them, noting that many seem to not provide any boost to a photographers’ career even if they win the award (Tomlinson in Smith: 2020). Some of which do feel as though they are designed to collect maximum amout of entry fees for very little in return, however, I have antered a few awards this year to see if my development as a practitioner has made any impact on its resonance for such awards. This is an area that I have always keenly entered but had little in return.

Awards

Portrait of Britain
Figure 1: Portrait of Britain & Lewis Kahn (2017) One of the selected entries displayed on a digital display

According to the POB website, this award, which is run by The British Journal of Photography is a look at how diverse and varied Britain is, and in the wake of Brexit it has become a very relevant exhibition that explore these themes (Portrait of Britain 2020). As this award aims to consider the political landscape of the UK, it will be interesting to see how it evolves in the aftermath of Covid-19. I actually entered this award before the start of the pandemic with a range of images taken for my Positions and Practice and Informing Contexts WIPP, so wonder if my entries will actually fall out of relevance when the deadline closes on 16/6, as I would imagine that something that is ingrained onto the public conscious would ultimately be reflected in the judging of this exhibition.

Although POB does seek to aask these questions, it does not necessarilly provide the space to create a truly challenging exhibition. Part of the display of this work is through national digital advertising screens (Fig: 1), which on the plus side means that the featured images have the potential to be seen by a broad range of people outside of the traditional white wall exhibitions of other portrait awards, such as The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. This is a huge positive of this exhibition as it creates an opportunity for those who do not normally engage with photography to see some really great examples of portrait work and may then choose to seek more. Taking photography out of the gallery space to engage with communities is a really good thing and should be done much more. However, the challenge is that anything that gets selected cannot be deemed offensive, so any challenging images, and certain subjects would not even be considered for this award, which feels less representative as a true reflection of what Britain looks like as a nation.

Figure 2: Max Fergusson (2020) Statement of Resignation from Portrait of Britain

There are hints of this exhibition aiming to be a contemporary ‘Family of Man’ exhibition, which sought to show the many facets of humanity but essentially was an idealised view of the world created by Edward Steichan, yet continued to ‘other’ cultures that were not european (Tīfentāle 2018). Though POB, does not explicitly seek to ‘other,’ there have been some challenges that have arisen from this award. For example, since I entered this award there has also been a controversy regarding the judging of this award. Initially, the judging panel was made up of 3 men and one female judge, all three men are also white, which does not reflect the diverse country this award is supposed to represent. This was raised back in March by one of the judges, Max Fergusson who has now stepped down as a result of a lack of diversity on the panel (Fig: 2).

My images are still in contention for the award, and although I am unsure on my chances this year, owing to never placing previously and the shift in public consciousness, the controversy does make me question whether it was a good idea to try and be a part. However, the display and broad sharing of the work in public spaces is ultimately a good thing for the medium and also my work, should it get selected.

Kuala Lumpur Portrait Prize
Figure 3: Kuala Lumpur Photoawards (2020) Open Call Banner

I took the decision to enter this award this year after reading through the Photoshelter guide to competitions, which placed this award as something worthwhile for anyone shooting portraits. As I primarily create work around the portrait, I felt that this would be good place to enter my work. According to the award, it considered itself a ‘significant and vital award’ (Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards – Portrait Prize 2020). This is an award that I have not considered before but feels prestigious enough that any placement in the exhibition would be valuable to my practice.

Taylor Wessing
Figure 4: National Portrait Gallery (2019) View of the 2019 Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize exhibition.

I have actually entered the Taylor Wessing on and off since it was referred to as the Schweppes Portrait prize. I have always felt like this would be a good award to place an entry into, owing to its reputation and prestige. The exhibition at the Portrait gallery has always been something that I have visited yearly and have followed the careers of many of the photographers who have had their work included. As awards go, this one is one of the very top to have work exhibited as part of.

I have found that it is a very expensive process to take part in, even after the switch to digital submission from the print based entry a couple of years ago. The award does draw its fair share of criticism as some cite its homogenisation through the same year-on-year tropes paraded in the exhibition. And the more that this happens, the more photographers will either shoot for this, or submit images that fit an award, which showed similar images the previous year (O’Hagan 2011).

There seems to be a shift from this in the past couple of years, the 2019 edition felt for me to be more thematic and there seemed to be fewer images overall. I have yet to see the entry call for this years award and wonder if this is because of the current pandemic.

Bursary

Bursaries have been something that I intended to apply for when I outlined my plans for my research project during Positions and Practice. For ongoing funding I identified these as an area that I should be developing. Writing applications and project pitches is something that I will need to improve on if I am to maintain an art practice after the MA.

To start this process, I created and submitted applications for the following:

RPS Postgraduate

I have made an application for the Royal Photographic Societies postgraduate bursary, which seeks to support postgraduate student during their studies. The theme of the application is broad as it is done to the applicant to define the parameters of how the bursary is used. The only real stipulation is that the project must demonstrate specific outcomes. This was useful to consider how to begin creating project proposal’s that developed from my initial one created during the first module.

Eventually, It would make  good basis to start considering applying for funding through organisation’s such as the Arts Council.

Grain Projects – Micro Bursary

Grain Projects created a series of small bursaries with the support of Arts Council England to support photographers to create new work during these unprecedented times. This bursary is much more of a themed approach:

“The commissions and bursaries will support photographers and writers to make new work in isolation (at a social distance), reflecting on these times & contributing to creativity and well being.  Outcomes will be shared with audiences via our digital platforms. (Health & safety is particularly important, all projects must follow the government guidelines for the lock down and social distancing).We are interested in work that responds to the following themes; Social Distancing, Family, Community, Caring, Togetherness, Relationships, Health & Well being, The Economy, Work, Key Workers”

(Grain Projects 2020)

It was clear to me that I should consider my current situation and ability to create work under these circumstances, which is a process that I was initially having to do for my Informing Contexts WIPP submission. This was a good grounding to really consider my application for this bursary.

Grain created three bursaries: commission, Micro, and writing bursary. I have initially applied for the micro bursary as the commission felt like it was designed with a more established photographer in mind. The micro bursary specifically mentions emerging artist, which is where I would position myself at the moment. The writing bursary is also something that I am considering to apply for as I have become quite interested in writing about photography and the theory of it.

Bibliography

Fergusson, Max. 2020. Instagram. June 8. Accessed June 13, 2020. https://www.instagram.com/p/CBLC8-uAKiy/.

Grain Projects. 2020. OPEN CALL : 2020 COMMISSIONS & BURSARIES. Accessed June 13, 2020. https://grainphotographyhub.co.uk/portfolio-type/open-call-2020-commissions-bursaries/.

Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards – Portrait Prize. 2020. About. June 13. Accessed June 13, 2020. https://www.klphotoawards.com/about.

O’Hagan, Sean. 2011. Taylor Wessing portrait prize: another animal, another girl with red hair. November 9. Accessed June 13, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/nov/09/taylor-wessing-portrait-prize-woodward.

Portrait of Britain. 2020. About Portrait of Britain. Accessed June 13, 2020. https://www.portraitofbritain.uk/about-the-award/.

Tīfentāle, Alise. 2018. The Family of Man: The Photography Exhibition that Everybody Loves to Hate. July 2. Accessed June 13, 2020. https://fkmagazine.lv/2018/07/02/the-family-of-man-the-photography-exhibition-that-everybody-loves-to-hate/.

Tomlinson, Alys, interview by Ben Smith. 2020. A Small Voice: Conversations with Photographers – Episode 123: Alys Tomlinson (February 5).