Uncommon Ground

I visited an exhibition this week that, in a strange sort of way, brought to my mind the debate over Andreas Gursky's photograph and whether it was art (see October 13 entry).

The display was at the National Museum, Cardiff, and featured British 'land art', in which artists used the actual substance of the landscape itself as their medium. It was at its peak in the 1970s.

For me, the question again was 'are the exhibits actually works of art?' and was prompted by the fact that British land art was so much smaller in scale to that produced elsewhere in the world that many of the original works no longer exist.  For example, Richard Long's 'A Line Made By Walking' involved him walking a straight line in a field over and over again until the grass was flattened. The exhibition featured a photo of this line. The line itself is long gone.

By contrast, land art elsewhere in the world has been on a huge scale. For example, in Australia Andrew Rogers created a 'geoglyph' of a flying creature that was so big, the creature had a wingspan of 100 metres and more than 1,500 tonnes of rock was used to construct it. The work of art was created in the landscape and stayed there. It's existence is in the landscape.

What they said...

"Photographs do not explain; they acknowledge"

― Susan Sontag

Useful advice

As someone with hopes of forging a career that makes full use of my photography skills, I'm always on the lookout for useful advice.

And today I came across a series of tips attributed to London photographer Laura Pannack that I discovered on a blog by Irma Rose Pettitt. They are the result of a talk given by Laura to documentary photography students at Newport School of Art, Media and Design, in South Wales.

I thought there were some excellent nuggets of information in here that were worth sharing with anyone for whom photography is a passion. This is what Irma wrote of that lecture:

• Enter as many awards etc as you can, but be wary because a lot of them are set up just to make money. Make sure the subject of the award is something that interests you and it relates to the actual award
• Put yourself out there. Laura went on camps and joined groups to meet people and look for inspiration. Think about charity work, social groups, activities, teaching etc as a way to find what interests or inspires you and photograph everything and everyone that does
• A lot of Laura’s work is about stereotyping and preconceptions and challenging them. It’s really interesting and inspiring stuff

Ghosts from the past

Being a photography student sometimes has its advantages, one of which is being granted access to buildings not open to the general public.

Yesterday we were allowed to explore an old railway works that will soon be turned into a shopping complex. It was the second time we had been allowed inside and there was genuine excitement about being given two hours to capture the essence of the place.

Although the heavy machinery was removed years ago, the building still has remnants of the past. My favourite was an old blackboard that included managers' names in carefully painted white lettering.

There were banks of lockers, some still locked and with their contents emerging from gaps. Other lockers had messages scrawled on them and one set was numbered without a 13 ('12A' was used instead).

Strip of grass or work of art?

Rhine II by Andreas Gursky

One of my tutors was telling me about a discussion he had had with photography students about the most expensive photograph in the world - Andreas Gursky's Rhine II, which sold two years ago for 4.3 million US dollars.

The question he was asked was: "How can something that boring be worth that kind of money? It's just a photo of a strip of grass."

A sub-heading to a Guardian story reporting the sale seemed to suggest the same view: "Sum paid for sludgy image of desolate, featureless landscape sets new world record for a photograph".

But Telegraph journalist Florence Waters saw it differently. In an article on the sale, she wrote: "For all its apparent simplicity, the photograph is a statement of dedication to its craft".

Steam: third visit

Our project to compile a series of photos for the local railway museum is now in full steam, if you pardon the pun. On our third visit to the facility I concentrated on taking photos of two subjects in particular - one of which was a display showing a woman working in the smoke box of a locomotive (above).

Anyone who saw my entry for September 28 will have read that the overall aim of the project is to produce images that convey the atmosphere of the museum. It's not an easy task photographically, but I thought that one way of doing this was to use flash to communicate drama.

That September 28 blog entry also included a series of pictures showing promising locations, one of which was the smoke box exhibit. As soon as I saw this engine, I had a picture in mind that made full use of my flashes. I'm glad to say the end result was pretty much what I had imagined.

I positioned one flash inside the smoke box directly behind the mannequin, pointing away from her. I placed a second flash on a light stand high to my right, with the flash pointing across the mannequin's face. Both were triggered using radio-controlled Pocket Wizards.

Inspirational

Storm, Dyrholaey, Iceland, 2012

I have come across another photographer producing fantastic black and white images that just make me want to get out there with my gear. His name is Jonathan Chritchley and he shoots landscapes, frequently featuring water in some way.

There is a beautiful simplicity about his work and Chritchley masters the light so perfectly. If you like the shot above, check out his website for a gallery of gorgeous shots.

I read about him in a feature in the November 2013 issue of the excellent Black and White Photography magazine. The article's author, editor Elizabeth Roberts, reveals that Chritchley is a perfectionist and quotes some advice he gives to up-and-coming photographers: "Stick to what you love, shoot for you, only listen to criticism from those who are better than you, be a perfectionist and never let a photograph get out that you're not 150 per cent happy with".

Plenty of food for thought in those words.

Incidentally, Chritchley will be bringing out his first book, entitled Silver, next month. It will be published by Boom and Vang.

Film tips

I was sent a link to a website this morning that is well worth sharing with anyone exploring film processing for the first time.

It is a step-by-step guide to removing your film from the camera and loading it on a developing reel ready for the development process. We are promised descriptions of the later stages in subsequent posts.

The guide has been produced by photographer Chris Waller, whose excellent Bristol workshops are highly recommended. He holds them at St Paul's Darkrooms, which I understand are among only two or three community darkrooms in the whole country. They are a terrific resource, but need more public support.

You can find out more about the darkrooms by clicking a link on the same page as Chris's guide.

Try this...

The Guardian's Eyewitness series is a series of photos from around the world, each with a brief tip on how to capture the same type of picture. There are some gems in there, including one of a Brazilian family who keep tigers and are pictured with one at the breakfast table, and another of the streets of the Spanish capital Madrid filled with sheep.

Countryfile

I do wonder sometimes about the great British public. Tonight the results of the BBC Countryfile photography competition were announced and the main prizewinner in the public telephone vote was Bill Robinson with this picture, called The Dell:

It's a pretty scene and the curve of the bluebell glade mirrors the curve of the tree branches in a pleasing way. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Mr Robinson should taste success, having never won a photography prize before. But I couldn't help thinking that the following picture, 'Pier Sunset', was comfortably the strongest of the finalists:

For a start, it's a very unusual take on a sunset scene and has the most striking bands of colour. It also uses the rule of thirds well, with the two people at an intersection of thirds and the sun positioned in a strong area compositionally. When I first saw this shot I immediately said 'wow' out loud. And the judges who narrowed down thousands of entries to a handful of finalists made it their favourite (so photographer Tim Clifton came away with some kind of prize).

Steam Museum - first shots

The operation to take a series of shots for a new book for the local steam railway museum began in earnest yesterday. I concentrated on photographing the entrance to the museum - particularly a couple of scenes I highlighted in an earlier post.

I put my camera on a tripod and used long shutter speeds to capture visitors to the museum walking into the entrance area. I was using a Sigma 10-20mm lens - ultra wide angle - and this allowed me to capture the whole of the scene, including a number of television screens and the main welcome sign.

The slow shutter speed created motion blur as the visitors walked along - an effect I had been looking for mainly because it adds to the atmosphere. I had to experiment a little because if the shutter speed was set too low, the subjects almost disappeared entirely from the scene. The results are shown in the following shot:

However, I might have a further attempt on my next visit - not just because the man pictured is too static, but because I want to get the visitors' shadows on the facing wall.

'Parks'

Spring Hats in Bath (copyright: Norman Parkinson Archive)

I have been enjoying revisiting the work of fashion photographer Norman Parkinson with a view to basing one of my course projects on him.

I felt the picture above was perfect for an analysis of the visual language of a photograph. Parkinson has used a pillar to emphasise the rule of thirds and has positioned model Anne Chambers's face at the golden mean intersection. The road leads the viewer into the photo and the buildings provide leading lines pointing towards the model's face. I also like the way the model is a darker tone from the rest of the image, making her stand out even more.