Waiting for Summer

Waiting for Summer
Showing posts with label Christoph Bangert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christoph Bangert. Show all posts

Monday, 25 August 2014

Part One - Photograph as document: Project Four - The gallery wall - documentary as art: Research Point - Documentary and art

This research point is about the work entitled "Sectarian Murders" by Paul Seawright.  These works show images captured by Seawright that show the sites of Sectarian attacks during the 1970s in Belfast, Northern Ireland: "The texts are from newspaper reports at the time and document the murders of innocent civilians, killed for their perceived religion. Reference to Protestant or Catholic background was removed from the text", Seawright (date not known) [accessed 25 August 2014].
  • How does this work challenge the boundaries between documentary and art?
  • What is the core of Seawright's argument and do you agree with him?
  • If we define a piece of documentary photography as art, does this change its meaning?
In order to answer these questions, it's first essential to understand the meaning of documentary and art (in terms of photography) and where the boundaries are.  Here is my understanding:
  • Documentary photography to me is as close as you can get to a record of reality.  This interpretation is however already slightly ambiguous when you take on board the fact that the photographer is selecting a viewpoint; they are choosing what to include and what to exclude in the frame.  So a documentary photograph is can only ever be one perspective of a situation.  The boundary in this respect is therefore already blurred.  In Imperial War Museums ("IWM") 2013, Seawright talks about the function of editorial images which have to convey their meaning almost immediately because of the speed at which they are looked at.  Street photography is an excellent example of where the boundary between art and documentary is blurred; sure it's a record of reality, but that record is highly contrived by the photographer to give it (in some cases) an almost surreal, and certainly selective, viewpoint.
  • Art photography in my view is everything else, plus it can also include documentary photography in certain contexts.  It is photography where the meaning is slightly ambiguous, where the reader has to dig deeper to understand or derive meaning from the images, and possibly relate back to his or her own experiences in order for the image to say something to you.  In IWM, 2013, Seawright makes the point that with art forms the construction of meaning is done by the person engaging with the art and not by the artist, and I think this is the core of his argument, and on this point I agree with him.  If an image can evoke a reaction that will differ from person to person, i.e. a subjective response beyond the mere receipt of information, that to me is art.
Looking at the images on the Sectarian Murders website, I find them chilling.   I think particularly the viewpoints the Seawright has chosen contribute to the sense that something hidden and subterfuge has happened.  And I think that this reaction would be even more so for people who are from the area or who have lived through that violence (either the same or similar situations).  But I'm also wondering, if the text wasn't there and the knowledge of history wasn't there, whether the images would have the same impact?  These images depict scenes where children play and people walk their dogs, yet because we know the history behind the images, it conjures up feelings of extreme incongruence, discomfort and disbelief.

For instance, taking the image from Saturday 9th June 1973 as an example, if you take away the text (and therefore context), this could simply be a lovely picture of a child playing on the swings, and therefore, art?  But with the addition of the text, and also the viewpoint that implies the angle of view that a marksman might have if he/she were hiding waiting to take the shot, or they could also be from the victim's view where they fell or were left, pins the image to history and adds an editorial feel, and therefore, documentary?

In terms of how this work challenges the boundaries between documentary and art, I think there are two answers:
  • It doesn't, because the boundaries are actually very blurred anyway, or
  • It completely challenges the boundaries because provides a series of record shots or "traces of traces of events" (Campany, 2003) but taken from a subjective viewpoint forcing an emotive reaction by the inclusion of the text and meaning.
To conclude, the answer is probably that the boundaries are blurred.  These are certainly not journalism or editorial shots - they are much more creative and selective than a simple record of events, and are they neither forensic style photographs of the brutality unlike those of War Porn by Christoph Banguert (Butet-Roch, 2014 pp 62-65).  But they are illustrative of a moment in time and a historical event, but from a highly interpretive perspective involving the engagement of the viewer to derive meaning.

What is important though is that this piece of work has been created to serve as a memory; to echo the sentiments of Meyerowitz in Campany 2003 about Ground Zero: "I felt if there was no photographic record allowed, then it was history erased", or in Campany's view that documentary photography after the event (or late photography) is used figuratively in contemporary art: "It seems clear that contemporary art has a predilection for the ‘late photograph’. It has become a central trope in its current dialogue with documentary. The works of Willie Doherty, Paul Seawright, Sophie Ristelhueber and Richard Misrach are some of the more interesting examples" (Campany, 2013).

I can't find any evidence that defining documentary photography as art reduces its meaning (assuming the work is genuine and not contrived), in fact the opposite - I think it increases its meaning.  For instance, Seawright's images are equally meaningful as art and I think possibly more evocative.  We have become used to seeing graphic or shocking images, either in real life news bulletins or through CGI or film special effects.  The lack of graphic or factual information in the Sectarian Murder series delivers a more conceptual impact rather than a journalistic impact, but the meaning is still there.  In fact maybe more so.

To compare with one of Meyerowitz's Ground Zero images, Five More Found in Howarth et al, 2011, pp 130-131.  To me, this is documentary, but it is also art (it has meaning, composition, form, colour contrast, light, drama) - but the fact that it can be considered art does not make the image have any less meaning; in fact quite the opposite, evoking a bitter/sweet response.  In fact, I think in this case meaning is enhanced by the artistic nature of the image, for one thing it's so beautiful and striking you want to keep looking at it.  My arguments with this image are that it is not street photography and it is therefore not clear on why it was included in Howarth et al, 2011, I see it as documentary produced in a very artistic way.

Another image with blurred boundaries, also related to the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001 is one by Melanie Einzig seen at the Cartier Bresson: A Question of Colour Exhibition in 2012 (previously posted in TAOP), Einzig, 2001 in Positive View Foundation, 2013.  The image in question shows a man walking down the road carrying a package with the airstrike happening behind him. This is documenatry, as it shows an event happening in a very matter-of-fact journalistic way, but it is also art - it's street photography - the random occurence of different events, the extraordinary amongst the ordinary, the oblivion by one subject of another, incongruence etc.  But does that make it less shocking?  Probably not.  If anything more shocking as the inclusion of the context of the ordinary makes it look less like move CGI and more that it will have an impact on everyday people.

To conclude:
  • boundaries between art and documentary are not rigid, they are blurred and overlapping
  • an artistic approach to documentary, or the overlay of art onto a documentary topic can enhance the emotive response
  • the meaning of art depends on the experiences and response of the viewer.

References
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Saturday, 9 August 2014

Part One - Photograph as document: Project One - Eyewitnesses?: Exercise: Objectivity

The exercise asks that we look at examples of news emergencies and comment on whether they are objective and can they ever be objective.

To answer this, the first thing to do is to define "objective".  A quick google search brings back the following definition, which I agree is consistent with my general everyday understanding of the word: "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts".  This definition immediately poses problems though as it's hard to see how you could be objective and not emotive when photographing emergencies.  By the very nature of photographing an emergency, you need to capture the essence of the emergency for the photograph to achieve a purpose (to inform the reader).  At that point are you focused too much on detail and not on context?

Taking the example of Invisible War, which I commented on in a previous post, I think these are the most shocking and explicit "emergency" type images I've ever seen.  It doesn't get worse than this for detail.  Are they objective?  Yes - the photographer captured an event and shown it for what it is.  These are not posed photographs, they are not contrived, and were quite likely shot in a hurry (safety reasons) with little time to think about the frame.  But did the photographer have an emotive reaction at the time - very likely yes, who wouldn't? And if a photographer is trying to highlight the atrocity of war, surely this is an emotive response.  If war was acceptable, it wouldn't be newsworthy and we wouldn't need such a sharp wake up call as this one.  I would consider these images emotive rather than objective.  They may have been shot in an objective way, but the subsequent treatment and publication is emotive; the photographer wants to shock us into having a reaction.

I then had a look at BBC News to see if I could find a very recent image of an emergency.  Well, the opening page was full of emergency type stories (of course, breaking news goes straight to the front), but not necessarily graphic emergency images.  So I looked for images of the recent MH17 crash to see how that had been portrayed.  I found the images objective - they told a story without being overly emotive - the captions however were more emotive. It would be interesting to see images that were less detailed on a wider scale to see the full range of the spread debris but again, that would have been objective.  The absence of explicit images in this sequence reduces the emotive reaction, but I have seen previously photographs of the photographers themselves looking stunned.

Next, I asked my husband what he thought was the single-most shocking emergency-type picture he had ever seen.  He recalled the 1989 British Midland air crash on the M1 at Kegworth.  He remembered seeing a photograph of a dead girl (about 6 years old) still holding a toy.  I haven't been able to find that image, but compared to the ones I did find (see link) above, I can imagine it to be significantly less objective, and much more emotive.  Just seeing the wreckage is one thing, but anything to do with children and an attachment to a treasured toy with them in their last moments is deeply shocking.

After that, I thought about images by renowned photographers of emergencies that I had previously seen.  One that I remembered instantly is an image by Steve McCurry that I had previously commented during my TAOP module (see Scrapbook link).  The image in question is Camel and Oil Fields, Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, 1991 which depicts three camels in the burning Kuwaiti oilfields foraging for food; the camels are caught between the blackened sand and the smoke-filled sky.  Objectively, this is a documentary photograph of the environmental casualties of war: animals.  Emotively, this is a stunning photograph which fills you with horror and makes you ask lots of questions - like what are they breathing - is the ground painfully hot - where are they finding food?  Was McCurry objective or emotive when he took it?  Probably both - it's likely he took the photograph to document a side to war that we don't often think about, and emotive because he was responding to the plight of these poor creatures.

Finally, another documentary-style image of an emergency that I remembered having looked at previously was one I commented on in my review of Street Photography Now, Five More Found, by Joel Meyerowitz.  Thinking about it now, I'm not sure why it was featured in Street Photography Now, as I would describe this as documentary rather than street photography.  Is this image objective?  Well, yes of course, it's a record of an event as it happened.  But, it's also an event filled with emotion - the devastation of the twin towers attacks in New York 2001, followed by the relief that some survivors were found; an extreme case of bitter-sweet.  What has Meyerowitz done in the shooting to make it emotive?  Other than the stunning capture of light and colour, he's put the focus point right in the centre - straight to the point of the story.  The wrecked buildings are details around the edges - what happens in this story is the rescue.  And with the fire, oxygen equipment, helmets and so on - details that remind us of the fire-fighters bravery and commitment, we are reminded that this is a scene of drama.

To conclude, I don't think emergency documentary photographs are generally objective.  I think they may start out being objective, as in the photographer doing his/her job to make a record of the event, but because the reader will have an emotional response, plus the details of the scene contribute to the image being emotive, it is actually impossible for emergency photographs to be objective.  And I also think that adding strong contrasts of light and colour as in the case of McCurry and Meyerowitz, adds to the sense of drama and compels you to look.


References:
  • Butet-Roch, L. (2014) Invisible War. British Journal of Photography 161 (7827), pp.62-65 
Websites:
Own work referenced:
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Invisible War - BJP August 2014

I'm not quite sure how I feel about an article called Invisible War in the August 2014 issue of BJP.  The article, written by Laurence Butet-Roch, describes a body of work by photographer Christoph Bangert.  Entitled "War Porn", Bangert has put together a series of shocking, explicit, gruesome, and real images of war, shot over a ten-year period in conflict zones.

What is interesting is the decision to publish and why Bangert felt that they needed to be seen: "When you have all this unpublished material dormant on your hard drive, you get angry; you feel like you have failed in your mission, which is not only to take photographs, but also to show them" (Bangert quoted Butet-Roch, 2014, p64).  This implies that taking the photograph (or in fact capturing the "story") is only half the job.  If photographs are not seen, the exercise is pointless.  In this case, Bangert intended to provoke discussion about how images of horrific events are framed.  I think that a lot of people will look at these images published in BJP, but I wonder how many will go on to purchase the book, so from that perspective, is the context in which they are seen right?  Perhaps governments and heads of state should be forced to see wall-size reproductions in an exhibition....This said, the first edition of War Porn is already sold out. 

The article goes on to reference Susan Sontag and her work "Regarding the Pain of Others" and comments on her reactions to photographs of atrocities and whether they inspire peace, provoke revenge or simply raise awareness.  Bangert's reaction is simply that his images will not prevent further violence, but, if people cannot even look at the images, then we can't begin to think about preventing war, and that if you don't look at the pictures, then you simply don't care.

Thinking about my own reaction, I am amazed by war photography; not in a voyeuristic way, but in the ability of the photographer to carry out their work under such conditions - both from an emotional point of view and the issue of personal safety.  I previously wrote about Don McCullin in my DPP blog, and remember feeling stunned that he could continue his work, and like Bangert produce photographs that are technically competent (read brilliant!) and also creative and visually compelling, whilst the atrocity is happening around them.  In this case, Bangert has put together a collection of work that for a lot of people will be too gruesome to look at.  I can look at it, and I am beyond appalled that human beings can commit these atrocities and harm each other to such an extent, but I don't know if I would be able to retain sufficient composure to be actually able to deliver something like this myself.


Reference List

Butet-Roch, L. (2014) Invisible War. British Journal of Photography 161 (7827), pp.62-65
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