Gallery Visit: Tennyson Transformed, The Collection, Lincoln

Victorian painters, photographers, illustrators and designers took Tennyson's poetry as the subject for a wide range of artistic projects and their work has influenced how we understand Tennyson today. The variety of works in the exhition reflect the range of Tennyson's poetry. He is famous for his medieval stories such as 'The Lady of Shalott' and Idylls of the King but poems such as 'Enoch Arden', 'Maud' and 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' contain direct response to to contemporary debates and events.
Tennyson's long career witnessed a huge expansion in popular interest in the visual arts, encouraged by recently founded public museums and the increasing availability and affordability of prints and illustrated books. New technologies had an impact on how Tennyson's work was visualized. He became famous just at the point that photography was becoming widespread and his poetry was the subject of several pioneering photographic projects. Photography emerged strongly in the 1850s and had strong affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly in its ability to record sharp detail. Henry Peach Robinson's earlier work was influenced by his admiration for the Pre-Raphaelites, while Julia Margaret Cameron became a close friend of the Tennyson family and made a series of photographs interpreting Tennyson's poetry in the 1860s and 1870s.
Tennyson became famous not just for his work but for his appearance and personality, communicated by an intrusive popular press. His resonse to fame was mixed: he sat for many portraits and earned much more than any of his fellow poets but resented invasions into his privacy.














The photograph above was included in the publication Men and Women of the Day, October 1888. It is attributed to Barraud Photographers, 1888.



Henry Peach Robinson The Lady of Shalott 1860/61.
Toned Albumen print from two negatives.



By combining two negatives into one print Henry Peach Robinson was able to show both 'The Lady' and the riverbank behind her in sharp focus, thus echoing the Pre-Raphaelite style. The exhibited print was Robinsons own print of the image, exhibited in 1861.









The Rosebud Garden of Girls, Julia Margaret Cameron, 1868. Albumen Print

'Maud' Inspired one of Cameron's most Pre- Raphaelite images. The models were the sisters Nelly, Christine, Mary (afterwards the second wife of the artist G F Watts) and Ethel Fraser-Tyler.


The two photographs above are of Harrington House in Lincolnshire where Tennyson based his poem 'Maud'.






Roger Fenton The Valley of the Shadow of Death 1854
Salted Paper print




In 1854 the printseller and publisher comissioned Roger Fento to make an official photographic record of the Crimean War. He was the first Briton to act in this capacity. This haunting image was singled out by many as particularly effective when it was exhibited in England in 1855 and 1856.


I found this exhibition fascinating for a variety of reasons. Firstly I enjoyed being able to look closely at original Vitorian photographs taken by noted photographers of the time. This is always a privilege. I also have somewhat of an affinity for Tennyson as I was brought up in 'Tennyson country' and know it well. One of my favourite poems, although not featured in this exhibition, is The Brook and it has long been a plan in the back of my mind to illustrate it both with wildlife and landscape photographs from the actual brook: the River Steeping - a project waiting in the wings!

Gallery Visit: Joan Fontcuberta - Datascapes, Usher Gallery, Lincoln.

Joan Fontcuberta is a Catalan artist. He was born in Barcelona in 1955. He studied communications at the Autonomous University of Barcelona from 1972 - 1977 and also worked in advertising and journalism before becoming a professor of fine arts at the University of Barcelona in 1979. In 1986 he resigned his professorship to devote hus full attention to creative practice. Self-taught in photography, Fontcuberta has often stressed the role that a background in communications has played in his work.

This exhibition is in two parts the first is entitled Orogenesis. At first sight the very large 'photographs' in this part of the exhibition appear to be spectacular landscape photographs. Spectacular they are but traditional photographs they are not. Each large 'photograph' is paired with an original piece of art work. In each case the original art work has been electronically scanned and re-imaged using Terragen, a landscape-rendering programme originally developed for military and scientific use. The resulting image is a very realistic 'landscape photograph,. An example is illustrated below. The landscape image (on the right) consists of a series rugged peaks and steep valleys digitally rendered with photorealistic accuracy. The image is based on Paul Cezanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire (1900).
This part of the exhibition was quite disorienting and extremely thought provoking.

The second part of the exhibition was entitled Googlegrams. Here original photographs have been reconstructed using a freeware programme connected to Google's on-line search engine. When confronted with the large images they appear to be large format photographic reproductions of famous iamges. As they inspected more closely it becomes clear, however, that the images themselves are composites of thousands of tiny digital images that have been arranged to carefully recreate the original photograph. The photomasic freeware progamme used is traditionally used in graphic design. This type of software reconstructs a selected photograph out of thousands of images. Fontcuberta, however, goes one step further. He also connects the software to the internet. Users are asked to input specific keywords into the Google search engine. The selected images are then assembled together into a larger composite, already chosen by Fontcuberta. For instance the Googlegram: Trio 2006 was originally a group portrait of Tony Blair, George Bush and Jose Maria Aznar. The Google search criteria were famous trios and expressions that evoke the number 3 including, the three little pigs, the three musketeers, the three graces, the 'three sad tigers', menage a trois, the Holy Trinity, the three wise men, 'trio Matamoros'.










Again Fontcuberta has produced thought provoking and in some cases disturbing images using technology as much as photography.

Magazine Portraits

During the first part of People and Place, as well as researching photographers through books and the internet I have alaso used colour supplements for inspiration. I have been fascinated how many have the subject on the edge of the frame looking out of it and many with no eye contact.





This picture of Tim Dowling by Benoit Jaques was an inspiration both for assignment 1 and particularly for the photographs of my son in Exercise 1

This picture of Ciara Bradley by Crispin Rodwell is clearly a non-studio portrait. She is pleasingly situated in the frame but looking away from the camera.











Graeme Robertson's image of Simon

Pegg is an informal 'fun' portrait with unusual body position and framing, the subject being right at the bottom og the image. Again he doesn't look into the camera.







These two photographs of Stephen Lander and Stella Rimmington, both previous heads of MI5 are portraits in a very formal style with both looking directly into the camera.





















This picure of Lucy Mangan is taken in a much more informal setting. Yet again she is place to one side of the frame and is looking sideways out of the frame as if she has been caught unawares. I was thinking of this image when I took one of my portraits for assignment 1.





I really like this shot of Sheila Hancock by Amit Lennon. I like the relaxed pose and the dark, plain background. Again she does not maintain eye contact.










Another portrait with the subject on the edge of the picture looking out of the frame. This is Jean Louis Mazimpaka by Ivor Prickett. It illustrates an article telling how Jean survived the Rwandan genocide and so fits this treatment. It gives the impression of a man reflecting on the past.








This picture heads a regular weekly feature on motoring. I like the close-up effect and the fact that the subject is looking backwards over his shoulder. It gave me inspiration for the shots I took of my son in the car for Exercise 1.





I find this portrait of Cherie Blair by Martin Argles interesting because the doow/window has been used as a frame. It portrays a confident subject looking directly into the camera.









This image of Shao Jiang, Tiananmen Square survivor, by Linda Brownlee is another one that departs from a conventional portrait format. Here the subject is in the bottom right hand corner rather that central in the frame.









This is a more conventional portrait format but agai nwith the eyes looking away from the camera. The more I research this subject - the more I begin to realise that there is no 'correct' format. Perhaps we are all brought up on the conventional studio portrait!!








I particularly like this portrait of Jensen Button by Philipp Ebeling. I like the contrasty feel to it, the dark background and the way it is lit stongly from the left.









A more unusual portrait with Jensen in profile. This inspired me to try this style with my first assignment.










A portrait of Hugh Fernley-Wittingstall taken in the context of his kitchen. Again something that I kept in mind for my first assignment with photographs of my subject at work and play.







Again a fairly conventional portrait style by Peter Van Hatten of Jay McInerny although not in a formal studio setting.

Photographs and Photographers that have been an inflence for People Aware

Some of the earliest photographers took portraits of people, presumably because they were fairly static. Some examples include Pillip Delamotte and Joseph Cundal who included the following protrait as the frontispiece to their Photographic Tour among the Abbeys of Yorkshire (London 1856)



The image features a stern custodian seated with a shotgun by an estate entrance. Practically involved, he confronts the camera, as do other estate workers in the series. Joseph Cundal and Phillip Delamotte established the Photographic Institution at 168 New Bond Street, London, which was a leading establishment for the commercial promotion of photography through exhibitions, publications and commissions. It is believed, however that Robert Howlett replaced Delamotte, who became Professor of Drawing at King's College London. One of Howlett's more famous portraits is the iconic one of Isambard Kingdom Brunell taken in 1857 and found at the link highlighted. This picture shows Brunell in context, which I like and it has him looking to the left of the camera - part of the scene but not intimate with the photographer.

Another early portrait photographer is Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, or Nadar, as he was known after 1849. He began work as a journalist in Paris in 1840. He is said to have kept 'Bohemian company', wrote for the left-wing publication, Le Corsaire-Satan and featured in a police dossier as 'one of those dangerous characters who spread highly subversive doctrines in the Latin Quarter..................He is under close observation.' The bulk of Nadar's outstanding photographs, mostly portraits, were taken between 1854 and 1870. They are of such distinguished contempories as Daumier, Manet, Courbet, Millet, Corot, Guys and Baudelaire. The one linked here is of Baudelaire the French poet, critic and translator. Here Nadar has Baudelaire in a 'Napoleonic' type pose and unlike Brunell he has maintained eye contact with the camera.

I love this picture by William Henry Jackson from 1877 of Running Antelope. What a proud, dignified figure staring distainfully past the camera.
In 1869 Jackson won a commission from the Union Pacific Railroad to document the scenery along their route for promotional purposes. The following year, he received a last minute invitiation to join the 1870 US government survey of the Yellowstone River and Rocky Mountains led by Ferdinand Hayden. He was also a member of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 which led to the creation of Yellowstone National Park. Painter Thomas Moran was also part of the expedition, and the two artists worked closely together to document the Yellowstone region. Hayden's surveys (accompanied usually by a small detachment of the US cavalry) were annual multidisciplinary expeditions meant to chart the largely unexplored west, observe flora, fauna and geological conditions and identify likely navigational routes, so Jackson was in a position to capture the first photographs of legendary landmarks of the west.

Edward Curtis (1868 - 1952) also photographed native americans and I love this picture, taken from 'A concise History' and entitled Ola-Noatak. There is realxed eye contact between subject and photographer and it looks as though it could have been taken yesterday. (Wikipedia)








Moving on to the 20th Century, August Sander (1876 - 1964) emerged as a noted street photographer in the 1920s. He was an industrial photographer and portraitist. In 'Face of Our Time' he included this image of two boxers taken in 1928. In this photograph the difference in personality stands out - one 'a genial bruiser whose smile matches his laces and the punctillious athlete at his side'.




Alfred Stiegletz (1864 - 1946) changed his subjecy matter over the years and changed his style but his ideas never altered. Among his other photography he made many portraits of his companions, Georgia )'Keeffe (artist and second wife) and Dorothy Norman (photographer, writer, editor and arts patron). His photos of Dorothy Norman (click link) were taken in the 1930s. Many of these pictures are head and shoulder format and good eye contact gives the impression of a close relationship with Stiegletz. I like the contrasty look to his images.
The linked image of Georgia O'Keeffe was taken in 1918. It portrays a different image; it is much paler and gives the impression of a much more vulnerable person.
I like this picture by Doris Ulman of Mr and Mrs Mann of Holston, Washington County, Virginia taken in the 1930s. Mr Mann was a prosperous farmer in the mountains and the photograph reminds me of my geat grandparents. It has a warm relaxed feel.








This picture of Quintin Hogg QC by Cecil Beaton c.1945 is quite the opposite of the image of Mr and Mrs Mann; it is a very formal picture with eye contact making a statement about the sitter. Both photos are three quarter figure shots rather than close in.








I really like this picture of 'The Migrant Mother, California 1936' by Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) In 1960 Lange gave this account of the experience: I saw and appreciated the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tyres from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled round her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960

I have also looked at photographers from more recent years such as Robert Mapplethorpe. I like very much his beautifully executed still life and flower photography but his 'people' photographs such as those here, although, again, beautifully executed do not appeal to me. The two pictures below are a self portrait of himself as a woman and an untitled male nude.












A photographer whose work I really admire is Annie Leibovitz (born1949).
Annie Leibovitz is one of the most renowned American photographers. After succeeding to chief photographer at 'Rolling Stne' and helping to define that magazine's trademark up-close-and-personal style with photographs of rock icons such as John Lennon - whom she captured 5 hours before his death, Leibovitz went on to Vanity Fair, where she's worked as a feature portraitist since 1983. In addition to advertising campaigns for American Express, Dove and Gap, Leibovitz has portrayed celebrities like Queen Elizabeth, Brooke Shields, Demi Moore, Nelson Mandela, Jack Nicholson, Sting, Gisele Bundchen, Pete Townsend, Dolly Parton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Photography Museum C/O Berlin paid tribute to Annie Leibovitz's passions with an exhibition called "Annie Leibovitz. A Photographer's Life. !990 - 2005". As the display included pictures from her family album (including lover Susan Sontag), her diary as well as her celebrated portfolio, it exemplified how fused Leibovitz's private and professional lives were. (Annie Leibovitz. A Photographer's Life. !990 - 2005)

I think that her images of women such as those included at the following link
are extremely powerful. They are not fashion photographs of beautiful people but really show the character of the subject.

She is also noted for her photographs of The Rolling Stones such as this one of Keith Richard.

During this research I came across this image of Sharbat Gula and it has become a real favourite of mine. She is an Afghan woman who became famous as a cover photo of a 1985 National Geographic magazine. I love the colours and the areas of shadow and the fact that she is looking disconcertingly at the viewer. It was taken by Steve McCurry while at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakisthan in 1984. Remakably Steve McCurry was part of an expedition to find her 25
years later and the recent photograph can be found at the following link.

W.Eugene Smith (1918-1949) also took some remarkable photographs such as this one of Albert Schweitzer. Interestingly Smith has chosen to take the image with Schweitzer looking down rather than making eye contact and if he had looked up he is facing out of the picture.










Another noted portrait photographer of recent times is Jane Bown (born 1925) and, perhaps her two most famous protraits of Samuel Beckett and John Betjaman are shown at the indicated links. During the years she has become many people's favourite photographer, photographing many of the most famous individuals of the past 50 years. She says that both shots were 2Jackpot" pictures. The one of Beckett was taken in 1976 when she unexpectedly caught up with him at the stage door of the Royal Court Theatre and reminded him that he was promised a photo session. She took three shots of which the one included is the middle one. I particularly like this shot because of the rich tones and high level of contrast. Beckett's craggy features are relaxed and he looks disarmingly into the camera. The Betjeman shot was taken in 1972 and she says of it that "........it was one of those sudden miracles that just happen."

Lord Snowdon is another photographer whose portraits I feel must be included in any research. Many of them can be seen at the National Portrait Gallery website. I particularly like the first one featured of Joyce Grenfell, again for the rich tones and the high contrats. I find the way that her body is turned away from the camera but her head back towards it with good eye contact pleasing.

There are many more portraits and photographers that I could have mentioned but I have tried a) to pick out some of my favourites and b) provide a chronological coverage.


References
Apart from the weblinks included I have also used the following books for source material:
Photography: A Concise History - Ian Jeffrey (Thomas and Hudson)
20th Century Photography - Museum Ludwig Cologne (Taschen)
The Photo Book
How We Are: Photographing Britain - Val Williams and Susan Bright (Tate)
Photography: A Crash Course - Dave Yorath (Watson Guptill)
Wikipedia
Google images

Exercise 8: Varying Pose

I persuaded another long-suffering friend to help me with this exercise and we used his garden as it offered a fair amount of scope. We decided to take pictures of him sitting in the garden seat, squatting by his pond, standing and leaning against his swing. For each position I directed Steve to vary his posture by moving his body, arms and legs.

In the first image on the left I took the picture as he sat down and asked him to fold his arms for the second. For the third picture on the right, Steve adopted this posture without direction which makes for a very natural picture.

I then asked Steve to cross his legs but needed to ask him to look at the camera to obtain the middle shot. It was natural to get him to put his hands behind his head for the third. I again needed to ask him to look at the camera to maintain eye contact and a more intimate portrait (under left).

We chose the side of the pond for the next set of pics as we both remember the effort taken to dig it and how raw it used to be. It was more difficult to vary positions whilst squatting but my preferred image is the one of Steve looking down into the pond. The one below of him beginning to stand up is an example of how 'missing the moment' can be unfortunate!

Of the standing images I again prefer the one of Steve looking into the pond.

Having been to Tai Chi classes together we thought that it would be fun to include a Tai Chi movement in the standing pictures (above left)

Of the photoos of Steve leaning against the swing I like the one above left the best. He appears relaxed and natural and is maintaining eye contact.

This exercise shows how posture and limb position can affect the success or otherwise of a photograph as much as facial expression.