Study Visit to the Gillian Wearing exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery

This was my first participation in a study visit, in this case to the exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery.  Gareth Dent and Clive White escorted quite a large group of students at the exhibition and guided us through an informal discussion on the work of the artist.

I have included a link to the photograph, Self Portrait at 17 Years old which features on the website and which is representative of the "family" series of self portraits.

But, to the beginning.  We were provided beforehand with information about the visit and some objectives.  The visit was to help students with:

• gaining a personal perspective on the work of Gillian Wearing;
• reflect on the experience of seeing photography and video in a gallery;
• network with other OCA students.

I'll work backwards through the objectives.

Networking - this certainly was achieved.  It was a great pleasure to meet Richard Down whom I recognised from blogs and from the OCA facebook site, in fact he recognised me first.  Social networking is certainly powerful!  Everybody I found to be really welcoming and friendly and we certainly had some pretty animated discussion over coffee! Many were working their way through TAOP or P&P, with Richard doing the Digital Film Production module

The experience of seeing photography and video in a gallery - I guess I am a relatively frequent visitor to galleries to view photographs, having first gone some 30 years ago to the Photographer's Gallery when it was in Great Newport Street!  The point here, however, was well made by Gareth in the context of this exhibition.  Would one have viewed the videos at home and would they have had the same impact as they clearly did at the Gallery.  I have to admit that I doubt if I would have viewed them at home.  Certainly the presentation of the videos in the gallery was done with great impact and it was clear that Gillian Wearing had  a considerable say in how the work was to be presented and viewed.  When you first walk in into the gallery, there are 4 constructions which house the video viewing areas.  Facing outwards the viewing areas are unfinished, bare wood, as though these were "backstage".  An interesting device which sets the tone for the exhibition.

The work of Gillian Wearing - Gillian Wearing's primary interest is in people and how they interact with the world by what is going on inside their mind. through the use of masks, and in the case of the self portrait as her brother, she gets under their skin.  Aside from the videos, which are a major part of her work, the still portraits and the "Signs that say what you want them to say, and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say", series from 1992, to me, are the most interesting.

Taking the "Signs....." series, it was great to be able to see such a large number together, some 70 images out of the 600 which she had shot.  This was the first time that I had seen these together in such a large number and certainly they create a great impression of how people think.  There is a whole mix of emotions there: sadness, despair and humour.  The choice of location, including the Peckham shopping centre site of her "dance" adds to the images.  There is a curious juxtaposition of people against backdrop - Pink Elephant Parking on Pink Elephant Road.......  sometimes taking away from the feelings of the subject. Its interesting how times have changed on the surface, but beneath, the same issues remain.  This is very much the front stage / back stage of an individual.  This is brought up to date on the Whitechapel Gallery's Facebook site with a "Tell Gillian 2012-03-02 23:20:23", where many have submitted images of themselves in a similar vein - GW then choosing her favourites on the Guardian web site.

The self portraits fall into 2 distinct series, those of GW self portraits, "under the skin" of those who influenced her and the "family album"

The "influencers" were Arbus (2008), Mapplethorpe (2009), Warhol in drag (2010), Cahun (2012) and Sander (2012).  To me particularly striking was her take on the Mapplethorpe self-portrait as shown in the orginal form below (Credit to the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation web-site):

Robert Mapplethorpe Self Portrait 1988

The "family album" series was fascinating, but I felt somewhat disturbing.  I found it difficult to accept the concept of taking on the persona of other members of the family.  A particular example of this was the self portrait as her mother, shown below:

This image in the particular mask, as seen in the gallery, seems particularly expressionless and reminds me of  a porcelain doll.  Visions of a horror movie came to mind.  Nevertheless, I could appreciate the performance which was being enacted through the images rather than a post-production image manipulation in Photoshop.  The artist's own touch is also displayed here as the family portraits are all of a different size, with different colour frames and hung at different levels on the wall as though in a family home.  The intention, by the artist was to portray all at roughly the same age which adds to the viewer's confusion.  Only the grandparents were at their "correct" age.

Regarding the movies / video recordings, there is, the performance / dance in Peckham shopping centre.  There was no sound the dance music coming from within her head.  To me there seemed to be very little reaction / interaction with passers-by, perhaps by virtue of the camera on the tripod and, presumably others who were doing the filming.  Could this be that the passers-by wished to be disassociated with this performance?

The most significant video, in my mind, was left for us to see at the end.  This was the film "10-16" where adults lip sync to the words spoken by children within that age range.  The selection of the adults was very particular and intended match the sometimes happy, sometimes confused voices and feelings of the children.  I loved the 10-year old and the vision of playing in a tree house was very strong, as was also at the other end the matched actor to the anxieties of the16-year old, who was disturbed through having been fat and was struggling to find his sexuality.  In this last one, there is a connection to GW, as she appears, initially in the frame perfectly still with her back to the viewer as though to signify that this was indeed an interview.  As she is so still, could that have been a mannequin made to look like her?

In between there was the series of videos "confessions" where members of the public had responded to an advertisement and "confess" from behind the anonymity of a mask.  The confessions were disturbing in themselves, not least also due to the grotesqueness of the masks.

In summary, an enjoyable visit which certainly met its objectives and very thought-provoking.  Would I recommend this exhibition - absolutely.  I found it difficult to describe my emotions on here, so you must go to see it and experience it yourself.

Colour Theory

There are two fundamental systems in use to describe primary colours; Additive and Subtractive. 

The first, Additive, is used to describe the three primaries where combinations of them will produce all the colours in the visible spectrum and where the three primary colours themselves, when mixed equally, will produce white light.  This is the greatest hint of all as to where these colours are found - they are the colours of transmitted light.  The primary colours are Red, Green and Blue (RGB) and they relate particularly to light, digital cameras and displays.  This is illustrated in the figure below.



Subtractive colours are so called, because when the three primaries used in this system are mixed together in equal parts, they produce Black.  A good way to remember this is that if you remove all light, then there is nothing left and "nothing" is typically associated with Black.  In digital terms, Black has the value 0 and White is represented by 255.

Subtractive colours are Cyan, Magenta and Yellow (CMY), as used in printing, or Red, Yellow and Blue (RYB) which are used in painting and in art theory.  In a later section of this part of TAOP, the colour wheel used will be that based on the painters primaries, RYB and their complementary opposites, which are green violet and orange.  In printing, these colours are also referred to as CMYK, where K stands for black, or originally "Key Plate".  The Key Plate, in printing, was that which was used to provide or enhance detail and contrast and was usually impressed in black ink

The way subtractive colours mix is shown in the illustration below.



The figures used above have both been obtained from Wikipedia and have been released into the public domain by their author.

Complementary and harmonious colours.

First of all a simple definition of primary colours, based on that given in the course text.  Primary colours are those which cannot be further broken down into other colours.

I have already used the term "complementary", so probably best to describe here what is meant by this.  Such colours are those which are located opposite to primaries in the colour wheel.  So with the RYB model, green is complementary to red, violet to yellow and orange to blue.  Where such colours appear in a photograph, they create maximum contrast (should I be using this word here as it could be misunderstood) and can create greatest impact.

Harmonious colours are those which are located alongside each other.  Why so called?  That is because there is some harmony between them; I've seen reference to such colours giving a sense of calm and peace, though this does not really equate with the way we see colours, with oranges and reds providing striking and vibrant images, warm looking, whereas blues and greens are cool and therefore frequently regarded as restful. Less saturated harmonious colours, regardless of whether they are "hot" or "cool" produce images which are restful.

TAOP Part Three: Colour

Colour is easily taken for granted.  After all, for most of us, the world is seen in colour, in its many qualities, and we also react to colour in many different ways.  When I was introduced to photography by my parents, the films used were predominantly black-and-white and colour was reserved for "high days and holidays".  Indeed, the reproduction of colour, even to me as a child, seemed very poor, though this might have something to do with the camera used at the time - a Kodak Duaflex 2!  Certainly there seemed to be no objection to viewing the world in monochrome.  50 years on, monochrome is generally regarded as "arty" and colour is the norm.  We even accept that colour can be and is manipulated, particularly where advertising is concerned, or in almost any publication.

For many years we have accepted the way the world is reproduced by artists, whether as paintings or in print.  Here, artists have mixed colours, available as pigments, in order to produce on canvas their perception of how a scene looks in colour.

This part of TAOP addresses the basic properties of colour, learning how to control, alter and modify them in photography and to use them as an element of design.

The use of colour in design, and in particular the psychology of colour is something which is of particular interest to me and I shall be exploring that further in my learning blog.

In this section I have made use of a variety of reading matter, not least making use of that source of all knowledge - Google.  Its amazing how many articles and other works can be found by typing in "psychology of colour" as a search term!  Wikipedia has also made a contribution to my understanding.

To be honest, I almost had too much in the way of references, however these did stimulate my interest.  I was particularly interested in Pantone, and that they had been acquired in 2007 by X-Rite, who produce Colormunki, the monitor and printer calibration system.  I use Colormunki to calibrate both monitor and printer.

From the Pantone web site, I quote: "In 1963, Lawrence Herbert, Pantone's founder, created an innovative system of identifying, matching and communicating colors to solve the problems associated with producing accurate color matches in the graphic arts community. His insight that the spectrum is seen and interpreted differently by each individual led to the innovation of the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM®, a book of standardized color in fan format."  The range and interpretation of colour by Pantone, is just incredible, but realistically beyond what I am trying to achieve here.

Delving into the Epson book is again outside the scope of this part of TAOP, more likely to be relevant in the Module "Digital Photographic Practice", however the book contains a lot of images which are great examples of use of design through form and colour and provide ideas and inspiration.

My references for this section include:

• OCA TAOP course notes - Part three: Colour;
• Basic Colour Theory - OCA Photography Course Supplement; 
• Colour, Michael Freeman, ILEX, 2005;
• The essential colour manual for photographers, Chris Rutter, Rotovision SA, 2006; 
• Methuen Handbook of Colour, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1981;
• Colour, Marshall Editions Limited, 1983;
• EPSON Complete Guide to Digital Printing, Rob Sheppard, Lark Books, 2008; 
• Pantone, www.pantone.com

Back to work!

I've not done much towards TAOP since early June. I developed neck pains in February which became increasingly severe, to the point where the various pain-killers which I was taking left me totally spaced out.  Eventually, in August, a lipoma was removed.  This had attached itself to the vertebrae in my neck and applied pressure on the nerves.  This, however has not been the entire solution and there is further damage to the vertebrae.  I'm due an MRI scan in just over a week and then, hopefully, the consultant will come up with a course of treatment which will help!

During this time,  I was not entirely idle - I did go to one of my favourite galleries in London - the National Portrait Gallery, but more of that later.  A day after the stitches were removed from my neck, I went to the wedding of my Brother in Law's son, and, whilst I was not the official photographer (that honour went to my other Brother in Law), I did take my camera and practiced some wedding photography!  I would welcome comments / feedback regarding these.

Meanwhile, I have also signed up for the People and Places module.  I must be mad, but I really enjoy taking photographs involving people, so I felt that this would help me with moving on with TAOP.

The Art of Seeing

Essex County Council libraries have come up trumps again.  I have managed to get my hands on two volumes of "The Art of Seeing".  This is a collection of some of the finest photographs coming from the photographers of the Reuters News Picture Service.

The vision expressed in these photographs is just amazing - there are simply too many fantastic photographs to list any particular one, though I do have some favourites.  Each is annotated by the photographer which puts the photograph in its context.  What sets these apart is that in most cases considerable thought was given into the design and structure of the photograph, despite the moment in some cases being quite fleeting.

All manner of subjects are covered, as could be expected.  From sport to dance, war and natural disasters.  Meetings of heads of state and fashion.  There is something there for all tastes, but they do have one thing in common - they are inspiring.

Assignment 2: Elements of Design

The whole process leading up to this assignment was challenging, but thoroughly enjoyable.  Certainly I feel that I am now viewing potential "subjects" with these design elements in mind.

The purpose of this visual design is to support the subject matter.  An interesting book on this subject is that by Freeman Patterson - "Photography and the art of seeing".  This was a little gem found by searching through the catalogue of books available in Essex libraries.  Quoting from the book, "If we look at something that might seem mundane, such as a gravel pit, we are first aware of what it expresses in only the most general sense: destruction, desolation, loneliness, timelessness.  The message or theme is expressed in the sum of the features of our subject matter.  It is only later that we observe the details - their shapes, textures and colours that form their inherent design."  The challenge, however is not to codify the subject matter into specific design elements, but to use these elements intuitively in order to express the qualities inherent in the subject.

The brief for this assignment called for me to incorporate the insights learned so far on this course into a set of photographs directed towards one type of subject.  I am to produce at least 10 photographs, all of a similar subject, which between them will show the following effects:

• single point dominating the composition;
• two points;
• several points in a deliberate shape; 
• a combination of vertical and horizontal lines; 
• diagonals;
• curves;
• distinct, even if irregular, shapes;
• at least two kinds of implied triangle;
• rhythm;
• pattern.

I chose for my subject, the buildings and gardens comprising the "Cressing Temple", This is a historic monument established by the Knight's Templar in the 13th Century.  A truly fascinating place which I visit regularly.  A link to a leaflet which gives a bit more detail is here.

A single point dominating the composition

Window:  ISO200  93mm  f11  1/160

The single point here is the window in the side of the granary house.  Its size and white colour causes it to dominate the image, even though the old brickwork is in itself interesting.  I used ISO 200 to give me flexibility as in my camera there is little loss of quality but it gives me greater flexibility.  An aperture of f11 was selected to provide good sharpness throughout without any loss of quality due to lens design.

Two points

Eyes:  ISO200  105mm  f11  1/50

Decorative heads around a water feature provided the two points for me.  The mouth contained a water spout, but the eyes are so "piercing", they just had to be done.  To enhance the image, I cropped tightly, giving a symmetrical image either side of the nose.  My concern here was to make sure that I had sufficient depth of field throughout, as I was shooting quite closely at the maximum focal length for the lens.  I also chose a "head" which was in shade so that I had even lighting throughout.  I felt that harsh shadows would detract from this image.

Several points in a deliberate shape

Lily pond:  ISO200  80mm  f16  1/40

I found that the lily leaves in the pond formed the number four, giving me this shape, which based around a triangle.  As I was shooting at an angle to the surface of the pond, I wanted to maximise my depth of field so I selected f16 as the most suitable aperture.  To me, the brickwork reflecting in the pond added texture and further interest, so I did not attempt to remove these reflections using a polarising filter.

A combination of vertical and horizontal lines

Wheat Barn detail:  ISO200  105mm  f14  1/125

For this, I was seduced by the plethora of actual horizontal and vertical lines formed by the brickwork and the wooden structure of the barn.  I felt that a "head on" shot of this wall was too static, so I moved slightly to the side giving gentle diagonals leading the eye through the photograph.  By using the modest telephoto of 105mm, I managed some compression as well which has made the wall less static.  I selected f14 as the aperture which would provide me with sufficient depth of field, from side to side and this also gave me a comfortable shutter speed for the focal length.

Diagonals

Walled garden:  ISO200  24mm  f16  1/80

The path alongside the wall in the Medieval garden has provided strong diagonals which lead the eye to the tree positioned at the end and then the small figure underneath the tree.  I enhanced the effect using a wide angle of 24mm and then used a small aperture of f16 to provide me with good sharpness throughout.

Curves

Temple grounds:  ISO200  32mm  f14  1/80

One of the paths in the grounds, leading to the walled garden in the distance, provided me with an elegant curve for this photograph.  I enhanced this by using a medium wide angle of 32mm and an aperture of f14 has provided me with good sharpness throughout.

Distinct, even if irregular, shapes

Stairway to heaven:  ISO200  32mm  f14  1/250

This fire escape caught my eye as soon as I walked in into the Cressing Temple grounds.  This led from the top floor at one end of the Granary building.  I shot this as a semi-silhouette as I wanted to retain some detail in the metal work.  To me this had a large number of shapes, ranging from curves, through vertical lines, diagonals and triangles.  What appealed to me was just the graphic nature of this structure.  I took quite a number of different shots from different angles, but this, I feel, came closest to what I wanted.  I wanted the structure to be sharp, so used an aperture of f14 and exaggerated some of the lines by using a mid-wide angle.

Two kinds of implied triangle

Corner of wheat barn:  ISO200  16mm  f16  1/30

 Shooting close to one corner of this barn, using a very wide angle has created a triangle by convergence.  This is very much a standard form of an implied triangle.

Planters:  ISO200  73mm  f18  1/30

The two planters standing on top of the wall pillars and the rounded form of the bay tree against the wall has created a natural triangle.  The viewer's eye is drawn to this triangle formed by the 3 shapes.  Standing back and using a small amount of telephoto has strengthened this effect by making the three object appear as though they were in the same plane.  I ensured good depth of field by using an aperture of f18.

Rhythm

Waves 1:  ISO200  f4  1/1250

The curved roof tiles on top of the 16th Century farmhouse in the grounds gave me plenty of opportunity to explore the use of rhythm.  I have, here selected three photographs which illustrate rhythm, using the same subject, but taken from different angles.  The tiles suggested waves to me, flowing in a strong motion from left to right.  In "waves 1", I angled the shot so as to look over the top of the waves and, additionally, I used an aperture of f4 to provide a shallower depth of field, focusing a third of the way into the frame.  This, to me adds to the sense of movement.

Waves 2:  ISO200  105mm  f13

In "waves 2", I shot this much more "square on" onto the roof, using a small aperture of f13 to provide good depth of field.  This now gives the look of repeating "U"s moving from left to right across the image.  The valley of the "U" is now much more pronounced and the tiles give the impression of crests of waves going vertically up the photograph.  Again, a definite sense of movement from left to right.  The imperfections and irregularities of the tiles seem to add to this sense of movement.

Waves 3:  ISO200  98mm  f18  1/80

In "waves 3" I wanted to give a starting point to the rhythm or movement and the small black "chimney" provided this.  Shooting lower down the roof, provided a shot of the edges of the lowest tiles and this now gives a much different impression.  Firstly, the rhythm is anchored at one end, and now the waves move from there, though they appear to have much greater peaks, giving a "choppier" movement.  I felt that for this to work, I needed to shoot at a small aperture to maximise DOF.

Pattern

Barn roof:  ISO200  105mm  f14  1/200

I found, again, I had many choices of subject, the first of which was this barn roof.  It could have been usd as a "single point" with the diamond shape in the top left.  I stared at this roof for some time and the different colours and shades of tile seemed to create patterns across the frame.  I then played around with different ways of expressing this and, by increasing blacks, brightness and contrast in Lightroom, as well as rendering the photograph in Black and White, I arrived at the image below.

Barn roof 2

In B&W this starts showing the various patterns I could see in the roof tiles - irregular, but significant.

Path:  ISO200  24mm  f16  1/80

The path, I feel is a much more natural / traditional representation of "pattern", her the bricks being laid out in what is a herringbone pattern.  The crop of the photograph enables the mind to expand the pattern, in this case, in all directions.

Hoppé Portraits - Society, Studio & Street

Well, this week I finally made it to the exhibition - on a Thursday evening during one of the National Portrait Gallery's "Late Shift". Before talking about the exhibition, I would just like to mention the concept of the "Late Shift".  This is the most innovative idea I have come across for a long time.  On Thursday and Friday evenings, the Gallery is open until 9pm, with a bar in the main foyer, a DJ playing some great music (on the day I went) and a variety of other activities.  There is a lovely relaxed atmosphere which really helps in viewing the exhibitions.

The first thing which struck me about the exhibition was how prolific Hoppé was - I imagine that the photographs which were on display were only a part of the main collection.  Some of the photographs were original vintage photographs and some were modern reprints - however this did not detract from the pleasure of viewing them.

So what were my impressions.  Hoppé captured the spirit of the subject, whether the androgynous look of Vaslav Nijinsky (1914) image here, the confidence of a young Margot Fonteyn (1935) see image, taken after her first major performance at the age of 16, or the thoughtfulness of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1912) see image here. With regard to much of his early work, there is a soft quality in the vintage prints which just could not be reproduced in digital.  This is not just due to the very wide apertures used by Hoppe, but also the materials of the period, such as the gelatin silver prints.

One of the most exciting series of prints in this exhibition, was "street" which was Hoppe's venture into street photography, sometimes using cameras which were hidden inside brown bags with a hole for the lens!  It is, however, a great insight into English and in particular, London, life.  Here were some of my favourite photographs:

British Museum Underground Station (1937) see image here, for me the curves of the tunnel, the positioning of the man looking at the advert and the light pouring in from the end of the tunnel come together just so well that I am constantly drawn to it.

Sandwich Board Man (1945)  see image here  There is a tremendous dignity of the Indian person who was carrying the advertising boards.  Clearly he is on a the street, but the use of the wide aperture and the low positioning of the camera, give the man such great importance.