Quotidian Lives - the images
"... the cool conventions of the pre-meditated straight
image give way to the heated nervousness of the quick shot. The moment of
exposure is privileged as an ecstatic or traumatic guarantee of the 'nowness' of
the everyday and its observation. Where the calculated straight image tends to describe
things or people, the snapshot dramatises the instance of the picture-making
event - a photography not just of the lens but of the lens and shutter
combined."
David Campany1
Quotidian Lives is the result of an increasingly critical approach
to my
street photography. For many years I have taken candid, unstaged pictures of
people on the streets and other public environments, most often without
negotiation or even the subjects' knowledge. (There is somewhat of a
paradox in the way street photographers often keep a distance from their
subjects and yet have a profound interest in them.)
This has always been a rewarding way to work - I do not behave
abusively or in an intimidating fashion, preferring instead to work quietly and
constructively. I think I have a good eye for spotting an interesting
composition and do not find myself labouring over the framing or timing of the
shot. I believe quite strongly that as
soon as someone becomes aware of the camera, a pose is struck (often subconsciously)
and the true candid image is lost.
So... I have many thousands of photographs of people. People
sitting, standing, laughing, pointing, looking, interacting...
all images above (C) HJW
top of page
With this project,
I felt I could use my experience of people shooting to examine more closely what
it is they are actually doing at the moment the shutter fires. I began by
looking at found and published images which caught my attention because
of...
gesture:
overall body language:
or facial expression:
Then I looked through my own archives. It was no surprise to me
that I have amassed many such images over the years. I made a selection and tried to
isolate similarly significant elements in my photographs. In many, the hands were the most important part. Sometimes it would be a
facial expression, or perhaps the overall stance of the body. In images where
there is more than one subject, then the interaction (or lack of it) becomes the
point of interest. Always, (well, mostly) there was something which could be
described as the 'essence' of the image. (Barthes might call it the punctum, but
that is not quite what I'm after.)
For example, in this image the most compelling part for me is
the woman's eyes:
(Other viewers might deem the man's eyes to be more revealing -
is he bored, tired, or very happy?)
By a process of abstraction I have isolated, enlarged and then
enhanced the part of the image which is important to me. From an ordinary
grabshot comes an thing of beauty.
Click image to enlarge
The image has moved, arguably, from the Constructivists' camp to
the Connoisseurs, from an emphasis on Subject Matter to a focus on Form.
top of page
I am acutely aware that what I am trying to do
is fraught with problems. I am claiming to abstract from an image the very
essence, the core of the subject, when in fact I know absolutely nothing about
the people I am shooting.
Jean Beaudrillard2 puts it
thus:
It is very difficult to photograph individuals or faces. It
is impossible to bring someone into focus photographically when you are so
little able to get them into focus psychologically. Human beings are sites of
such mise-en-scène, such complex (de)construction, that the lens strips them of
their character in spite of themselves. They are so laden with meaning that it
is almost impossible to separate them from that meaning to discover the secret
form of their absence."
Perhaps this is why Cindy Sherman does not try to photograph 'real'
people, concentrating instead on her understanding that human identity revolves
around multiple selves which we adopt and adapt according to the situation.
Given Baudrillard's assertion that we cannot ever fully get
under the skin of the people in photographs, I find some small resonance between
my own approach to people photography and that of August Sander, whose opus
magnum, People of
the Twentieth Century. A Photographic Portrait of Germany attempted
to categorise "all the characteristics of the universally
human". Whilst Sander's subjects mostly posed for him and mine are unaware
of the camera, there is an underlying similarity between our desire to identify
the characteristics of human identity through our images. The posed photograph
suggests a form of order, control and even contrivance, whereas the candid image
can only ever convey the fleeting moment - arguably a much more accurate record
of everyday occurrences as it is after all the way our eyes absorb events.
top of page
The work for Quotidian Lives fell naturally into three distinct
stages, each of which is presented in a different format for the exhibition:
-
The show starts with a collection of the original candids or grabshots, which were the starting
point of
the project. Many of these were shot specifically for the exhibition over a
period of several months. Whilst ostensibly they might look just like
my previous street/people images, I was more critically aware of my sense of
purpose when shooting the new photographs and made a conscious effort to
seek out compositions which would lend themselves to my ultimate goal of
abstraction.
These images were complied into a slideshow loop (a static
version of which can be seen here)
to be shown at the exhibition, and also a book entitled Quotidian Lives:
Click image to enlarge
I wanted to produce a book in order to offer an alternative,
tactile approach to the preliminary stage of the project, which might
otherwise have been given scant attention. I chose to include a slideshow as
well as the book so that the images would be seen by all visitors, including
those who are unwilling or unable to look at the book.
-
The second section comprises six images which I felt had the greatest
potential to move from straight record shot to aesthetically pleasing image. These
prints are mono and quite contrasty. They are in black-backed frameless
glass mounts to give
a high-gloss look and feel:
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
(Jeff Wall's huge, garishly coloured backlit transparencies, created
using actors and acquaintances in a highly stage-managed recreation of the
everyday, are described by John Roberts3
as "an actual critique of photography, that is, a critique of how
the look of certain kinds of radical (black and white) reportage have
come to stand in for the political and the everyday." (p188) I find
this interesting in relation to how I elected to present by own work for Quotidian
Lives as he seems to be suggesting that we as viewers expect reportage
shots to be in mono; (presumably to give them a more gritty, 'realistic'
feel). For me, the decision to go from the original colour shots to black
and white for the final abstractions was a conscious one - to make them more
'arty' and less reportage in nature.)
-
Finally, I settled on two signature images, one of which is in the selection
above, which lent themselves to abstraction
for the large pieces:
.jpg)
I decided to leave the second of these images whole but to crop the
other one in such a way as to draw attention to what I considered to be the
strongest elements. These prints are on aluminium mounts and measure
15"x45":
This work progresses, then, from the original,
un-premeditated street shots which are wholly concerned with Subject Matter
to abstracted images which focus on Form. This brings me back to Thomas
Weski's model which was my theoretical starting point. With Quotidian
Lives I feel I have managed to merge the two facets of the model
satisfactorily.
top of page
References
1. Campany, D. 'Almost the Same Thing' Some Thoughts on
the Collector-Photographer. in: Dexter, E. & Weski, T. (eds.) Cruel and Tender
pub. Tate 2003. p34.
2. Baudrillard, J. For Illusion Is Not The Opposite of
Reality (Photographies 1985-1998) Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz,
1999. p129-142. cited in: Campany, D. (Ed.) Art & Photography pub.Phaidon
2007. p237.
3. Roberts, J. Jeff Wall: the social pathology of everyday life. in:
The Art of Interruption pub. Manchester University Press 1998.
|
