Towards Assignment Four

People Interacting With Place: First Thoughts

Here are a few sketches that might be re-shot and turned into photographs.

The Fox, Chetwynd Aston.  The barrell vault of this room has an interesting accoustic property: one can sit in one corner and hear a conversation taking place in the opposite corner, even when there is a noisy group round the centre table.

The figure in the corner isn't noticed at first glance.  In this image its white clothing is completely blown out, but HDR could be used, from a suitable pair of shots, to fix the exposure problem.

Taken with a compact camera; RAW not available.

 

 Rural Space, Pim Hill

An attractive space, here with a single 'accent' figure - and another, top right, on an exercise bicycle!  The rectangular black plates on the exercise machines are removable, and I'd take off the nearest two, though that would expose a large area of floor.  A lower viewpoint.  I like the location of the figure in pink; she's near the vanishing point of all the diagonals, which therefore point at her.  My first thought was to place a figure coming down the stairs, using a long exposure to blur movement and showing only the torso and legs.  But this might be too subtle.  Perhaps a figure leaning over the balcony rail?  I'd like to try all of these.
This image was stitched together from two portrait-format images from a compact camera.  A wider lens on my SLR would probably cover the scene.

Traitor's Gate Brasserie, Shrewsbury

This cellar, with its attractive brick arches, is now under new management.  I see two options: near and far: a figure by the far wall; one sitting at a foreground table.  Or, more subtly, the hand of someone at a nearby table.  With a wine glass?  Framing could be changed, to move the 'tunnel' to the side, and I don't like that hay-basket.

Art Squad, at Shrewsbury Coffee House

This man stands out because his behaviour is different from that of everyone else in shot.  And, of course, he's mugging to camera.  Something more subtle would work: place him right at the back; the only person to respond to the photograph.  His behaviour could be more subtle too.  Simply looking to camera when no one else is.
Another option, to make a person stand out in a crowd would be to use movement blur: either he's the only one still, or he's the only one in movement.  Ranks of soldiers on Horseguards' Parade with a moving figure - has this already been done, with an errant dog?
Does it have to be a live person? A statue among crowds?
Or make the appearance stand out: Erica Roe, the streaker, comes to mind.  Or Spielberg's girl in the red coat, in Schindler's List.

Assignment 3: Buildings in Use

Assignment Three: Buildings in Use

Minal Church

The church of St John the Baptist in Mildenhall (pronounced Mynal) near Marlborough dates from Saxon times, but by 1816 it was in disrepair and was refurbished, including the installation of its most striking feature, the box pews.

According to a leaflet in the church, Sir John Betjeman referred to St. John's as "a church of a Jane Austen novel", and indeed it was a location used in an ITV film of Emma in 1996.
The pews keep draughts out and bored children in, but their main function was to define territories belonging to the families of the village.  No doubt those who put up the money for the refurbishment were rewarded with the best locations.

It's a very pretty and cosy church, still used for its original function.

St Peter's, Marlborough

St Peter's church enjoys a prime location at one end of Marlborough's broad High Street (markets Wednesday and Saturday) yet the parish church is St Mary the Virgin, hidden behind houses and businesses at the other end of High Street.  It was built in 1460 and various alterations have been made since.
According to a sign in the church, "This former Parish Church became a Chapel of Ease of St Mary's in 1924 when the Parishes were united and St Mary's became the Parish Church. ...reports tell of candles being stolen, a fire being lit, acts of vandalism, and a tramp sleeping under the altar."

Something clearly had to be done.  It was declared redundant in 1974 and leased for a peppercorn rent to a trust, which oversees community use of the building.  The body of the church is now in secular use as a cafe and craft shop.  The cafe seems to be camping in a very large space, but the building is also used as a parish hall for community events.

By contrast, the craft shop is packed into the rear of the church, giving a cluttered appearance.

They are both declared successful, but I can't see how either can be making much money, certainly not enough to support the fabric of the building, which involves separate fund-raising activities.  At least they ensure there are people on site during daylight hours.

The Font. 

There are startling juxtapositions that I'm sure bother some visitors.

The Outer Library, Attingham Park

Attingham was designed in 1782 for Noel Hill, 1st Lord Berwick and is now owned and managed by the National Trust.  The outer library is in the West  wing of the building.  In 2013 its function changed: it is now 'Lady Berwick's Tearoom', providing teas to visitors.

As part of  the conversion, trompe-l'oeil blinds have been installed that conceal and protect the books.  Above them are grisaille paintings by Robert Fagin, on mythological subjects, simulating bas-relief sculptures.  These date from the 1790s and are of high quality.

There's a welcoming fire in the fireplace and two attractive statues oversee the room.

The space was not designed as a tea room and its conversion has presented problems.  From housing thousands of dry books and a few visitors it is now a café serving hot beverages and accommodating (probably) much larger numbers of people.  The books have had to be protected from steam, etc. by the blinds, which are conveniently based on the architect's original design for this room.   But this protection may not be sufficient: the most valuable books have been removed and the fabric of the room will need to be closely monitored. 
Lady Berwick's Tearoom, where visitors can imagine having tea with her ladyship in luxurious surroundings, served by appropriately dressed staff, was previously located upstairs in the house, which meant it was rather hidden away, and visitors had to pay the house entrance fee to use the tearoom.  The present location solves the problems and disabled access is simply difficult, rather than impossible: it's a few steps up to the outer library.  Being on the route most visitors take, it should attract more customers.  The high ceiling and high quality decoration create the luxurious ambience that is expected of Lady Berwick's Tearoom.

The Stables, Attingham Park

Of the same date as the house and outer library, these are now chiefly used as a corridor from the entrance to the bookshop.

The stables are attractive and have been dressed with old-looking lamps.

Generations of horses and their urine have eroded the brick floors and made them uneven and the National Trust is wondering what to do about them for health and safety reasons.

Names are painted on each stall; I think these were the nick-names of horses, rather than those of the stable boys.  The two replaced panels may have been damaged by the horses.
The stables nearer the entrance were of higher status; the finials are more ornate.



 More use is made of the high-status stables.

The horse is the wrong way round, but perhaps he's also fully charged and ready for use.

The Gallery, Attingham Park

Maintenance is always needed on these old houses.  The glazed lantern that provides daylight to the gallery needs attention, hence the forest of scaffolding.  It's very dark and the lighting is red, presumably to protect the remaining paintings.

The lantern can be seen up the builders' ladder.



The gallery stairs are also protected.

Some of the larger paintings have been left behind.

The building work is costing a lot of money.

The gallery is usually a fairly well-lit room; the predominant colour being the green of the carpet.  To see it gloomy red in a forest of scaffolding alters the character entirely.  The route through it is required to provide access to the rest of the house to complete the tour.  But for me it was the place I most wanted to be.

Choices

I've selected two churches, but they are of very different sizes and current use.  I thought it was interesting to contrast them: the little Georgian church; a nut-brown gem in a quiet village, but still fulfilling its original purpose; the large fifteenth century church, redundant and rather uncomfortable in its new use.
I also selected three locations at Attingham Park, choosing rooms with different design functions, uses and states.  It's a place I'm very familiar with.

Technical and Lessons Learned

It's rarely absolutely necessary to use a tripod; in any case their use is prohibited in many locations.  As an aside, I must practise the use of a tripod, though.  The Minal Church photographs were taken by bracing the camera against solid surfaces, as were many of the others.  High ISO was used, especially in the Attingham gallery.  In the stable I braced myself against walls.  I used Photoshop to create two panoramas in Lady Berwick's Tearoom. 
I've learned a number of things about stitching panoramas from this and earlier attempts: keep the camera level; rotate the camera, rather than the photographer, because the latter creates different viewpoints and if Photoshop does manage to stitch them together, strange effects may occur.  This image looks decidely odd: the wall's not straight and the statue's very distorted:

Exhibitions

The Photographers' Gallery

http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/geraldo-de-barros-2
An exhibition of the photographic work of the artist Geraldo de Barros.  Monochrome: contact prints, distressed by the artist, plus prints of A4 or thereabouts.  The prints were given a lot of space and this reduced their impact, especially the tiny contacts, which seemed lost in relatively large frames.  The subjects were largely abstracted; my favourites were multiple exposures of roof members, creating a lattice, e.g. Abstraction, Sao Paulo Station 1949.  I was disappointed; they made very little impact on me.
http://www.guildindia.com/C.K.Rajan/Index.htm
C K Rajan: Overlaying of two contrasting newspaper or magazine images of Indian scenes.  "how economic modernisation creates strong social and cultural contradictions."  Three images appealed:  ruined four-storey concrete buildings overlaid with the out-of-scale head and arms of a model; a flooded street, with a petrol filler nozzle, seemingly adding to the flood; A four-by-four truck jammed into a room.
http://nwermers.webs.com/collages19982011selection.htm
Nicole Wermers: her statement: "an investigation into the urban experience and the way in which the design of two and three dimensional space constructs desire, and communicates emotions and power."  Collages comprising carefully selected and cut out magazine cut-outs, forming abstract images, often of humour and great beauty. 
http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/ill-form-and-void-full
Laura Letinsky: statement: "The still life genre is unavoidably a commentary on society's material mindedness and the way images promote a kind of promise of attainability."
Studio still life photographs of paper cut-outs from magazines arranged on white surfaces.  Although the appropriated images incorporated were all flat pieces of paper, the result was three-dimensional.   In each photograph, the cut-outs formed only a small, central group, yet were not swamped by the broad white spaces surrounding them.  They suggested that the viewer had entered after an event had taken place, and that what remained was the residue.  The prints were large scale and made appropriate use of the gallery space.

The Estorick Collection

http://www.estorickcollection.com/exhibitions/
The main exhibition, of etchings by Giorgio Morandi, was of more interest to Suki the print-maker,  than to me.  Linked with it was a display of colour landscape photographs by the photographer Nino Migliori of the place where Morandi lived.  http://www.photographers.it/articoli/ninomigliori.htm  They were Polaroid photographs that had been distressed by the photographer, then printed at a larger size.  Some of the polaroids were on display, so that one could see two stages of the process.  The resulting images appeared three-dimensional; the ink and paint on the polariods seeming to float above the landscape.  The mixture of small and large images was reminiscent of the Geraldo de Barros display at the Photographers' Gallery, however I found the Nino Migliori photographs to be more interesting and accessible.

Peter Fraser at Tate St Ives

(Magazine review)
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/exhibition/peter-fraser
Having read John Burnside's article A Liberation from the Ordinary in the Spring 2013 issue of TATE ETC, I would like to visit this exhibtion, though it's a long way.  Fraser finds the strange and beautiful in what are regarded as trivial and mundane.  It's a kind of photography that appeals to me very much.  To find the beauty in, say, a couple of random blue buckets, is a great talent, and a delight.  The fact that they're photographed at all suggests they're worthy of attention (Sontag), and study of the photograph confirms this.  Burnside says, "The real world is physical and immediate and nothing is ordinary, or trivial, other than the mindset that does not know how to see what is really there." (p 58)

Since starting this course I look at faces a lot more, and find them all interesting and mostly beautiful. I think this is a similar process; a matter of seeing, rather than just looking.

Exercise: Space and Light

Horsehay Village Hall

I chose this location because it can be seen under very different light sources: daylight, fluorescent tubes, tungsten stage lighting.  Horsehay Amateur Dramatic Society was rehearsing a play in the hall.

Daylight through Windows

The stage is unlit and dark.  White balance varies across the view because of light reflected from coloured surfaces.  Look at the (white) radiators.

Day and Fluorescent Lights

This combination makes white balance tricky but gives suffient light for the men setting out chairs for this evening's performance.  More light spills onto the stage.

Here's a closer shot of the stage.  The dark windows, right, will be backlit.

 It's interesting to get backstage and take shots including two or even three contrasting 'worlds'.

I'd like to claim that I included the blue bucket as a homage to Peter Fraser, but it and the blue chairs were just there.
http://www.peterfraser.net/?page_id=77

Some actors believe that centre stage, a third back from the edge, is a sweet spot, a place of power, where an actor can dominate the auditorium.  Here I'm standing nearer the back of the stage.

The blurred man with the ladder shows that at least someone is working.

Tungsten Stage Lighting 

Stage lighting, using over a dozen spots and floods, gives overall illumination of the stage for this dress rehearsal.  The auditorium is lit only by reflection.  The shiny laminate floor gives pleasing reflections which in performance will be masked by the audience.  I particularly like the ladder. 

 

The steps, right, will be removed for the performance.  The portrait on the wall, mid-right, is one of mine.  The lights are close to the stage, creating a steep gradient, front to back.

 

Here is the rest of the auditorium, lit only by reflected light.  Light off the floor and blinds gives a brown cast, which I have reduced.

Here the contrast between the colours of different lights is an advantage. An image showing more of her face would have been good.

 Here are the lights.

I like the rich colour of the background here, which would be lost if turned to monochrome.

 

This exercise has been more interesting and challenging than I expected.  I've had to think and plan, put myself out.  For the daylit shots I took time off from my day job to attend while the auditorium was being prepared.  I had to re-edit, to fix white balance under different light sources, so that the three images of the stage shot from the rear of the auditorium matched, approximately.  Add light reflected from coloured surfaces, and the balance is a compromise.  ISO was mostly 3200; my Canon 60D and Photoshop cope adequately with this for much larger images than these.  I suppose the main lesson learned is that different lighting conditions can completely alter the look and feel of a location.

 

 

 

 

  

 

The User's Viewpoint

EightySix'd, Waterloo St, Ironbridge

https://www.facebook.com/#!/EightySixd.uk?fref=ts

Rooms are often constrained by the buildings that enclose them:

1, Waterloo Street, makes full use of a truncated triangular site and its shape determines that of the rooms.  The middle floor hosts a café with an artistic theme.  Artworks and objéts trouvés are displayed on walls and surfaces.

The platform at the narrow end is part of the structure of the building; space having been robbed to give headroom for the shop premises below.   If upright chairs were used here, their occupants could look down on the rest of the customers.  The extra height has been cancelled out and even turned to advantage by placing armchairs here.

This 'luxury' accommodation takes advantage of the view of the roundabout and the roads leading off it: up to the church; straight on the the Iron Bridge.

The homely mix of furniture is in keeping with the Bohemian atmosphere.  To replace it with something more stylish would spoil the feel of the place.

When it's full, it must seem pretty crowded, but that also is part of the atmosphere of the place, the feeling that art and ideas are more important that what one sits on.

The Woodbridge Inn, Coalport

http://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/woodbridge
Also in Ironbridge, this is a very different establishment

It's an old building (named for the previous bridge) that has had a thorough renovation, resulting in light and welcoming spaces.  Almost everything here has been designed to agree with the moderately olde worlde image the company wishes to project.  The gents' is an exception - well, no one wants to use an olde worlde lavatory.

 Modern, bright, shiny, with dark tiles below eye height balancing the white of the sanitary ware, it fulfils its function well and looks easy to clean.  The old pictures at eye level encourage the avoidance of introspection and carry the theme through from the rest of the pub, as do the wooden doors.

Exercise: Exploring Function

New Art Gallery Walsall

 

"Gallery spaces are successful when the space is not the primary focus. The role of the gallery is not to compete with the artwork, rather to create a blank space, which allows the artist's work to dominate the space." Virgil Dudley, http://www.ehow.com/how_5456086_design-art-gallery.html

The Requirement

Light, above all, to see the artwork.  Natural where possible, supplemented by diffuse artificial light, eliminating dark shadows, and avoiding reflections.
Plain, vertical walls to hang pictures on.
Open spaces for sculpture and installations.
Available but unobtrusive services: additional lighting and power.
Flexibility; the capability to open out or close in spaces for particular works or exhibitions.

A gallery has different functions.  Birmingham's Museum and Art Gallery is painting-oriented, mostly designed around a permanent exhibition of large oil paintings.  Walsall seems more flexible.  When we visited, there was a travelling exhibition of works by Damien Hirst, including a trademark sheep in formaldehyde.  A door had been closed off and a temporary wall built in the Garman Ryan Galleries, on which to hang his Trinity - Pharmacology, Physiology, Pathology, 2000.
 

The interior of the New Art Gallery Walsall is all white walls and varnished planks.

It's an intricate and beautiful, clever building, and this risks overshadowing the art for which it exists.

The top floor was designed as a restaurant and has large windows, giving views over the town.  It's now used as a display space, and the lovely large windows do some of the artwork no favours...

Though they enabled me to take this self-portrait.

 

But the designed spaces work well.

This is the image I've selected to illustrate the success of the gallery design.  It's half of the large Garman Ryan gallery and is subdivided into two bays by a large cabinet with glass both sides.  The windows, supplemented by artificial light, adjustable on tracks, provide illumination without causing reflection.  Small sculptures and artifacts are displayed in the cabinet, whose glass allows light to pass between the two bays.  It looks a little cluttered now; this is because the scupltures that are normally scattered through the whole space have been moved to make room for the Damien Hirst exhibition. 

The photograph was taken from beside Damien Hirst's preserved sheep.  No photographs are permitted of the Hirst works; the chair is for the gallery employee who supervises them, and is normally out of the way against the wall, right.
The sculptures, and the paintings on the right wall, are by Jacob Epstein. 

Reading: Source

I now subscribe to Source (Photoworks North, Belfast, seasonal).  The Autumn 2012 issue contained two articles that sold it to me.

Advertising, by Judith Williamson, which was the analysis of a Panasonic Camcorder advertisement showing a girl flying a kite on a beach, comparing the image with a 1970 Kodak ad showing a similar scene, and delving into the targeting of the advertisements, the subtext.  It concludes with this telling paragraph:
"There is something sad about the scenario of this Panasonic ad: the smiling girl turns to a parent who, instead of joining in, is recording her look of joy for future viewing."
This is an oppositional reading: the sense of the advertisement is subverted, conveying a message the advertiser did not intend.  Stuart Hall in his essay Encoding/Decoding, (Hall, 1993) defined three positions or codes, for the reading of a communication: the dominant-hegemonic position, where the intended meaning is read; the negotiated code or position, where the meaning is adapted to suit current or local circumstances; and the oppositional code, where a contrary meaning is inferred.

The Empty Lens: Teaching Photography as a Dead Language, by Greg Lucas and Jane Fletcher.  This raises questions about the fitness for purpose of the teaching of photography (and indeed, any 'art' medium).  The following delightful paragraph exposes one of the perceived conflicts:Professional photographers who ran - angst-ridden - from secure careers towards self-expression (finding their natural home in educational institutions) are now expected to facilitate students whose only aim is to walk blithely into a well-paid job."
The article's conclusion is:
"By removing self-expression from photography education, students will learn to understand how the medium works."
While this doesn't seem to apply to my current OCA course, I do see this tendency in other media teaching, and it was refreshing to see these opinions expressed so forthrightly.

It's the element of subversion in both articles that I find appealing.  One receives such a lot of over-serious, earnest, self-believing stuff, that it's good, occasionally, to see it twisted and torn down.

Hall, Stuart (1993) 'Encoding/Decoding' in S. During (ed) The Cutural Studies Reader, London, Routledge:
http://wxy.seu.edu.cn/humanities/sociology/htmledit/uploadfile/system/20110120/20110120230110412.pdf