Blog Posts

Beat Streuli

10/1/2017

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Of all the practitioners I have looked at, I identify most with the work of Beat Streuli - not necessarily in our motives or self objectives, but certianly in our finished work. In fact on reflection, I am quite astounded by the similarities in our work up to this point. Streulis aesthetic is a lot more clearer, richer and polished in appearance to mine, and this is for several technical and logistical reasons including, the time of year and the weather, which limits my ambient light availability to somewhere between grey and greyer. I cannot wait for the spring/summer months when I can drop my iso, increase my shutter speed and throw caution to the wind with my aperture for maximum artisitic quality control!!
There is also Streulis equipment to take into account, he uses a telephoto lens, which although I cant find the details for, I can tell that it far outshines any lens I have available to use. I would hazard an educated guess that he probably shoots with a lens of at least 400mm with a very wide aperture of somewhere around f2.8 - this accounts for the clarity, rich tones and noise-free aesthetic. This gives his images an almost cinematic quality - no doubt useful for the billboard sized prints he displays of his work!

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My Work - Tewkesbury, Cheltenham & Gloucester

10/1/2017

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Interesting Video Monologues of Artists

9/1/2017

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A Piece from The Guardian 2010

8/1/2017

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/may/16/exposed-voyeurism-surveillance-camera-review

Garry Winogrand's image of a couple in New York in 1969. Photograph: Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco/Garry WinograndSean O'Hagan
Sunday 16 May 2010 00.05 BST

Photography," Diane Arbus once said, "was a licence to go wherever I wanted and to do what I wanted to do." Arbus, who famously photographed American outsiders and eccentrics, including so-called freaks from carnival shows, also described the lure of the camera thus: "I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do... when I first did it I felt very perverse."
Either quotation could serve as an epigraph to the catalogue for Tate Modern's ambitious exhibition, Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera. Here, photography is a licence to spy and pry, to transgress, shock, provoke and, above all, to invade the privacy of others.
Exposed is a show about the politics of looking – both through the lens and at the end result. The work is gathered under five themes related to the voyeurism of the lens: street photography, sexually explicit images, celebrity stalking, shots of death and violence, and surveillance.
Today, photography itself could be said to be under siege. We live in a digitally driven culture where everyone with a mobile phone is a photographer of sorts. Technology has freed us to bear witness, but it has also made voyeurs of us all. Last year, the death of 27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan during an Iranian pro-democracy protest was captured on a mobile phone and, according to Time magazine, became "probably the most widely witnessed death in human history".
The age of citizen journalism may be well under way, but the internet is also overloaded with images of violence, drunkenness and sexual embarrassment. Here, the humiliation of others often seems to be a defining dynamic. "We cannot blame the camera for what it has done to us," writes Sandra S Phillips, curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in her foreword to the Exposed catalogue. "Nevertheless, it has made certain human predilections much easier to satisfy."
AdvertisementFor all that, photography can still shock and repel. Earlier this year, the World Press awards featured a series of images by Farah Abdi Warsameh entitled Stoned to Death, Somalia. The photographs were so graphic that one's immediate instinct was to turn away in horror. Are the images powerful because of the horror they capture? Or do they represent, as one Observer colleague put it, "a kind of pornography of suffering"? Do they jolt us into awareness or inure us even further to the suffering of others?
We could ask the same questions of many of the images that will feature in the Tate show's 'Witnessing Violence' section: graphic images of executions, exhumed bodies and victims of bombings. Chronologically, this begins with an image of an American civil war burial party taken in 1865 by John Reekie, and ends with Larry Clark's portrait of a heavily pregnant young woman injecting herself with heroin from his early 70s Tulsa series. That's quite a range of human suffering but, as Phillips notes, "the terrible fascination of looking at suffering and death, the moral ambiguity of the act, is as pertinent now as it was during the American civil war".
What has changed, as Susan Sontag predicted in her 1977 book On Photography, is the amount of such imagery and the ease with which we can access it. "Once one has seen such images," she wrote, "one has started down the road of seeing more – and more. Images transfix. Images anaesthetise."
Today, the morality of what might be called extreme reportage is an even more vexed issue. Likewise, the terrain of the sexually explicit. Again, the range of photographs on display at Tate Modern is broad and frequently provocative. Both Robert Mapplethorpe and Nobuyoshi Araki deal in what many people might consider hardcore sexual imagery and are drawn, in their different ways, to the ritualistic. Perhaps it's just me, but what once seemed shocking in their work now seems familiar to the point of banal.
More intriguing are the voyeuristic images on display. In a picture from his brothel series, Chez Suzy (1932), Brassaï frames in a mirror a couple kissing on a bed. What once was considered arousing now looks quite restrained, but the sense that both the photographer and the viewer are prying remains strong.
AdvertisementThis is even more the case in Merry Alpern's grainy shots of prostitutes and their clients in her series, Dirty Windows (1994), taken clandestinely through the bathroom window of a sex club on Wall Street. Interestingly, Brassaï's brothel photographs are now seen as ground-breaking social reportage, whereas Alpern's are viewed as art photography, which tells us as much about the changing nature of the politics of curating as that of the politics of looking.
The idea that viewing such morally problematic images might make us complicit in the production of ever-more transgressive images is one that haunts this show. The curators seem to have broached it somewhat conceptually by creating a semi-dark corridor in which the dim lights just about illuminate Kohei Yoshiyuki's series, The Park. Taken with newly available infrared film in 1970, they show kneeling men behind bushes spying on the nocturnal lovemaking of young couples. (Yoshiyuki later said of this body of work that he had started off photographing voyeurs and ended up becoming one.)
For me, the most intriguing section of the show examines our surveillance culture. Here, the images are, as Phillips points out, "voyeuristic in anticipation". Again, the watcher's gaze is driven by technology, in this instance the security cameras that silently monitor from a distance individuals, groups, entire cities. The population of London is now one of the most watched in the world and the fact that we are being photographed 24/7 without our permission seems, as the show's curator, Simon Baker, posits, "to be somehow linked to our lack of awareness of what is going on".
Again, we cannot blame the camera for what it has done to us, but, as this intriguing show will illustrate, we should perhaps be more aware than ever of its relentless gaze, its power to shape and to distort our lives.

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The Tate - EXPOSED Exhibiton

6/1/2017

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Since its invention, the camera has been used to make images surreptitiously and satisfy the desire to see what is hidden. Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera examines photography’s role in voyeuristic looking from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day. It includes pictures taken by professional photographers and artists, but also images made without our knowledge on a daily basis through the proliferation of CCTV.
The exhibition is divided into five thematic sections: The Unseen Photographer, Celebrity and the Public Gaze, Voyeurism and Desire, Witnessing Violence, and Surveillance. In each case, the nature and character of invasive looking is evident not only in the images themselves, but also in the ways in which the viewer is implicated in acts of voyeurism. Rather than blame the camera for showing illicit or forbidden material, Exposed explores the uneasy relationship between making and viewing images that deliberately cross lines of privacy and propriety.

This room presents two sets of photographs from opposite ends of the twentieth century, both of which rely on specific equipment and strategies. Walker Evans’s Subway Passengers were made on New York City underground trains in the 1930s with small hidden cameras, allowing Evans to record the natural, un-posed faces of the city’s inhabitants. Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Heads, by contrast, were taken on the streets of New York in 2000, also without their subjects’ knowledge or permission, but this time through an elaborate series of hidden cameras and automatic flashes that were triggered as people walked past. One of his unwitting targets took legal action against diCorcia, which resulted in a landmark ruling that the artist’s right to self-expression took precedence over the subject’s right to their own image.
Room 2The notion of the Unseen Photographer also extends to the practices of photographers that enable them to ‘capture’ images stealthily or by surprise. Working in the slums of New York at the end of the nineteenth century, Jacob Riis’s pictures of tenement dwellers include those sleeping or so tired and inebriated they are barely aware of him entering their rooms and setting off his bright flash bulb. Paul Strand used a false lens to photograph poor immigrants while seeming to point his camera the other way. Hired by the National Child Labor Committee, Lewis Hine’s revelatory photographs of children working in mines and factories appear to show the subjects’ awareness of the photographer, but were taken without the permission of the factory owners.
Room 3This room presents work by some of the twentieth century’s most important photographers. In each case, they exploit the camera’s ability to create images without the knowledge of some, or all, of their subjects. Ben Shahn used a lateral viewfinder to make candid street photographs. Walker Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson photographed people from above to great visual effect, while Lee Friedlander and Harry Callahan seem to sneak up on their subjects from behind. Garry Winogrand and Robert Frank’s lightning-fast snapshots of street life suggest photography working faster than the eye to capture a split-second slice of real life. Winogrand liked to use an extra wide lens, so that people on the edges of his photographs wouldn’t have realised they were in the frame. Many of these photographers produced series of works on the same theme or in the same location, epitomised by Harry Callahan’s sequence of images Women Lost in Thought, made in 1950.

With the development of conceptual art in the late 1960s artists began to use photography to document performances or actions. Every day for one month in 1969 Vito Acconci followed a randomly selected stranger on the streets of New York, recording his experiences with photographs and a written account. Sophie Calle has made a number of works that explore the artist’s voyeuristic nature, whether following strangers or employing others to follow her. In 1981 she took a job as a chambermaid in a Venetian hotel with the intention of gathering information about its occupants.
Photographer Merry Alpern hid a video camera inside her handbag so she could take it into the harshly lit fitting rooms of a number of fashion boutiques, and found that it revealed a disconcertingly unfamiliar image of herself: ‘I had always seen myself quite differently when I looked in the mirror. Suddenly I no longer knew what I really looked like’. Artist Emily Jacir also appeared in front of the camera, inserting herself into the frame of a live webcam trained on the main square of Linz, Austria over the course of a month. Though she is barely visible in the resulting pictures, her diaristic text directs the viewer to her presence.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/exposed/exposed-voyeurism-surveillance-and-camera-exhibition-guide-4

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Harry Conways Orwellian Society - an Interview

3/1/2017

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This photo series questions surveillance in our city
Photographer Harry F Conway is ‘attacking’ pedestrians in central London in an attempt to wake us up to the possibility of an Orwellian society

http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/30816/1/harry-f-conway-the-photo-series-highlighting-surveillance-in-our-cities

Harry F Conway doesn’t want to give us pretty pictures. He wants to make us think. In his Stolen Souls photo series (soon-to-be exhibition), Conway, a native of London, uses his collection of photos shot on the streets around Soho, Chinatown and Oxford Street to highlight how surveillance cameras in the city observe us day and night. We are all being caught on camera constantly and Conway’s upcoming exhibition addresses this relentless recording of our images and actions. “I thought why not inject a bit of honesty into this practice of stealing pictures… so I walked around the busiest places in London past midnight and jumped out at people with a big camera and flash, letting them know I'd taken their photograph,” he explains.
Previously featured on Dazed, he comes to photography through a route less travelled. Having studied at Central St. Martins in London, Conway was also once a prolific graffiti writer. After being tracked down by the police, he was given a 12-month sentence at notorious west London prison, Wormwood Scrubs for his graffiti work. Upon release, he changed direction and headed for a photography BA at the London College of Communication. But his life as a graffiti writer has undoubtedly shaped the photo series – “I like to approach my photography as aggressively as I approached graff,” he says. Like the bold and invasive methods he applied to his previous work, the shocking technique used to take these photos draws attention to our lack of control over who records us anonymously, when and where. In advance of Stolen Souls opening later this week (22 April) at south London’s MMX Gallery, we caught up with the young artist and photographer to find out more about his work.

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Harry F Conway Stolen Souls

Can you explain the story behind this photo series?
Harry F Conway: Stolen Souls came from me watching my peers using their phones to take discreet pictures of strangers. Whether it was on a train or just in public, people would be taking pictures without permission and then sharing it on social media without the person’s knowledge; this often led to malicious comments online about said stranger. I felt there was such a degree of deceptiveness in this act. I wanted to do the same thing, but make sure the individual knew I’d stolen their face. I liked the idea that the stranger would now know their image had been taken, they could not stop or alter this act; but they now knew it had taken place.
Surveillance has become a hot topic for artists, what particularly drove you to highlight it? How did graff shape your thinking behind Stolen Souls?
Harry F Conway: What drove me to it? The police trying to kick down my door, tracking my Oyster card to see where I’d been, stealing my property, and detectives trying to intimidate my family and friends. All for a bit of paint on a wall...
My photography is a reflection of my life. Graff had to shape my future work; it was such a big part of my adolescence. I came out of prison for graff and the next day I was sitting in a tutorial for my first year at London College of Communication. It was pretty surreal. One day a cell, the next day an art school.
“I don’t trust anyone to have that much control over my liberty and the rest of society’s right to privacy. Orwell got it right” – Harry F Conway
Why do you think people are so ignorant to surveillance? Is it because we’re complicit and it’s become the norm? Or because people aren’t even aware of it?
Harry F Conway: People know it’s there, but I’m not sure the everyday person knows the full extent of surveillance in the UK, and especially London. The battery in your iPhone can’t be taken out so even when it’s turned off the phone is emitting a signal every few seconds to reveal your location. Now everyone’s moving to contactless cards, your journeys anywhere are recorded. That’s not even going into social media monitoring and CCTV, yet alone facial recognition software the police now use. In a couple of years we’ll have mini-drones in the skies monitoring our every move.
The sad thing for me is this argument that we shouldn’t worry as “if you don’t have anything to hide then you shouldn’t care”. This is unsettling as it seems the majority of people in this country truly don’t understand how these kinds of measures are not just used for terrorists, they are used for anything the police and security services like. I don’t trust anyone to have that much control over my liberty and the rest of society’s right to privacy. Orwell got it right.
How do these pictures relate to your graff work – the illicit, subversive nature of it?
Harry F Conway: I started shooting Stolen Souls in the day, but I realised the flash isolated people in the frame at night. Also, people are more worried at night, if a guy jumps out at you in a camouflage jacket and weird camera gear in hand, people normally look pretty scared. I was used to roaming London at night due to my obsession with writing graffiti. For years, we’d take night buses all over town to paint spots and this gave me a great knowledge of the city at night. I knew which areas and streets to frequent to find the largest volume of people to prey on. It was a hunting exercise. I’d trawl the streets until the early hours, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, just searching for subjects to prey on with my lens.

Courtesy Harry F ConwayHow did people react to having you taking their pictures?
Harry F Conway: I’m a 6ft bald guy with a moustache jumping out at you with some weird camera set up in the dark. Most people kept it moving and didn’t look back. Some people would scream, others would mutter under their breath as they walked the other way. It turned into a bit of a social experiment; seeing who I thought would flip out. To tell the truth, I only got in a couple of fights the years I was shooting this series.
How did it feel, actually taking the pictures?
Harry F Conway: It felt uneasy at times. People think you’re some sicko. I got called a pervert a couple of times. Some nights I stopped shooting early, as it’s quite a difficult thing to take on; going out in the cold night after nightfall, attacking people with your camera. You change your mindset to that of a predator in search of prey; I began weighing up whether someone would attack me and if they fitted the series itself. I wanted it to be everyday people going about their everyday business, coming home from work or going to the shops. Stolen Souls is the paparazzi of the stranger.
Is there one picture that stands out to you?
Harry F Conway:There’s one picture of an older couple, (they’re) both wearing navy blue jackets and the women’s hat colour matches the colour of the guys silver white hair. The main difference in the photograph is their expressions; she looks disapprovingly into the lens as in contrast he looks bewildered like a deer in headlights.

“To tell the truth, I only got in a couple of fights the years I was shooting this series” – Harry F Conway
Now that you can’t do graff anymore, is this another way to make your voice heard?
Harry F Conway: Yes, I definitely found it to be a transition of my energies. I was shooting photography before graffiti, but I didn’t take it too seriously. When I came out of prison I began to put more effort into taking pictures. Instead of spending my nights writing my name, I would walk for hours on end searching for frames. However cliché, it’s kind of become a therapy for me.
Are there any street photographers you’ve been particularly influenced by?
Harry F Conway: Garry Winogrand is a massive influence to me. When I look at his work I always see new things inside his frames. For me, he had an unparalleled eye. I only discovered Bruce Gilden through Stolen Souls and, obviously, his and Mark Cohen’s approaches aided me on the street.
We always hear graffiti artists referred to as “artists” but you use the word “writer”. Can you explain that?
Harry F Conway: There’s graffiti artists and there’s graff writers; two different kinds of people. I’m not going to go in depth about it. If you’re a writer you know you’re a writer. Fuck the British transport police and the London underground. Stop imprisoning kids for simply writing their names in paint and solve some real crime. We need to change the way we view ‘criminal damage’ and how we punish those responsible in this country. Instead of wasting the taxpayer’s money chasing kids about for a bit of graff, why don’t the BTP use their endless CCTV and go about solving all the sexual assaults on the rail network. We have the worst double standards; using graffiti for advertising, giving big brands street cred, yet we lock up those painting real graff. End custodial sentences for writers.
What do you want people to take away from the photos?
Harry F Conway: I want people to view these photographs and feel shame and unease. When people view these images in my book or at an exhibition, they feel awkward; like, ‘why are all these people looking at me like I’ve threatened them’? I want that intense set of emotions to reflect the nature of surveillance culture upon us right now. The aggressive nature of surveillance tactics used every day in the streets you walk around in London – just try and think about that for a minute, why do we need to be monitored so closely?
Stolen Souls launches with a private viewing on Thursday 21 April and will run Friday 22 April until 28 May at MMX Gallery, New Cross, London. Click here for more details and follow Conway for updates on Instagram here.
Follow Alice Nicolov on Twitter here @alicenicolov

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My Work - London

30/12/2016

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Today, I took the (inevitably delayed) train to London to do some work. As such a busy and buzzing place, I had great expectations for what I could acheive and was very excited to be going. But when I arrived I felt a bit overwhelmed. Some of the popular areas, such as China Town and Piccadily Circus, were absolutely rammed with people, street entertainers creating dams of people watching who were then blocking the thoroughfare of others, including myself. The crowds were so dense that a lot of the time it was difficult to get many sucessfull images in my normal style.

Narratives, characters and quirks were hidden amongst scores of people marching shoulder to shoulder through the streets. The obvious subjects for me tended to be tourists who took the time to stop and 'tourist' giving me the opportunity to move around them into a position that I wanted to shoot from. But largely the day consisted of me looking for areas that could proffer an opportunity of someone enagaging within the space in an intrinsic way. Naturally I was rewarded with such opportunities, but mostly I felt stunted by the volume of people and unprepared to work even faster than I previously thought i was!

The final results from the day were that I found I took a lot less images than before, spent a lot more money in doing so, and got 8-10 images that could make the final edit.

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My Work - Gloucester

29/12/2016

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I took the camera out today, very much wanting to shoot in a more obviously surveillance manner - using parts of the car to block or blure out certain aspects of my image, or shooting into my subjects cars - peeking at them through windows or bars and becuase of the, the style of work feels very different to my other shots. Some of these may appear visually truer to my initial objective, but to me they dont have such an interesting narrative - they lack enthusiasm, life, colour (drained away by shooting through dirty car windows etc) some of them have worked really well, for example I really like the people crossing the road with two people in wheelchairs - theres a lot going on in the photo - lots of intersting lines and forms created by the multiple directions of all the people points of view contained in the frame.

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Mark Neville

28/12/2016

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http://www.markneville.com/

What I love abut these few images by Mark Neville is the disconnection between the subjects and the camera. I'm sure the people new all too well of Nevilles presence, but these shots were captured candidly and without the subjects knowledge. This allows me as a viewer to delve in deeper, look closer and 'see' better without the distraction of direct contact made by the subject looking back at me. I can survey the whole scene almost segmented by the framing and composition like a Hockney. There are obvious points that my eye is drawn to initially, but soon after I am able to gaze over other areas corner to corner and see - really see!

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Sophie Calle

20/12/2016

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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sophie-calle-2692

"Born in Paris in 1953, controversial artist Sophie Calle employs any means necessary to find adequate methods of self-expression. Famous for her unique observational tactics and outright invasion of her subjects’ privacy, Calle has pushed past the social and formal boundaries of photography in order to fully explore identity."
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/sophie-calle-photographing-the-unobserved/

I have always felt compelled to Sophie Calle, her work is significant to me in that I admire her eccentricity, concepts and frankly her somewhat cavalier approach to making work. Unbound by the usual constraints of ethic and morality, Calle doggedly persues her work/theme often putting herself at great risk in order to not only create images but to fully immerse herself in the sensation of the concept. Calles work is very much about herself in this sense, she explores her ideas at a greater personal depth than her contemporaries and as such, for me, she becomes the embodiment of the work. Her actual finished photos are really not as important to me as her character and style of working.

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Unseen Uk - Stephen Gill

15/12/2016

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http://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/news

In this photobook conceived and edited by Stephen Gill, mail carriers from the Royal Mail share their unique views on British society and culture along their postal routes.
Photographs by The Royal Mail, conceived and edited by Stephen Gill
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/stephen-gill-unseen-uk

"In this age when many famous fine art photographers and photojournalists strive to capture the mundane, the banal, the everyday reality of our existence, it is like a breath of fresh air to come upon this unique collection of inexpensive snapshots taken by inexperienced camera operators.

These are truly delightful photos of ordinary day-in-the life experiences taken by the men and women who deliver the mail throughout Great Britain.

This project — conceived, managed and edited by the young photographer Stephen Gill — offered the free use of disposable cameras to every member of the Royal Mail. Hundreds took him up on the offer, and as a result, Gill painstakingly reviewed over 30,000 images to end up with the best of the best. It is apparent that everyone had fun in the process.

The goal was to create intimate documentary views of the UK that are rarely seen except by postal carriers, utility workers, garbage collectors, and so on.

Why? Because it might be interesting to see a country, more or less in real-time, from such a privileged vantage point.

How to get everyone on board with the idea? Promise to publish a tightly edited book and sell lots of copies to benefit a charitable organization.

In addition to a wonderful collection of photos (printed and sequenced beautifully), the reader is rewarded by thoughtful essays, and hilarious, heart-warming hand-written notes that accompanied the cameras on their return to the organizers of the event. You can (and should) buy it online from the Royal Mail."

— Jim Casper
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/stephen-gill-unseen-uk

I like how the adults in the pictures are not looking at the camera, seemingly unaware of their participation in the project. The use of cheap, colour film cameras add an appealing colourful and high contrast aesthetic finish to the work, which in itself adds credibility to the 'truth' of the images. The fact that the adults are not looking, allows for the viewer to become more voyeuristic, it is less confrontational you can REALLY look, surveying the scene, make judgements or simply observe. It allows you to sympathise, empathise or place yourself socially in comparison to the subject. I think this is very powerful and definitely something I can keen to adopt in my own practice.

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My Work - Tewkesbury

15/12/2016

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So today I found myself with a spare hour so I decided to sit in my car in a public car park in Tewkesbury with the 120-400mm lens and my Nikon d810 and see if I could get much - and be brave enough to do this in my home town. After wasting 15-20 minutes of time not having the courage to start, I finally got on with it an am rather pleased with my results. These are a selection from about 80 images shot - I particularly like the middle bottom one of the two guys, the top row with the man in a hi-vis vest talking to someone in a car and the chap in red with the gingerbreadman in the shot - i think these are the strongest images as they carry a lot of narrative due to the subjects body language, position within their frames and the crop of the photos.

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My Work - Cheltenham & Tewkesbury

7/12/2016

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“The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/12018/29-quotes-by-photographer-henri-cartier-bresson/

I feel there are some very successful shots taken amongst this batch. Interesting dichotomies, tensions and dialects between some of the characters and the way they unintentionally interact with their backgrounds. However, I do feel the 'in car shots' are getting more 'samey' and i am not enjoying the process of making them as much as i had previously thought. Instead I am enjoying a more 'Henri Cartier Bresson approach' of the 'Decisive Moment', in that I take delight in finding an interesting background and then waiting until such a time that someone interacts unknowingly within the space and background; creating narrative, being watched - consumed with inner thoughts or outward tasks oblivious to the incidental and many digital reproductions of themselves and for what purpose or by whom they are harvested.

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Looking at ... Cheryl Dunn

17/11/2016

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http://www.cheryldunn.net/

"Flags Flags Flags"

"The colors of the pales (the vertical stripes) are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valour, and Blue, the color of the Chief (the broad band above the stripes) signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice." http://www.usflag.org/colors.html

The stark contrast in the symbology of the American Flag and the way people in Dunns photos have posed with it, resignates with me and what I would like to try and acheive.

I really like the flag series, the antihesis of the American Dream using the iconic american flag.

"People Taking Pictures"

This is a great idea - looking at people taking the image. I really like the notion and possibilities this throws up to me - I may develop something similar to this in my own practice.

"Turkey Street"

These images I liked because of their oddities and irony. I like the humour that can be found in everyday life that we are a part of but do not always 'see'

"Street 12"

These documentary style shots are pobably my least favourite, factual, cliche, black and white shots that tell an aged old tale of life on the streets

"Score Out The Door NY Street"

All Photos sourced from http://www.cheryldunn.net/

Interview: Street Photographer Cheryl Dunn On New York, Her Idols And Photography In Flux

"The beauty of street photography is in the very small details."/

Interview Sourced from:

http://www.oystermag.com/interview-street-photographer-cheryl-dunn-on-new-york-her-idols-and-photography-in-flux

Photographer and filmmaker Cheryl Dunn has been documenting life on the streets of New York City since making it home in the '80s and with her candid, kinetic documentary style, she has captured the gritty reality and brash energy of alternative Americana subculture for decades. In 2013, with a little help from Kickstarter, Dunn released the documentary Everybody Street, in which she follows some of her personal idols and New York's most iconic street photographers including Bruce Davidson, Elliot Erwitt, Rebecca Lepkoff, Jill Freedman, Martha Cooper, Jamel Shazaam and Bruce Gilden, to provide a fascinating interwoven portrait into the styles, lives and personalities of her subjects. We interviewed Cheryl in the lead up to her appearance at Semi-Permanent Sydney where she'll be discussing Everybody Street, New York City and more.

Suz Tucker: Hi Cheryl. Your photography is so strongly linked with New York City. What was it about the City that made you want to move there after college, and what sections of New York have meant the most to you?
Cheryl Dunn: I grew up in New Jersey, close to New York. I was a kid during the gnarliest time in New York: Every night on the news, it was all about murders and chaos and the black-outs. Every time I went over the bridge or through a tunnel, I swear my heart would race in fear and excitement. You would drive down the West Side Highway and it would be littered with car carcasses. If you got a flat tire and you had to leave your car, your car would get stripped.
The city was bankrupt, so they had no money to pick up these cars... You would just think "If we break down we’re going to die here". I guess I was drawn to that energy. I didn't know what I wanted to be in life but I knew I had to live there. One thing about this town, it is always in flux. People move here everyday to make their way. It's a hard town; it's a town of hustlers from every walk of life. I go on a trip and come back two weeks later and a building is gone. Something new has popped up. It's a town of reinvention and the speed of change is pretty fast these days. Mixed with the history of what has come before… New York is a constant source of amazement for me. I have lived downtown most of my 31 years here. I live in the East Village now and lived there in the mid '80s so I would say this section really means a lot to me.

Suz Tucker: What is your most vivid memory from the filming of Everybody Street? Was there a photographer whose experiences documenting NYC were particularly relatable to?
Cheryl Dunn: Shooting Bruce Gilden ducking out of the way from getting hit by a woman in the diamond district then all these guys with bottles and cans suddenly came out of nowhere all up in his face. That was pretty memorable. He got very wound up afterward, and went on about what he would have done to those people if this were back in the day when he was more wild. And shooting 16mm of Bruce Davidson on the subway.

Bruce Gilden photographed in action by Cheryl Dunn

Suz Tucker: One of the most fascinating elements of the film was seeing how the different photographers approach their subjects. With street photography it seems that in order to take great photos, the photographer's personality is almost as important as their technical skills - how watchful they are, how they engage with their subjects, how they create relationships with the people they document... What do you reckon?
Cheryl Dunn: I purposefully wanted to present very distinctly different personalities and working methods because street photography is so much about individual's personalities and want kind of images they make. All the characteristics that are displayed with this group of photographers - the quiet and observed technician, the crazy in your face hustler, the documentarian who spends months with their subjects… Someone who doesn't do this as a practice wouldn't understand the nuances and the diverse approaches, ways of working, personalities…how they really influence the work in very different ways. The beauty of street photography is in the very small details. What detail this photographer would pick out in a broad scene versus what someone else would pick out is so different. Unless you do it, you might not understand that. Someone who does this and searches for it is in tune with those details. I wanted to show the capabilities of a trained eye, perhaps. It's a real thing.

A link to Dunns film 'Everybody Street'

"Everybody Street" illuminates the lives and work of New York's iconic street photographers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists.

Featured PhotographersBruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, and Boogie, with historians Max Kozloff and Luc Sante.

Suz Tucker: What is it about everyday individuals that capture your attention – especially compared to subjects like celebrities, politicians, etc?
Cheryl Dunn: I'm attracted to real emotion rather than manufactured emotion. I'm drawn to level playing fields. I hate when people think they are better than everyone else: that's not interesting to me. That's not my scene and that's not what draws my eye. I like to point my camera at something that isn't getting attention - I want to find stories in your average person's face or actions.

Dash Snow by Cheryl Dunn

Suz Tucker: Street photography seems to have changed over the past decade. For one thing, Instagram has made taking and sharing photos more accessible and more democratised than ever. Then there's 'street style' photography in fashion, which found this insane popularity on the Internet and is now a recognised style of photography unto itself. In what ways do you think these two phenomena have been good or bad for photography?
Cheryl Dunn: The public's reaction to photography changes exponentially every couple of months. What is the trend? What is people's behavior like in front of and behind the camera? It's constantly evolving. One month people are nervous about being slandered on the Internet with images, the next it seems like everyone's looking for a little bit of notoriety and are stoked to have a camera poked in their face. Who knows what new app, way of shooting/sharing images is going to exist in six months. I just try to stay the course and do what I do. I alter my behavior based on people's reaction to me and their relationship with photography so that I can shoot the images I'm trying to get, that's all.
Suz Tucker: What was the turning point in the late '90s that inspired you to focus on a different art form other than photography through filmmaking?
Cheryl Dunn: I love them both and I feel they both inform each other – I still split my time between the two mediums. In this project, they are very equally utilised and the stillness of how I showed the artist's photographs statically, embedded in the often frantic, handheld film camera footage, seems to balance the experience. Very early in my career I did more photography, but when I started to make films myself, I always incorporated the still image, and I think visa versa - my still photographs have always been infused with motion, and actually breaking the frame when I did start to make film was very liberating.

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Ideas and Inspiration

19/10/2016

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People to research:
Stephen Gill Unseen
Alejandra Cata Gena
Philip Lorca Dicorsa
Robert Adams K Mart carpark
Phnat.net
metropolitian police
Sophie Calle

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My Work - Cheltenham & Worcester

19/10/2016

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This is a rough edited mixture of 3 shoots worth of photos, I have categorised these only for my own benefit at this stage so I can see how they might work later as part of a series or book.

The photos were taken experimentally with a few objectives to try and establish a. the best combination of equipment and settings and b. to see how I would feel about different styles of shooting and c. to see which combo feels stronger in review.

Surveillance

These shots were taken whilst sat in my car. I use a Nikon d810 camera and have trialled both a sigma 24-70mm f2.8 aperture and a 120-400mm f4.5 lens. For these shots, I favoured the larger 120-400mm lens because of its physical size - more about that below. What I like about these shots in the purposeful inclusion of the interior frame of my car, it changes the narrative of the shots from street to surveillance. With this in mind, I tried experimenting with shooting empty windows, however I feel this may be somewhat cliche and weaken the overall strengths of the other work.
I particularly like the shots where the person is almost obscured by the car, it gives the impression of the shots being taken in a hurry or that I am trying to conceal myself in taking them - which of course I am.

The image to the left is of the 120-400mm lens, its basically a beast! it's very heavy and cumbersome to use, definitely not concealable and feels very voyeuristic to use. It takes a great clear shot and has obvious benefits with the focal length for my work.

The image on the right is a sigma 24-70mm lens. It is by no means a small lens but it doesn't feel intrusive. The benefit of this lens is the small aperture capability of f2.8 which gives a lovely aesthetic to some of my images and also means I can shoot in lower light circumstances which can be beneficial.

Irony

These shots I have for now categorised as Irony - in the final edit, I don't think I will isolate these shots or give them a title but in doing so on here it gives me a better insight into what I have and more importantly what I haven't got.

These are some of my favourite photos, I love the metaphors and humour that these present to me. In order to take these shots, I tried a different approach. I stood outside a prominent corner in the centre of Cheltenham with my camera hanging around my neck whilst i subtly shot from the waist without looking at what I was doing. Because it is important to me that people do not know I am taking their photo - I want to capture them as natural as I can and for them to not be influenced into posing or changing their expressions or appearance in anyway. I tried not to be obvious and make it look like I was merely stood there - but evidently to no avail as I shortly encountered the police demanding to know what I was doing and why!

I definitely know I want to make more images like these. They have a very different feel to them than the more obvious surveillance work, but I like the implied narratives and assumptions that may be made by the viewer because of my choice of framing, cropping and angles.

Street Portraits

These shots I think I am most ambivalent about, at the time of shooting I was quite pleased with these, but on review in my opinion they are weak and just 'so what'! i wont be persuing this type of image in future.

In Cars

I was very pleased with these shots, I particularly like the dog shots and the dynamics between the dog, the air freshener and the viewer. I also liked the experience of taking these shots, it got my adrenaline going because I had to be more obvious in taking them. I think there is something quite interesting and confrontational about looking at people in their cars as a private space, I need to shoot more of these to try and gain a clearer understanding of this.

Engrossed

These shots were taken with the big 120-400mm lens and I felt I was taking more of a risk with them in the sense I was more obvious and it would have been easier for the subjects to catch me in the act as it were. I do feel quite happy with these shots, i like the framing and the narrative.

Uncategorised

These are the ones I have selected in the 'so far' edit, but I cant decide at this stage where they belong.

In Shop

I did enjoy taking these photos as the risk of being caught was heightened, however I am aware there may be legalities regarding shooting in this style so its sadly not an option I will pursue in future.

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Proposal

8/10/2016

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I am going to use my time studying for an MA by pursuing my interest in the accidental foibles of everyday life. I have 2 lines of pursuit I am considering:
1. Street photography: Catching people unawares
2. Secret stalker/surveillance

This is my opinion: In todays society, we have cultivated a deep sense of paranoia which has come about not only because of the ongoing threat of the terror crisis but also and perhaps less obviously, because people now have more access to Technology. CCTV and the internet have become prolific in their existence. This has enabled people to witness and be more aware of life threatening situations. The public speak more, read more and become more concerned with political correctness and moral issues than ever before. Our own British society has become more litigious in recent years, everyone seems more aware of their rights in all areas of life.

I have always been fascinated by people, what they do, how they appear, how they interact etc. Being an avid people watcher, I naturally love street photography and I have become interested in the notion of owning something that some would say doesn't belong to me – for example, a photo of a private person in a public space. It is the moral and ethical considerations that interest me and I want to take candid photos that are provocative and that challenge my sense of 'appropriate' within the realms of the law.

My other idea – is surveillance. My point at this stage being, that even the most private person has a public identity whether they like it or not. Although the images I capture would be no different from those captured by CCTV, the process of compiling all this footage into one document/piece, would inevitably change the way in which these images were viewed and considered.

In the past, I have made projects on self harm, body image and domestic violence. I have explored the impact that the media has on this. I now want to explore the more private side of the human condition, that even when someone is doing the most mundane task, they are still being scrutinised, documented and their image is being owned by a person or persons completely unknown to themselves.

Most of the time people do not even think about this. Surveillance has become so ingrained into our society that we take it for granted, mostly, without question. Examples range from the extreme of daily news reports where images of the general public are included in backgrounds and subsequently broadcast to millions of viewers on televisions, to just walking through our local towns and being recorded on CCTV. There is a growing trend for members of the public to also record images where uninvolved bystanders could be recorded using mobile phones, home security and even car dashboard cameras. Such devices and recording practices are rarely challenged or even considered, but think about who actually might be looking at your image! The obvious potential dangers of our 'big brother' society extend to us all. We imagine ourselves as relatively safe and private but in reality, our images are open to exploitation nearly all day everyday and there is no escape.

I hope to capture images that explore this notion. Images that challenge my own ethics and those of the law. I want to try and create moments in time where complete and utter strangers and I become involved together to create an abstract narrative – all without their knowledge or consent. Because I can.

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Beat Streuli

My Work - Tewkesbury, Cheltenham & Gloucester

Interesting Video Monologues of Artists

A Piece from The Guardian 2010

The Tate - EXPOSED Exhibiton

Harry Conways Orwellian Society - an Interview

This photo series questions surveillance in our city
Photographer Harry F Conway is ‘attacking’ pedestrians in central London in an attempt to wake us up to the possibility of an Orwellian society

My Work - London

My Work - Gloucester

Mark Neville

Sophie Calle

Unseen Uk - Stephen Gill

My Work - Tewkesbury

My Work - Cheltenham & Tewkesbury

Looking at ... Cheryl Dunn

"Flags Flags Flags"

"People Taking Pictures"

"Turkey Street"

"Street 12"

"Score Out The Door NY Street"

Interview: Street Photographer Cheryl Dunn On New York, Her Idols And Photography In Flux

"The beauty of street photography is in the very small details."/

Ideas and Inspiration

My Work - Cheltenham & Worcester

Surveillance

Irony

Street Portraits

In Cars

Engrossed

Uncategorised

In Shop

Proposal

Categories

Archives

This photo series questions surveillance in our city​Photographer Harry F Conway is ‘attacking’ pedestrians in central London in an attempt to wake us up to the possibility of an Orwellian society

​"Flags Flags Flags"

​"People Taking Pictures"

"Turkey Street"

"Street 12"

"Score Out The Door NY Street"

Interview: Street Photographer Cheryl Dunn On New York, Her Idols And Photography In Flux"The beauty of street photography is in the very small details."/

Surveillance

Irony

Street Portraits

In Cars

Engrossed

Uncategorised

In Shop

Categories

Archives

This photo series questions surveillance in our city
Photographer Harry F Conway is ‘attacking’ pedestrians in central London in an attempt to wake us up to the possibility of an Orwellian society

"Flags Flags Flags"

"People Taking Pictures"

Interview: Street Photographer Cheryl Dunn On New York, Her Idols And Photography In Flux

"The beauty of street photography is in the very small details."/