Antony Gormley at the Hayward Gallery

I visited Antony Gormley’s new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery this afternoon (I did finish an assignment in the morning in case you get the wrong idea :-) I read some very good reviews and the exhibition was really mind blowing.

Antony Gormley’s main subject has always been the human body with his well-known installations, for eaxample the Angel of the North at Gateshead or his beach installations more recently. But with this exhibition he takes the concept to another level. His starting point is the relation of the human body (often his own in the exhibition) to different kinds of space: how does the body relate to architecture and the environment (e.g. in the installation Space Station which somehow resembles a Borg Cube)?

He also explores quite prominently in the main part of the exhibition the concept of disorientation: how do we react when we become disoriented? His installation Blind Light, the centrepiece of the show at the Hayward Gallery, is essentially a large glass cube filled with steam or clouds and which you can enter from one side. Think steam sauna without the heat. You walk in and immediately lose orientation because you cannot see but for about one metre around you. Everything is soaked in white light and a dense cloud. After a few minutes you become quite wet and feel that you should leave which is easier said than done because you will need to find the exit.

I experimented with photographing inside this space (my Leica compact camera became quite wet but survived, it’s a Leica after all :-) I went in twice but somehow felt a third time would be too much. My breathing became quite cumbersome after a few minutes inside. Gormley really succeeds in making people feel claustrophobic inside the cube.

There are also other installations, which are well worth exploring more, in particular Hatch and Matrices and Expansions.

I will certainly come back for a second time to this exhibition.

Peter Turnley at the Frontline Club

Tonight, I attended a truly inspiring presentation by Peter Turnley at the Frontline Club.

Peter Turnley is the twin brother of David Turnley (who is also a photojournalist) and is one of the most distinguished photojournalist in recent times.

For nearly two hours, he presented his work spanning an extraordinary career over 35 years. It seems that Peter was present and photographed almost every notable and historical event over the last four decades. Peter explained that a book by Henri Cartier Bresson brought him to photography and started his passion for photography. His main motivation to take pictures is – similar to mine, if I may say so – a pretext to enter worlds that would be closed off to him otherwise. He also believes in visual communication as a means to sharing. Peter is also a strong believer in the narrative power of the image and that images can speak for themselves.

It also pays to be there early as Peter came up to me chatting before the talk began. He told me that he was one of the photographers closest to former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder and was also interested in hearing what I do. Of course, he knows Paul, our course director, and his work as well.

The last image in this blog shows a lewd act being performed by one of tonight’s attendees on a devotional object left at our table by a well-known photojournalist. I apologize profusely if any minors are reading this blog and are offended by the image :-)

Cold War Kids

Just a great band that I only came across recently. Their debut album 'Robbers and Cowards' is simply fantastic. Sadly, I missed their live performance at Koko earlier this week in London.

Old Love

My other passion, music... And some autobiographical references as well in this Eric Clapton cover song.

Kelly Osbourne

I am usually not a celebrity spotter but when I walked home last night and Kelly Osbourne stood there waiting for a taxi, I could not resist but to snap this image :-)

Straightjacket

I have been behind my blog entries this week in particular because I did hesitate whether to write this entry or not. But I am looking at this blog as my online diary and ‘document’ of my year as a photojournalism student, so I need and want to be upfront and consistent. And I have been very open and full of praise of this course and my new life so far. So it is time to voice some concerns as well.

This term is utterly frustrating. This term feels like a straightjacket. The ‘elephant project’ is at best very limiting in our ability to pursue interesting (personal) projects and in a sense I feel we have gone back a step with the last term offering much more individual freedom to pursue your own interesting story ideas. At worst, the ‘elephant project’ is just plain uninteresting and has been done a few times before and by a few other colleges. All we will end up doing will disappear off in some dusty archive.

In addition, there are a few pockets of unrelated research, e.g. the Middle East seminar, where none of us will end up doing our main project. So it becomes a bit difficult to motivate yourself to do the required research with the rigour that I would expect from myself to be able to stand up for the end result. And maybe the time would be better spent researching our main projects which after all will be our ‘business card’ to the real world and ultimately determine also the college’s standing in the photojournalistic world.

I appreciate that there needs to be a fair amount of academic rigour and research backing up what we photograph and do, but there should be obvious limits to it. We spend a lot of time in the library researching various aspects while we should be out there shooting and creating (marketable) photo essays.

What is more, some of the lectures are just not up to scratch to equip us with the necessary tools to work in a very demanding environment.

Talking to my fellow students, I sense that some of these points are shared.

It is time for me to get rid of the straightjacket and photograph more what is closer to my heart and increase the level and degree of personal freedom again… After all, that was the reason to leave my previous life.

Chris Chameleon

My flatmate dragged me all the way to East London last night :-) to see the South African singer Chris Chameleon perform at the South African pub Aardvark. I was probably the only non-South African there (people tried to speak to me in Afrikaans all the time :-) but it was good fun. I wouldn’t rush out to buy his CDs now but he delivered a good and worthwhile life show with a great band.

Frontline Club this evening

I went to the Frontline Club this evening to attend a talk by Andrew Cockburn who presented his new book on Rumsfeld. He made no secret about his absolute dislike of Rumsfeld. The subtitle of the book says it all: Rumsfeld – the Man Behind the US Military Disaster. The evening was quite entertaining in the presence of an audience, which largely shared the negative assessment of Rumsfeld’s character and achievements. Cockburn presented a well-researched book, which is based on a lot of interviews with people working closely with Rumsfeld. As I mentioned, Cockburn had no qualms about the dubious character that Rumsfeld is and the 750,000 deaths he is ultimately responsible for in an ill-fated Iraq war. Cockburn’s quote sums it up quite nicely: ”Rumsfeld has managed to do as much harm as possible in his time in office.”

Anecdotally, Brian Eno was also in the audience and even asked a question at the end. For those for whom Brian Eno is unknown: Brian Eno is a legend in the music business and has produced bands such as U2, Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel and has also worked with the likes of Philip Glass and David Bowie.

What a small village London is :-)

Darrenkamp

I have spent a very nice weekend with my closest friends at a farmhouse in Northern Germany.

More music...

Points of reference

Wednesdays, I always leave college beaming and inspired, none the less today. Paul Lowe showed and talked about his own work. I can’t even begin to express how much I admire his work and the thought process that has gone into his work. This was one of the most inspiring lectures.

I couldn’t possibly summarise a stimulating lecture here. So I won’t even try to give a verbatim account or summary of the lecture. What I want to talk about are, however, the points of references that Paul mentioned influenced his work, in particular his more recent work on Israel and Palestine.

Paul quoted Rembrandt and Bach as being his points of references. For a visual art such as photography, it is easily understandable if not obvious that Rembrandt can serve as a point of reference. But Bach? A composer? Bach is the quintessential reference point for composers such as Mozart or Beethoven. He was the master of the fugue and composed divine choral works; his work was inspired by a deep religiousness and almost mathematical structure. But could his work inspire a visual discipline as well?

The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. Different art forms serve ultimately as a form of (personal) expression and communication, if you like they are a way of telling a story, as loose as the narrative may be. So it is not surprising that art forms that refer to one set of senses ultimately can serve as influences or reference points for other art forms that cater to different senses.

Obviously, that led me to think about my own musical reference points. I have always been inspired by Pink Floyd. In fact, one of the very first albums I ever bought was ‘The Wall’, shortly followed by ‘Ummagumma’. And recently, I have rediscovered them and have listened to a lot of Pink Floyd music, in particular to their early work. Albums such as ‘Atom Heart Mother’, Meddle’ or ‘Obscured by Clouds’ are simply masterpieces of modern music. I can’t get enough listening to them. ‘Echoes’ is one of my favourites. The judgement is still out on how much that will influence my photographic output. Maybe it will come through in my final project.

Large Format (continued)

Here are two scanned in images from yesterday's large format class. The first is a portrait of me by fellow student Ed Thompson. The second image is an attempt by me to do a portrait of Agniesczka.

Group shot at the large format course

Group shot courtesy of Paige and Thomas.

Large Format tutorial

Tom Hunter gave us a tutorial on the large format camera today. Although the large format camera is surprisingly intuitive and refers to the fundamental principles of photography, I feel much more comfortable with the Leica :-)