Latest Image and Update

This is the latest image from this series. Have shot four new videos and very happy with the results. Hopefully can manage another four this week, which should ideally take me towards wrapping this project up. I don't know how to make the videos small enough to upload here as yet, once I figure it out I will put them up.

Adam

Photograph to accompany latest video piece.

And now for something entirely more rigid!!

The past few months have brought practical work on this project to a standstill, a combination of needing to get an essay written, Christmas and being out of the country on two occasions. Things are now back on track however.

I was very interested in getting the sound component to these videos working, so that the sound of the breath could be heard in each piece as it is the anchor subjects are using to attempt being present. I had an audio tutorial which worked out fine but subsequently ran into all kinds of problems with spaces available that could facilitate both sound and video recording simultaneously. The air conditioning, which cannot be switched off, makes recording in any of the rooms in the media building very problematic. I tried using the dead room but the light spill from the adjoining rooms, as well as the noise spill, meant that recording there was pointless too. This is a big disappointment as I really feel it would add a further dimension to each video piece but I don't see how I can overcome it.

Putting it aside I have spent an evening in the studio with the help of my glamorous assistant Mike Downing to run a series of test videos, as the ones I had experimented before were haphazard, without a tripod and so forth. Test sequences were run at a variety of iso/aperture combinations; the very wide apertures that lend the portraits their painterly feel are not suitable for video as focus can not be maintained, even with the minimal movement involved in these videos, at such a shallow depth of field. This is a compromise that simply had to be made. Learning from the results of the series of photographs in this project I am using PRECISELY the same settings each time in camera and PRECISELY the same set up, by which I mean I am actually measuring the distance from the light to the reflector and the subject to the light and the subject to the reflector and making sure they are THE SAME each time using a MEASURING TAPE. Yes, that's right, measuring things!!! Furthermore I am changing my working methods. I have block booked the studio for three hours each week on the same day and am shooting two to three subjects each time. The irony is not lost on me that working on a topic area that is very much centred on some of the ideals in life I hold most dear, I am conversely forced to adopt entirely rigid working methods in order to bring them to life. I am not used to working this way but I must adapt! However this does seem to have instantly made everything simpler. I shot two videos on Friday, both of which I could not be happier with and I now suddenly have an abundance of subjects, more than I can actually fit into the project!

My plan is as follows, shoot for the next four weeks, then post-production (which i don't know how to do on video yet!!), sort out presentation methods and wrap this project up. My research file is almost finished so I think this is achievable. I am off to London at the end of March for this film production role so everything will be finished by then. I repeat, everything WILL be finished by then.

Thoughts from 'A short history of Photography' by Walter Benjamin

Benjamin writes in this essay about, among other things, the early daguerrotypes taken by a man called Hill taken at the Edinburgh cemetery of Greyfriars.

"...this place could never have achieved its great effect had not its selection been for technical reasons. The lower sensitivity to light of the early plates made necessary a long exposure in the open. This, on the other hand, made it desirable to station the model as well as possible in a place where nothing stood in the way of a quiet exposure. "The synthesis of expression which was achieved through the long immobility of the subject", Orlik says of the early photographs, "is the chief reason besides their simplicity why these photographs, like well drawn or painted likeness, exercise a more penetrating, longer lasting effect on the observer than photographs taken more recently". The procedure itself caused the models to live, not out of the instant, but into it; during the long exposure they grew, as it were, into an image.

It struck me that a comparison could be made between this and the modern ability to make moving portraits via the medium of video. During what might be termed the long exposure of the video, the subject, simply looking at the lens could also be said to live into the instant, to grow into an image of themselves that is arguably difficult/impossible (?) to achieve in a single image. In my recent experiments with this, the synthesis of expression which Benjamin refers to was apparent and was, to me, one of the compelling aspects of it.

Another one

Also here is one from a few weeks ago that I hadn't put up but I really like. You may recognise the subject!

Project two- delving into moving portraits.

What a fun time I have had with this most recent character who was generous enough to come in to the studio on his day off work and get fully into the whole process behind making these images. I am delighted with the results.

Also begun to experiment with video today with a view to making moving portraits. Had to balance the camera on the tripod without connecting it properly as the connector plate was missing but Graham and Mike tell me the resulting shakes can be rectified. Once I figure out how to open it on my computer I will post it. Just did a minute clip for now to get a sense of the thing and also hard to do much longer without the actual attachment.

Questions of Representation - Feedback Appreciated.

One of the fundamental assertions originally made by the photographic portrait is a declaration of being a trace of the individual, the authentic presence of the person. According to Graham Clarke (The Portrait in Photography), this authenticity is problematic.

"The photograph displaces rather than represents, the individual. It codifies the person in relation to other frames of reference and other hierarchies of significance. Thus, more than any other photographic image, the portrait achieves meaning through the context in which it is seen".

This is why I have decided to strip these portraits of as much coding as possible. Clothes which might denote era, the style of the individual, the social group to which they belong, the persona they like to present to the world and so on are removed. We are left with the subject and a plain black background. To my mind this invites a different kind of viewing, a looking inwards to gather some sense of the essence of the individual. They meet the viewers gaze directly, and if I succeed in creating the right environment and conditions for the subjects, with a contained, settled sense of presence. So if there is a displacement here it is one of moving into a void, a socially constructed interpretation becomes impossible. We know nothing of their activity in the world, only that they have sat in front of the camera and looked into the lens.

Clarke goes on to say....

"Just as the photograph flattens physical bulk, so it also frames and crops-once again suggesting presence through absence. It consistently offers the promise of the individual through a system of representation which at once hides and distorts the subject before the lens. Thus the portrait's meaning exists within wider codes of meaning: of space, of posture, of dress, of marks, of social distinction. In short the portrait's meaning exists within a world of significance which has, in turn, already framed and fixed the individual. The photograph thus reflects the terms by which the culture itself confers status and meaning on the subject, while the subject as image hovers problematically between exterior and interior landscapes".

This leads me to ask the question, what does the empty void like space which the subject occupies itself represent. Can it be read as an invitation inwards? Do the obvious painterly comparisons to 17th century (and earlier) portrait styles evoke cultural notions of status and so forth and what does that word now mean in a postmodern context? Pierre Gonnord, whose work as we have established appeals hugely to me, utilises this same aesthetic device to create images of marginalized sections of society, the down and out, the addicted, the homeless, the itinerant. Attempting to be more critically engaged with that which inspires me, it can be said that there is a voyeuristic element involved with his work, in revealing in a dignified manner those whom we do not normally look at. Perhaps the beauty of the composition and lighting in these images and the removal from the difficult social context they inhabit makes this looking easier, less fraught with tension and bourgeoise guilt! We are not called to act through looking at his images, merely observe. I however do not read them this way, and see it instead as conferring a dignity to these people not usually afforded them in society and also a seeing of 'beauty' outside typical contemporary mores.

There is something that appeals to me about not making this project about one group or another; about a 'type' of person. A spectrum of individuals with the greatest conceivable degree of variation in looks, age, social situation and temperament perhaps is another way to avoid them being coded in a particular way, so that when viewed as a series they are clearly about the individual rather than the social group and in my idealistic world perhaps this might also conversely bring out something about the universality of the human condition.

Project Two Continued.

More portraits. Pleased with the results. Going to continue in this vein, widening the subject group to include more variation in age and also ethnicity and by the end of November hopefully, once I have quite a lot of images, take a critical look at them all and make some decisions as to how to proceed from there in a more focused way if necessary. I also intend to start using HD video recordings, effectively doing 'moving portraits' and experiment a little with that. Adam has also suggested to choose some subjects who are effectively not used to slowing down, to silence and so forth and see if the tension that creates would produce interesting results. Good one Adam.

Themes are clearly emerging, silence/presence and I will explore this further over the coming weeks. Also I have decided that it is best to shoot always from mid chest level and above as too much naked skin and the inclusion of nipples does something else to the reading of the portraits. The consistency of the direction of the poses above was something I was aware of, and although I would have like to have more variation in the last two, features such as the hole in the ear from a removed 'ear spacer' and the direction of the fringe meant that aesthetically it worked best to shoot them the same way as the previous two. However much more variation will soon occur.

Searching for Silence

I have now done some basic test shots with both the 5D and the leaf back Hasselblad. While I think the Hasselblad gives a slightly better picture quality the lenses are definitely a limitation in terms of portraiture and I wonder now which route to choose. I am doing a proper test shot on thursday with a subject with infinite patience and have the studio for two hours so I will try both again with a slightly modified lighting set-up. It is not quite there yet in terms of lighting, but have found some excellent studio resources which I think will help figure it out coupled obviously with some time experimenting in the studio.

Been thinking also about what it is about Pierre Gonnord's style that appeals to me so much, and also that of Hendrik Kerstens, whose work is similar. I have concluded it is the silence within them. The classic painting style, simple black background, no gimmics, no overt emotional expression on the face, all focus is simply on the eyes and on the face in a state of repose. I was imagining what it must have been like to sit for an oil painter for hours, if not days on end. There is a settling into oneself that must occur, a presence, a settled gaze. This is exactly what appears to me when I look at the work of these photographers. Clearly they also use classical posing styles, the position of the body and face to camera is carefully considered. I will need to work with subjects in a slow and relaxed manner I think, as with most portraiture it is a record of the relationship between camera and sitter in that moment as much as anything else.

I am not intending to simply attempt to replicate what he has done, but this is a jumping off point that feels right and I am curious to see how it all unfolds.