Two Photographs: a study.

Cate Blanchett, by Bill Henson for TIME magazine, 2013.

http://au.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/936757/bill-henson-on-his-portrait-of-cate-blanchett-for-time
This image attracted me and I wondered why.  Bill Henson's responses in the article above didn't answer my question, so I studied the image itself.

Composition
A portrait-format rectangle.  The head and the hand are illuminated against a black background.  The line of the truncated neck leads the gaze to the wrist's truncation.  The bend of the hand draws it back towards the face, yet the curled fingers slow the gaze's amovement so that it lingers on the face before travelling around the outline back over the hair to the nape.  The whole forms a kind of inverted teardrop, flying upwards from bottom left towards top right.
Mood
There's a pensive uncertainty to the pose.  The model looks left and down, back towards the past, not right and forwards to the future.  The fingers are raised to the mouth, a common action indicating uncertainty.  Possibly the ancestor of this gesture is finger-or thumb-sucking as a source of comfort.  The eyes are downcast, open but unseeing; the model sees in her mind's eye and does not desire the distraction of seeing something physical.
Pose and Lighting
The photograph is taken with a portrait lens, say 90mm.  There is a single diffused light, high and slightly left.  It illuminates the contours, modelling the nearer half of the face.  The other half is nearly in darkness.  The unlit cheek is just visible and its edge is in line with with the tip of the nose, avoiding over-emphasis of this feature.  A standard three-quarter face then.  The brightest point is the hand; it attracts the gaze and supports the weight of the head.  The index finger could be straight; the top joint can't be seen; it may even be in the mouth.  The other fingers curl progressively; the pinkie almost touches the palm.  There are no catch-lights on the eyes: they would be inappropriate; the model is introspective, not alert.
Model
Cate is beautiful, blonde, smooth-skinned and very slim.  The lighting, mainly on the nearer side of the face, accentuates what flesh covers the skull.  To have lit the distant side of the face instead would have slimmed the nearer side even more.  The hair is a little untidy.  This imperfection is artful: hair as smooth as the complexion would have suggested a statue rather than a human being.   Instead, it indicates humanity and reflects the uncertainty of the subject.  Colour is used here to soften the image.

Harrison Ford, by Michael Birt, May 1999, New York

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=michael+birt+photographer&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=y_ayUqL2Lcep0AW454GoAQ&ved=0CEoQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=788#facrc=_&imgdii=KscLWaG4vYk8rM%3A%3BYUjmROlkVWc6DM%3BKscLWaG4vYk8rM%3A&imgrc=KscLWaG4vYk8rM%3A%3BGOTr_RpWP1fXGM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ephotozine.com%252Fimages%252Fexhibitions%252Fnorm%252F1032_1169035329.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ephotozine.com%252Fexhibition%252Fmichael-birt--portraits-1756%3B300%3B300
A complete contrast; there's no uncertainty or introspection here.

Composition
Square format.  Head and shoulder, closely cropped, losing the top of the head and part of the shoulder.  The model presses against the right-hand edge of the frame, prevented from escaping by the raised forearm, leaving a blank area upper left.  The hands are visible, pressed into the face.  They seem strong.  The shadow along the large vertical muscle at the side of the neck (M. sternocleidomastoideus) emphasises its strength.  The model makes a truncated triangle, a strong, stable shape.  There's tension in the hand supporting the chin.  Everything in the pose and composition is about strength.

Pose and Lighting
A wide-angle lens allows the photographer to get close; the model is in the viewer's space.  The model faces full front and stares at the camera.  The nearest hand is foreshortened, but the ear is very much reduced.  There are two lights; a diffused rectangular box provides most of the illumination, modelling the face, cheek and neck and spilling softly onto the plain background to contrast with the model's black T-shirt.  The right-hand eye is shaded from by the bending fingers of the hand.  Another light, small and direct, provides a catch-light in each eye, especially the shaded one.  The direct, close gaze is challenging; this is someone to be reckoned with.  The impact of monochrome makes this a hard image.

The photographer says, "Ford's obvious physical strength, intelligence and intensity were summoned for a private moment in the studio."  To me, the actor looks fed up.
The World's Top Photographers' Portraits, 2004, Fergus Greer, Rotovision SA, Switzerland.

Study

The photographers clearly put a lot of thought into preparing for these portraits.  I spent a long time looking at just two images; I clearly need to spend at least as much time thinking about the posed photographs I take.

Random Readings

Snowdon

"I like to direct my subjects and tell them exactly what to do.  It is not always a matter of making people feel totally at ease.  Often the only way one can break through someone's prepared face is to make them slightly uncomfortable, physically or mentally.  Sometimes people can be awkard or ill at ease in a way that expresses themselves better than when they are relaxed.  I may, perhaps, ask them to hold a pose for longer than is natural, or I make a remark about the sitter or their work that surprises them, and then watch for their immediate reaction.  On the other hand, I sometimes ask someone to move fractionally, not because I know what I want them to do, but simply because I do not like what I'm seeing and if the person moved I might like it more.  Only when things are going badly do I use the tactic of talking; it is a conscious and artificial device and I only listen to what is said in the hopes that an idea will come out of it; sometimes I leave the sitter alone for a few minutes to change the mood."
Snowdon, 1984. Sittings 1979-1983. Paperback. London. Wiedenfeld & Nicholson

How Fictional are Photographs? by Colin Graham

“Exploring the connection between the literary and the photographic can end up turning on two related paradoxes.”

1.    The notion ‘fiction’ tries to split photography between the real and the fictional.
2.    The photograph is an instant, whereas the literary tells a story that takes place in time.  Yet a photograph can imply a story and writing can describe an instant.  We read photographs in the context of the photographs and stories that have gone before.

A photograph is not the subject, but a trace of the subject.  The trace implies the subject, which existed within time and is the result of some passage of time.  Yet we see the image first then infer the subject so the normal chronology is reversed.  “Photographs … are not the thing they purport to be, and come before the thing they purport to come after.”

 

The article contains sentences complicated by a Roland Barthes-ian parentheticality:

"This doubled narrativity is a useful way to think, askew, of the fictionality of the photograph, so that we ask not if it mirrors reality, or if its chance of reflecting a truth is perverted by the power which produces or distributes the image, but instead we recognise this backwards-unravelling story which is in every photograph, as it appears, now, to show us then."

Graham, C., 2013. How Fictional are Photographs? Source, The Photographic Review, Summer 2013, 75, pp.40-41

Lee Miller on Portraiture

"She dislikes having any friend come along with her clients because, she explains, 'They always give a person and "audience complex", or make him or her wear a "gallery smile", and both are unnatural."
"And a good photograph is just that, to catch a person not when he is aware of it but when he is his natural self."
Article first published in the Poughkeepsie Star, 1/11/1932.

Diane Arbus on Photographs

"They are the proof that something was there and no longer is.  Like a stain.  And the stillness of them is boggling.  You can turn away but when you come back they'll still be there, looking at you."
March 1971.  Probably in "Diane Arbus", 1972, New Yourk, Aperture.

West Dean, Revisited.

My assignment on West Dean was short of pictures of people - this is a course on People and Place, after all.  I've been there again and have taken additional photographs to expand the assignment.

Services

The Lavant river serves as a boundary between the sheep pasture and the grounds.  It's a winterbourne, and dries up in the summer.  As a result, the sheep manage to wriggle through the fence and dine on greener grass.

 And play on the rockery.

Every morning, until an electric fence was erected, farm and gardens staff had to conduct a round-up.

And then return to their normal duties.

Table cloths don't iron themselves. 

Invisible in this picture is the guy under the table holding a tray to iron against.

Artists

West Dean has beautiful gardens and it would be a shame if they weren't used by students.

This group set off into the garden.

Using collage and mixed media requires...

 ...a lot of materials and equipment.

But it's a lovely location.

 The tutor has to visit...

all the students. 

Wherever...

...they may be.



This class even went out at night...

 I hope they could see more than the camera did. [ISO 6400, f5.6, 1/10 sec.]

Farley Farm House: Home of the Surrealists.

 

The Sussex home of Lee Miller, photographer, and Sir Roland Penrose, artist, is open on Sundays for guided tours.  There is a gallery, currently showing an exhibition of Lee Miller’s photographs: “Lee Miller’s War”, and the house is home to many of Penrose’s artworks.
http://www.farleyfarmhouse.co.uk/

Lee Miller was a model for Man Ray and insisted he teach her photography.  She was involved in early work on solarisation.  She took photographs of London in the Blitz and after D-day worked as a war correspondent in Europe, where she was one of the first journalists to enter the concentration camp at Dachau.

Lee Miller’s War

The exhibition of monochrome prints ranges from fashion to the horrors of Dachau.  I select two for comment:

“Gestapo Prisoner, Now Liberated”

http://www.leemiller.co.uk/media/J1ddXe8_UujVXKgDKKvEQQ..a?ts=r05Z-vXElszlYVstIRFtLA..a

This shows an interior with heavy wooden double doors to the outside, defended by a metal grille.  In the foreground, cooking pots and a ladle are in sharp focus.  Behind these, nearer the doors, a woman sits huddled, a heavy coat draped cloak-like over her.  Her hair’s in a scarf, knotted on top.  She holds on her knees two cardboard boxes.  Light falling through the open door silhouettes her face, which is not in focus, yet she can be seen to be staring blankly off, as if remembering.

We are left to imagine the horrors she has experienced, as we imagine the details of her blurred face.  The cooking utensils and other items make this a mundane place, where this victim has been temporarily ‘parked’ while her disposal is determined.  She seems free to leave through the open door, but she does not.  Perhaps she cannot believe it; maybe her declared freedom is just further cruelty.  A powerful image that shows that a message can be conveyed by the subject not being in focus.

“The collaborators, women found guilty of Nazi collaboration”

http://www.leemiller.co.uk/media/POZtWCSYrED2SPg3cg5Dhw..a?ts=ZNVB4FiOFp3B3kI4iZDgUA..a

The caption card reads:

Women with shaved heads, Rennes, France, 1944. Women who had had German boyfriends were accused of collaboration by vengeful civilians and had their heads shaved in punishment. Lee Miller wrote; "They were stupid little girls - not intelligent enough to feel ashamed". Later she wrote that she found the process "...both shaming and shameful".

The image is a close view, looking up from chest height, of three shaven-headed young women, looking anxious, with a scornful crowd behind and beside them.  They look like boys; their tonsure has robbed them not just of dignity, but apparently also of gender.  A wedge of sky is delimited by a building in the background and the figure of a man in the foreground.  It points down into the picture at the white blouse worn by one of the women, leading the gaze to circulate round their three pale faces.  They all look towards this man, who is anonymous because his face is in shadow and he’s looking away from the camera, though he seems to block their escape.

 

The House

Many of Roland Penrose's paintings and collages are on display in the house, together with works by Picasso and Man Ray.  It was a thrill to see works hanging on the walls I'd only seen in books before.  He spent a lot of effort promoting the work of other Surrealist artists rather than promoting his own.  I find Penrose's three paintings of Lee Milller: First View, 1947; Pregnant Portrait, 1947; and The Flight of Time, 1949; particularly beautiful.  

Assignment 4: West Dean

A Sense of Place

West Dean College

"In 1964, Edward James conveyed his family mansion, art collection and Estate to The Edward James Foundation, a charitable educational trust. The creation of such a trust averted the fragmentation that death duties would have dictated and allowed the materialisation of Edward's vision: creating a community where the Estate supports a college dedicated to the arts and crafts.  crafts. In 1971, Edward James's vision became a reality when the gates of his family Estate were opened under the auspices of West Dean College."
http://www.westdean.org.uk/WestDeanHomepage.aspx

The building is faced in knapped flints and these cause it to shine in sunlight.

This facing material covers the entire exterior of the house.

Rear.

The West wing.

The service buildings and workshops of the East wing.

The enclosed courtyard.

The Setting

 Works of art fill the house and spill out into the surrounding land.

The Lavant river divides the front lawn and house from pasture land.

 The Lavant is a winterbourne, occasionally drying up completely in summer, and an iron fence, hidden in the ha-ha, stops the sheep invading the lawn.

The grounds contain many exotic and interesting trees.  This horse chestnut has never suffered the presence of grazing animals.

Though it has been made into a work of art.

The grounds are open to students and to vistors to the West Dean gardens.

The Studios

The old Orangery is now a workshop:

This group of students is experiencing abstract acrylics.

As part of conversion to an educational establishment, the original building has been extended to provide workshop space.

This roof has been inserted:

Creating a large workshop that can be divided up by partitions:

Individual power sources dangle from the roof.

There are workshops in other parts of the building: Life drawing.

And pottery.

Here, making a pot from slabs of clay is being demonstrated.

While some potters used the wheel, other pots were begun as pinch pots

 and extended by adding coils or rings of clay.

The turntable is an ancient device to enable the potter to produce a symmetrical, round pot without having to move round it.

 

Hanging pre-prepared endpapers for a book-binding course.

 

Abstract in progress.

A finshed piece of work.

 

Services 

An establishment like West Dean has to offer services:

Refectory.

 

Shop for artists' materials.

  

 Maintenance of a big estate like West Dean is a continuing process.

 

"All of the heating and hot water needs of West Dean College (and parts of the village) are met entirely, and on a sustained basis, by using wood fuel grown on the West Dean Estate. The biomass district heating scheme was one of the first, and remains one of the largest of its kind, in the UK." 

http://www.westdean.org.uk/Estate/Environment/WoodFiredHeatingSystem.aspx

Events

It's always a job to make ends meet, and therefore West Dean hosts events through the year.

This group of tipis was used for a most romantic wedding.

 

Most of the events require: 

Tents...

Are erected on the lawn in front of the house.

What a super holly-leaf!

These white tents were erected for the college's recent Fusion festival, intended to raise interest in the work of the college.

Setting up for the Chilli Festival.

Which requires certain essential supplies.

 

Events can involve some of the fun of the fair.

 

But West Dean's primary objective is the teaching of arts and crafts. 

 And it's a beautiful place

Documents



For copyright reasons, photography is not normally permitted in the house.  It contains many art works and curios, including Salvador Dali Kiss sofas and the diver's helmet from which Edward James rescued the surrealist painter.  I applied for permission to photograph in the studios and was issued with a pass.

 

I also produced a Model Release form, which people in the studios completed for me:

 

The Assignment

 I've visited West Dean many times and am familiar with it and the surrounding area.  The plan for the project specified three phases: the building and its setting; the workshops, students and tutors; the other activities, and I have stuck fairly closely to this.  I had a week to complete the photography but found a day's photography very tiring, so I take days off for rest and relaxation.

 

I was fascinated by the potters, who were going to do a Raku firing later in the week and would have liked to spend more time with them.

Though I did manage to take a picture of the outdoor kilns being used.

 

I have visited, but not included: the popular West Dean gardens; the Parish Church of St Andrew, West Dean; the village of West Dean; the substantial West Dean estate; the Goodwood (horse) racecourse, which lies beyond the hills at the front of the house.

 

A few of the photographs above result from earlier visits, and I can see in them how much I have developed as a photgrapher in this course.  There are lots of better things I could have done with those beer barrels!

 

I've learned a lot: a project like this requires not just planning and preparation. It needs discipline and sensitivity to the condition of both photographer and subjects. Both can become tired by the intensity of the process, and need a rest. I have to be careful not to wear out myself, or my welcome. People working together tend to form close groups, and the photographer can become regarded as an intruder, and his presence as oppressive.

I hope that my next project will be informed by all I've learnt so far.