But, what does it mean?
I'm interested when photography falls off the literal radar into the subjective. Part of looking at photography requires something to meditate on. But, I suspect, it's here that the common (in fact not so common as we commonly might think) audience jumps ship. Particularly reflective of this 'jumping ship' is a
recent comment on a blog by Tim Atherton regarding Fumimasa Hosokawa's conceptual project, where,
"...the artist researches public records going back 100 years to find obituaries of people who died on the streets in and around Tokyo in accidents, fights or from illness. Hosokawa visited the locations--determined from the descriptions and addresses in the obituaries--and photographed the sites in black and white in an "official-looking" documentary style."
Denizen's comment says:
"Can you tell me what's the connection between the fact that somebody happened to die in these surroundings a hundred years ago and a b&w picture taken today when even the oldest trees are unlikely to have been around at that time?"
At what point does the conceptual become so remote that it loses touch? Judge for yourself among some of my favourites below.
Nadja Groux says, regarding her pictures:
"...in my work the birth canal relates to the birth of oneself. The bruise and scars on the body are a metaphor of the difficulty of this process and show the element of madness in an apparent peaceful environment of floral wallpapers."
Roni Horn's images of the Thames cause us to reflect on the darker side of the river:
"The Thames attracts a very high number of suicides, many from other countries, and a significant number of so-called deaths by misadventure and death by extremely violent means - lots of dismemberment and so on."
Invisible structures by Xavier Ribas
"At first glance, these images make us think of a wild space, natural, undefined, as if without motif. However, this disorganised and entropic space is, in fact, a historical site, the site (niche) of a buried city beneath the rainforest floor...The memory that is represented in these images is not the monument, but a projection, a threshold, a memory 'which is not yet', or that is as yet 'unthought', as in a state of 'inversion' (Robert Smithson). Or, a memory which, simply, does not let itself be thought, as if the rainforest was not only the direct consequence of the desolation and the crumbling of a civilisation, but also the necesary strategy for the preservation of its fragments: we could say that it hides itself, that it buries itself and that it eludes us."
Reflections on Frankenstein, The Arctic Circle, and The History of Science, an exhibition of a new three-part series of large-scale photographs by Catherine Wagner that examines the synthesis of science, nature, and humanity in contemporary society and is inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Final notes:
Maybe photography has run out of space, forcing photographers to dig deeper, to squeeze every ounce of use from it, or, perhaps photography is a useless story telling medium, with nothing like the fluidity of film, where gaps must be filled by metaphorical linkages.
17 September 2008 - 8:23am — Philip CartlandThe Quiet Naturalist
It should be common knowledge now that around the time when Darwin was thinking about the origin of the species by natural selection (1850s), Alfred Russell Wallace, who was collecting specimens in the Malay Archipelago had already sent a letter to Darwin putting in very succinct terms the 'survival of the fittest' idea. Perhaps because of Wallace's quiet and shy manner and his poor background, his emergence as an unsung hero is additionally emphasised. And so we have books, such as the Spice Island Voyage by Tim Severin, which traces Wallace's travels around the Malay islands.
One of Severin's missions was to observe how the natural environment has changed since the time of Wallace. Wallace's own much quoted words, referring to the King Bird of Paradise which he had seen, are cited:
'I thought of the long ages of the past, during which the successive generations of this little creature had run their course, year by year being born, and living and dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness; to all appearance such a wanton waste of beauty. Such ideas excite a feeling of melancholy. It seems sad, that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for ages yet to come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral, intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these virgin forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man.?
Interestingly I found the same extract in the preface of my rare copy of, The Gardeners of Eden, by Alistair Graham a book analysing and laying uncomfortably bare the often aggressive motivations behind game saving.
Though Wallace shot his Bird of Paradise knowing it would be of value to science and worth money back in England as a stuffed specimen we do not take this action as a hypocrisy; a bird in hand can be worth two in the bush when it comes to preserving species. And so today Wallace is acknowledged as a pioneer of environmental awareness.
So what changes did Tim Severin find around a 150 years later? What is left of the Flora and Fauna in the islands where Wallace meticulously indulged his collecting? Well it's a mixed picture, thriving diversity here, and wanton environmental exploitation there. But most importantly there is still a chance. However, if Wallace had accompanied Severin on his spice island voyage, his worst shock would not have been in the teeming city streets nor in the forest. It would have been when he looked over the side of Severin's tradition sailing craft as he sailed into Ambon Harbour. The exquisite underwater coral garden, which Wallace had described with such enthusiasm, was irretrievably gone.'
17 September 2008 - 8:20am — Philip CartlandLife and Death in Eden
Imagine a pacific island.
Palms and blue sea, fruits and jungle-embraced mountains; a little island paradise.
Inhabit your island with 15 men and 13 women, 5 Tahitian men and 10 English sailors - the women: Tahitian. Men outnumber women, but bear in mind Tahitian women are quite 'liberal' and under certain cultural circumstance allow the indulgence of multiple sexual partners.
Our islanders have not simply appeared upon the stage out of nowhere, so let's allow them a ship in which to arrive. However, shortly the ship is set alight and all thoughts of return to whence they came are cancelled. Why? Well, because a return to the outside world would, for some of them, in all likelihood synchronize with a waiting hangman's noose; they are mutineers and have cast adrift their captain.
Now forget our mutineers for a while, say, 18 years.
At last, Captain **** is sniffing about the pacific. 18 years have passed and he stumbles across the island. He steps into a waiting canoe and once ashore discovers quite a few women and kids but only one man! He subsequently learns that the particular shortage of men arises, not by the hand of natural calamity, but largely by consequence of murder.
Idyllic!
Those of you who know the story will have guessed by now that I am talking about the Pitcairn Island occupied by the Bounty mutineers in January 1790. A true story quite well investigated by Trevor Lummis in his book 'Life and Death in Eden'; an intriguing and gripping account, apt to blow away any funny ideal of a utopian society in Paradise.
I have come across various other stories, differently flavoured, but which basically throw light upon similar themes: man against nature or man against man. One of my favorites is 'The outpost of Progress' by Joseph Conrad; two men trapped in the jungle of West Africa are waiting for a supply steamer that doesn't come. They end up killing one another over a bag of sugar! (Huuum, reminds me of my two bosses fighting over nothing!)
Anyway, I write only to pass on my enthusiasm.
17 September 2008 - 8:18am — Philip CartlandGoing backwards
I was looking at some vernacular photography some of which was so charming I began to feel a great loss. Where is the wonder and humor among the endless reams of obsessively 'placed' large format portraits and images of dumpy places, derelict buildings, vacant wastelands - the intentionally 'odd' or inexplicable or downright boring, stuff?
Perhaps its about temperament; I'm by nature a reductionist, who must get rid of all the clutter (coming from a cluttered mind no doubt), back to basics, who needs the sanity of the natural and the poetically 'real', who doesn't like the bombardment of modern culture and all it shiny junk, precision and flashy attention seeking - who wishes to seek the zen simplicity, the old, the rare.
The two images above came from the small book, "photo trouvee" with snaps collected by Michel Frizot and Cedric de Veigy. Its easy not to notice the cat in the second one.
The image below is one of my own, of my father at a agricultural show in Kenya. Humorous as it may be it also has a very sad streak, of course you wouldn't know from the image, but when I was 15 and away at boarding school, a car he was working on fell off its supporting jack (there were no safety blocks), onto his chest and he died.
Saphir by Zineb Sedira
The photographers gallery has an exhibition by Zineb Sedira .
The exhibit, called 'Saphir', made me acutely aware how different seeing the clarity of a nice enlarged image, is, from viewing images online or in a book - the books and the catalogue were completely unsatisfactory; like they were just further coverage, on low budget, rather than exhibits in themselves. Here is a snippet about the series from the gallery's site:
"The exhibition contrasts Sedira's re-encounter with the sights and sounds of Algiers with an awareness that while she, like other people from France, is enjoying her return to the city, some of its other residents, disenchanted young men in particular, often dream of escape across the water to Europe."
I particularly like Sedira's idea and the mood evoked by the images, despite feeling there were simply too few images and some not of high quality (i.e. one was blurry, unnecessarily, I felt, though standing further back helped). In the same turn, perhaps, because there were so few, I was not overwhelmed. The scarcity increased the value.
The accompanying film, which is viewed on two screens, side by side, almost like two stills, was stunning, and probably this is where most of her energy was spent. Here's more about it:
This play of meaning is extended through two central characters. The first is an Algerian man who walks across town, with no apparent purpose, and silently watches the daily ferries arrive and depart from the port. His image is counterpoised by that of an older woman's a daughter of the pieds noirs (a term for European settlers who left Algeria after its Independence). She inhabits the Safir Hotel, one of the grand landmarks of French colonial Algiers. Whose imposing architecture is a powerful and resonant reminder of a past that still casts its light, and shadow, over the city. Gazing out to sea from its balconies, before withdrawing to the faded grandeur of its lobbies and halls, the woman echoes the man's movement and reinforces a wider sense of languor, inertia and enclosure. Both characters circle within their own separate but parallel worlds, their paths often appear to intersect but without any conclusion.
Despite my enthusiasm I've already forgotten the film. Film seems to move through me while stills hold me. The two images above grab me, enough to allow faults I find blow away.
I really like 'Saphir'. It's universal, in the sense that we are all looking across the waters, escaping to that dream world which, in all likelihood is not what we imagine.
17 September 2008 - 8:13am — Philip CartlandLeaky Tap Syndrome
Going digital doesn't get you off the hook. Hey, yes that sudden freedom - you can snap away without worry - may not quite be what it seems. With film you'd be hard hit spending your frames like that, certainly, but going digital well its not free either.
Question for today. How many digital images are worth one film image?
A digital image may not cost much, but you'll agree with me that it costs something? And would you agree that, generally, you take many, many, more digitals than film? Probably. The other day I filled up a whole 512mb of memory, and deleted the whole lot! I think, in all, I have at most 200 rolls of film collected since my first camera at the age of 15 (was a loverly old mechanical Nikon FM, with a wonky vivitar 35-105 zoom, and I took some of my favourite images with it), that's just over 20 years ago! Some of those images were published and not only paid for themselves but also for many more rolls of film.
Ok so the point being here that every little digital takes up a teeny bit of electricity, often spent without result, i.e. thrown down the drain. And every time your battery runs dry, well you plug it in and the mains gradually tops it up. It's kind of like a leaky tap, after a while it leads to an enormous loss of water, as Thames Water will warn us (We have a drought in london and a hose pipe ban. It's also to be noted that Thames Water company themselves lose huge amounts of water from leaky old victorian pipe, they fix a leak every six minutes which shows, not how well they are doing, but how bad the problem is! Naturally they don't hesitate to charge us for their problem)
You do pay for your electricity, I hope? So tell me, if you added up all the images you took and chucked away in the life of your digital camera how much would it have cost you, and how much was completely wasted?
I think we all suffer from Leaky Tap Syndrome, in more ways than one. We don't notice it but drip, drip, drip, there goes our cash. New technologies often encourage waste over the long term.
17 September 2008 - 8:09am — Philip CartlandTrophies
"Photography is clearly all that hunting is, except the bullet, even down to the jargon; and the photographs are treated exactly like stuffed heads." - Alistair Graham, Gardeners of Eden
Some people like a trophy of the trophy: Better trophy photos
What about press photography there is an awful lot of trophy hunting there?
Yes, thanxs James, a perfect link should have thought to link to them!
17 September 2008 - 8:08am — Philip CartlandAfrican Elephant Range Countries Human Population Growth
1900 71.1 million
1950 166.3 million
1970 275.1 million
1985 419.5 million
2000 626.6 million
2025 1,172.6 million
Source
Are the effects and importance of human encroachment on habitats, given back seat to campaigns to save animals within ever decreasing national parks?
"In terms of elephant ecology, a single elephant pooulation in a national park is as incomplete a phenomenon as a single elephant in a zoo enclosure." Ian Parker - 'What I tell you three times is true'
"Tourists may be as malign as a multitude of poachers in their multifarious influences upon animals and habitats" - Ian Parker
Just some thoughts to keep you on your toes.
17 September 2008 - 8:07am — Philip CartlandDried fish - Mombasa
Walking past a godown, (Mombasa Kenya) filled 15 feet high with crumbling dried fish, I took this picture of a man loading some of it into a van.
Contrary to expectations, much of this dried fish does not originate off the coast of Kenya - despite plenty of deep sea fishing businesses, the 'shallow' continental shelf is narrow (50km at it widest point) and so large scale fishing is quite reduced - but comes by dhow or ship from Somalia and the Arabian peninsular.
Dried fish is a delicacy amongst coastal people who cook it in a variety of ways: some of them fry it or make it into a soup, others make it into a fish curry.
Fish oil is also extracted under great 'pressure', from dried fish. The old process is very interesting I think. The fish is lowered into a deep well - often found in the warehouse afore mentioned. At various levels salt is added, and then finally a huge pile of stones is dumped on top - like two tons of stone perhaps. A couple of months later the oil has oozed out. The Fish oil is used to protect the hull of wooden Dhows from insects and the remaining dried fish is still sold as food despite the absense of its oil1.
1 - 'Cargoes of the East' by Esmond Bradley Martin and Chrysee Perry Martin.
17 September 2008 - 8:05am — Philip CartlandSouth Africa: The Structure of Things Then, by David Goldblatt
I've just bought the following book: South Africa: The Structure of Things Then, by David Goldblatt. Rather than go into the usual review I thought I would take one image and its caption (images are extensively captioned in this book). I'd first say that Goldblatt takes great pains to avoid the decorative, and further pains to make sure the full context is there. This book documents and informs thoroughly and therefore is priceless, in my opinion, not only as a record of the effects of Apartheid in South Africa, but also as a model for other documentary photographers to work with, while also acting as an antidote to the hysteria of mass market photojournalism.
"Khaki clothes for sale here': Orania settlement for the Afrikaner volk. Orania, Cape, 25th Sep 1992.
"The significance of khaki has changed for the Boers. During the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, khaki, the uniform of the kakies or tommies, was identified with British imperialism, the name kakiebos, khaki bush, was given to one of the more unpleasant weeds, the seeds of which were imported for the first time with fodder for the British forces in that war. But to right-wing Afrikaners of the 1980s and 90s, who regard themselves as the upholders and defenders of Boer republicanism, khaki has taken on an entirely different symbolic value. Khaki pants and shirts are the working clothes of many Afrikaners farmers; khaki symbolises the attachment of the Boer to his land. Khaki became the uniform of right-wing activists in such movements as the AWB [link to a pretty grusome image taken by a member of the so called Bang Bang club and marking the final days of Apartheid].
Here in Orania, a settlement established by right-wing Afrikaners as the nucleus of a proposed Afrikaner state or volkstaat, the khaki clothes for sale at a house in the village were therefore a means of demonstrating identification with certain values. They stood for Afrikaner mobilisation in the fight for their 'heritage', their land and as working clothes they signified the ideal of 'self-labour', which was embraced by these who came to Orania. There were to be no Blacks in Orania; there was to be none of the culture of dependence of Whites on Blacks for physical work that had been endemic in South African society since its origins in the economy of slavery at the Cape.
Before coming to Orania the man of this house held quite a senior job in the city of Bloemfintein. Now he earned a fraction of his previous income but declared that he was very happy, 'I get by on very little here and I don't have to worry about Kaffirs, communists, and trade unions'."
There are more pictures from the book here
17 September 2008 - 8:04am — Philip Cartland