[versuch]

[versuch]

tage des vergessens
tage der betäubnis
tage des wartens..

und dann doch: unvermutet,
ein zeichen, eine erinnerung von irgendwo,
überspielt; der versuch zu ignorieren..

und dann doch: schleichende gewissheit,
von dir nicht los zu kommen.

R. B. (2007)

Millais at Tate Britain

[Image: John Everett Millais:
‘The tower of strength which stood / Four-square to all the winds that blew’; 1878-9;
Oil on canvas]

A friend of mine recommended that I go to the Millais exhibition, which is currently on at the Tate Britain. I am kind of lukewarm on Pre-Raphaelites… but today, nevertheless, I went to the exhibition – after I had handed in my major project at 10:40 am this morning at college…

The exhibition is amazing and I am now a big fan of Millais, in particular of his portraits of women (which are very photographic, there is a lot one can learn from them in terms of the use of colour and composition) and his late landscapes. The late landscapes are just mind-blowing. The last room of the exhibition (room 7) is solely dedicated to a series of landscapes Millais painted in Scotland almost at the end of his life… They are nearly all autumnal or winter landscapes, probably reflecting Millais’ stage in life at the time of painting. The light he used in the paintings is just magical. The entire gallery room radiates from the paintings… I think I spent a lot of time just in the last room…

I particularly like the painting depicted here. He painted it after his second born son George died just at the age of 22 of Typhoid fever and Millais retreated to Scotland to get over the loss of his beloved son… Obviously it is full of symbolism… The brooding sky, the river, the boatman like the boatman ferrying the dead over the river Styx…

Unfortunately, the reproductions in the accompanying exhibition catalogue are nowhere near the originals… which means that the exhibition is definitely worth a visit.

On sheep, romanticism and playing…

Friedrich Schiller, an early adopter and proponent of romanticism, stipulated that man should be a generalist, at least in the pursuit of the arts. He wrote his thoughts on this against the backdrop of an ever specialising society at the end of the 18th century, in particular in business and the crafts.

Schiller - in his letters ‘Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen’ - suggested that only where man is a ‘homo ludens’, i.e. a playing man, man truly fulfils his potential. He stressed the importance of playing in order to tap the full potential of being a human individual against the prevalent specialisation and mechanisation of society. His famous quote in this context was “… der Mensch spielt nur, wo er in voller Bedeutung des Worts Mensch ist, und er ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt…“. [‘…we are only fully human when we are playing…’]. And with playing he particularly meant literature and the fine arts.

[Dear Reader, bear with me… this blog entry has a connection to photography, as you will see in a moment…]

Building on these thoughts, fellow romantics Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis suggested a kind of universalism in the arts, not wanting to limit themselves to merely one kind of ‘poetics’... They coined the term ‘Universalpoesie’ [universal poetic] for that (which was meant not just to include poetry in the narrower sense but all art forms and even science). “Alle heiligen Spiele der Kunst sind nur ferne Nachbildungen von dem unendlichen Spiele der Welt, dem ewig sich bildenden Kunstwerk” [All holy plays of the arts are merely distant imitations of the infinite plays of the world, of an eternally shaping work of art.]

They studied literature, history, cultural sciences, philosophy, etc. at the same time and attempted to become an expert – or at least to generate original thoughts or works of art - in all of these subjects.

Coming back to photography or rather linking these thoughts to photography: in a recent interview Alec Soth said that like most writers do not want to be associated with or defined by just one subject or style, he does not want to be defined by one kind of work or style either - as evidenced by his most recent book ‘Dog Days Bogota’ and his fashion work recently in Fashion Magazine. (However it needs to be said that ‘Dog Days Bogota’ was shot on medium format before he shot his more famous bodies of work ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi’ and ‘Niagara’ in 8 x 10 and that his work in the fashion magazines bears his signature 8 x 10 format style). But in any case… in other words, Soth wants his leeway to ‘play’ in the field of photography…

Contrast this with photographers such as Marcus Bleasdale who builds a very successful career as a photographer on being a specialist in a certain region and a certain subject cluster. And my sense is that in the ‘industry’ the trend is towards ‘specialisation’ and that photo editors are more likely to assign work to photographers who are specialists in a chosen area or subject than to ‘generalists’.

As I am starting to reflect on my post-college life, and in particular on my photographic life, such questions become increasingly pertinent. I have always liked the idea of being a generalist, dabbling in a variety of subjects, not only limited to photography… The question is: how soon do I have to specialise and find ‘my’ field in order to make an impact as a photographer? …I hope that – in sticking with Schiller- I can still ‘play’ a bit more next year…

Frontline Club tonight

After our workshop at the ‘printspace’, I went to the Frontline Club this evening where there was an interesting discussion about the current situation in Burma after the crackdown by the military. Among the participants were two Burmese: Zoya Phan from the Burma Campaign UK and Thuyein Kyaw-Zaw from the BBC Burmese Service, along with Jonthan Miller from Channel 4 news and Justin Wintle who wrote a book about Aung San Suu Kyi.

It was interesting to note that both Burmese representatives spoke out for the continuation of the sanctions (in fact, they suggested an intensification of the sanctions), while the ‘foreign’ observers were more reserved of the impact and efficacy of such sanctions. There were even suggestions that potentially a policy of engagement with the cruel and malicious regime in Burma could yield better results – at least in the long run.

There was also a thought provoking discussion about Aung San Suu Kyi’s role… While her moral integrity was undisputed, there was debate about her efficiency as the figurehead of democratic change while in prison or house arrest and whether she could not have been more useful to the Burmese people leaving Burma and ‘doing an Arafat’ in exile…

The ‘predictions’ of all panellists was that there were going to be more ‘unrests’ in due course in Burma and that the military would not have full control over the situation for now, at least not of what is going on in Burma under the surface. Miller remarked that it will be interesting to see what will happen on August 8th of next year which will mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1988 uprising in Burma, coinciding with the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing… How will China react if there is a civil uprising on its doorsteps while showcasing its own country to the world?

"Final" preparations

Today most of us students and tutors met at the ‘printspace’ to discuss our final degree show, print the images for that show, have tutorials, talk about catering, postcards,… in short, we are in final preparations for our big night…

Jerwood Photography Award

Tonight I went to the Jerwood Gallery Space to attend a talk about and with this year’s winners of the 2007 Jerwood Photography Awards, chaired by Martin Barnes, Senior Curator for photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum. All five winners this year, Moira Lovell, Dana Popa, Sophie Gerrard, Kevin Newark and Edmund Kevill-Davies are alumni of the London College of Communication. And two of them are even alumni of the MA in photojournalism and documentary photography. Seems the yardstick will be quite high for us graduating this year… But, of course, it was great to see our alumni to be so successful… I knew most of the works from last year’s graduation show… but was most impressed by Dana’s work on women trafficking in Eastern Europe (‘Not Natasha’).

It was interesting to listen to Martin Barnes (who was also in the jury choosing the winners) explain how he looks at photographs. He said that foremost and first he looks at the aesthetic and visual qualities of a body of work… He does not even read the accompanying text when looking at the first selection. Only second, he will consider the conceptual, contextual and historical dimensions of any body of work. It was refreshing to hear him say that… after all, photography is a visual art and should be evaluated as such in the first instance… It goes without saying that the second dimension is a conditio sine qua non to make a body of work truly outstanding… however, without the visual quality a body of work just becomes a lot of text to read to understand mediocre photographs or in other words plainly boring…

Guess where I ended up afterwards? :-) Monday is Spice of Life day :-)

Neighbourhood...

This weekend I moved into a temporary flat share in central London and, funnily enough, less than one block away, there is a Ukrainian Catholic Church… what a quaint coincidence… of all the places in London I could have ended up, I ended up there… I didn’t even know that there is a large Ukrainian community in London, let alone that it is large enough for an own Catholic Church (as most Ukrainians belong to the Orthodox Church)…

Into the Wild

Running into the danger that this blog morphs into one of a film critic, I will nevertheless write about and recommend the excellent movie ‘Into the Wild’ that I watched last night. ‘Into the Wild’, directed and screen play by Sean Penn, is inspired by the true story of 22 year old Christopher McCandless who in search of true happiness and an alternative lifestyle (in particular to that of his parents) starved to death in Alaska in 1992. The movie is based on the book by Jon Krakauer, published in 1996.

Apart from stunning photographic images (mainly landscapes and quirky people), the movie explores the themes wanderlust, pursuit of happiness, the search of what is important in life… and nature… Maybe you understand why this movie struck such a chord with me… and will most probably with most photographers…

In addition, Emile Hirsch is just brilliant in the main role and Eddie Vedder (of Pearl Jam) contributes an astonishing and very fitting soundtrack.

Too late, Christopher realises that ‘true happiness is found when shared with someone else…’ but at that stage he was – sadly - at the point of no return…

Sigur Ros - Heima

This is the trailer to a full of character and beautifully made DVD (“Heima”) by Icelandic band Sigur Ros. It is essentially a concert film of Sigur Ros’ concert series in their native Iceland during the summer of 2006. After an extensive world tour the band had decided to play a few unannounced and free concerts ‘at home’ (“Heima”), i.e. across Iceland, often in very small villages and often in very picturesque settings (disused churches, derelict factories and Iceland’s abundant and plentiful landscapes…).

Part devotion to the concept of ‘home’ and the native Icelandic people, part tribute to the past and erstwhile Iceland… But overall a very powerful and atmospheric combination of sound and images… which is obviously of great interest and appeal for me…

Bringing it all together… Summary assessment of my major project

[Image: Me on a chicken farm on the Crimea, Ukraine, December 2005. Thought it was a fitting photograph for a dissecting blog entry…]

I have decided to submit this blog as my critical assessment report, which is required as part of my submission for earning a master degree in photojournalism and documentary photography at LCC. In a few days’ time I will submit my major project in form of a multimedia slideshow as the final part.

In my opinion, nothing comes closer to a critical assessment of my major project than my almost day-to-day account of my progress with the project (and my studies in general) in form of this blog. What is more, the blog entries were written in ‘real time’ while I was working on my project and therefore are, in my opinion, more valuable to analyse my thought processes and my approach to the project than any ex post dissection could be. And in a sense, this blog also reflects – in an unvarnished fashion - my successes, excitement, frustrations and failures along the way without the benefit of hindsight.

This is an attempt at summarizing and bringing it all together.

I have written on the choice and rationale of the project here and here, the approach and theoretical background here, visual style and role models here, and here, and here, and in various instances on the process here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

How successful have I been in my project and approach? Magnum photographer David Hurn says in “On Being a Photographer”: “…I never claim that my photographs reveal some definitive truth. I claim that this is what I saw and felt about the subject at the time of the pictures were made. That’s all that any photographer can claim. I do not know any great photographer who would presume otherwise.” (p.42, On Being a Photographer by Bill Jay and David Hurn, LensWork Publishing, 2004).)

In a similar vein, I believe that I have documented life in these underpasses as I saw it. There are many aspects I could have focused on but left out by choice. What is more, as the project progressed, it gained more focus and, in a sense, my choices of what I did eventually photograph became narrower and narrower… A view that is often echoed by photographers undertaking long-term projects.

In particular, I did not dwell too much on the change to the underpasses environment that was conspicuously happening while I was photographing my project. I did notice it and reported and mused extensively in this blog about it. However, I did not want to make it the main focus of my project. That would have been a different project altogether.

Have there been failures and misses in this project? For sure there have been a few. I wrote about my frustrations that the door to the traders’ recreational/common rooms remained closed, despite various attempts on my side to get access. And of course there are some portraits of people I would have liked to take and whose portraits - in my opinion - would have added to the story. But for one reason or another, some people refused to be photographed. And it goes without saying that I respected that. There is the fortune teller with a glass eye who used to sit in the underpasses next to his signpost with arcane and mysterious scribbles on it waiting for customers (can you think of a visually more appealing image? No fashion photographer could have staged better what lay naturally right in front of my lens), there is the sad man who sells glue and did not want to be photographed because he considers himself a failure compared to his father who fought in the war, and there is the umbrella seller who also refused to be photographed, made unmistakably clear by her furious look in her face…And I am sure there are others who I wished I could have included in the project…

I also wish I could have spent a few more evenings with the elderly people who used to dance to accordion music at Teatralna in order to gather more material on them and simply because it was fun to watch the joy for life that emanated from these people’s faces.

And lastly, there are a few shots that I simply missed because I was not fast enough or I had chosen an angle that did not work or I just stood in the wrong place. But maybe that is ingrained in every street photography project and is simply inevitable …which is not to say that a better photographer could not have gotten these shots.

But overall I think that I have been very successful in my underpasses project… I feel I have created an atmospheric piece that draws viewers into these underpasses and which also let’s viewers spend a few virtual minutes with the various groups that inhabit that space. I also think the combination of the images with the sound from these underpasses is quite powerful (I have written before on my decision process to create a multimedia piece instead of, for example, a book).

During a recent workshop at Magnum, which I attended, Mark Power presented images from his ongoing project on Poland and the Polish. He mentioned that he does not claim to able to capture the soul and essence of the Polish culture and society any better than maybe a Polish photographer who was born and raised in Poland could do. He admitted that his perspective would inevitably remain the perspective of a foreigner peeking into a country and people with a long and colourful history that he did not share. He did claim, however, that his perspective could be an interesting outsider’s perspective, a perspective from an outsider who is oblivious to the confusing and often distracting details that someone ‘local’ might be burdened with and which essentially would impair this local’s uncluttered view on his/her own country and people.

By analogy, I do not claim that my perspective on the underpasses is necessarily the ‘right’ or only one that represents some form of approximation to what might describe the social fabric in these underpasses. Like Power in Poland, I will inevitably remain a foreigner to the Ukraine and cannot even start to claim that I have grasped the rich and diverse Ukrainian culture. However, I nevertheless hope that my project gives viewers an interesting insight into what I think is a fascinating and rich social micrososm.

Spice of Life... last night...

Back in London, and back at my favourite pub on Monday night...

Albrecht Dürer at the Städl

I visited the Albrecht Dürer exhibition at the Städl in Frankfurt today. An exhibition solely devoted to his engravings and woodcuts. I had never seen these masterpieces in such a comprehensive exhibition and with the possibility to take in the details that are in these woodcuts and engravings (most of the details are lost in reproductions in books and in online publications). Since the works - most of them are over 500 years old - are pretty sensitive to light, they cannot be exhibited that often without causing harm to them. So it was a real treat to be able to have a closer look at these works today. Some of them have become part of what established Dürer‘s fame. What is more, some of the works are also so well known that they spring to our minds immediately when we think of woodcuts and engravings generically.

Obviously Dürer’s works are cram-full with (Christian) symbolism and the medieval world outlook, so that not all symbols can be fully understood today.

What struck me most today in these engravings were the many references to the impermanence of all beings, to the evanescence of man and the very finite time we have in this world. Most of his works contain some reference to the memento mori idea, be it an in the face skull or the depiction of the devil or slightly more subtle references such as an hourglass or an illustration of Nemesis… Dürer must have felt quite strongly that he battles against time in tapping his full potential as an artist. Often this kind of symbolism is combined in his works with the idea of each individual’s responsibility to create his/her own destiny, to ‘make it happen’ as one would term it today… Carpe diem!

A poem

A very, very special friend of mine wrote this wonderful poem which somehow resonates with me:

Ich bin immer noch ein Sucher,
rastlos, schamlos, Nestverflucher
Ich bin immer noch allein und wills nicht anders haben.

Ich bin immer noch ein Flüchter,
auf wilde Freiheit, Kampf Erpichter.

Ich bin immer noch allein, die Welt, sie hat den Schaden.

Ich hab’ sie längst schon Kind und Baum
und Haus und Job und Schulden
Der Freiheitskämpfer schwitzt und brüllt im Traum
bei Tag kann ich’s nicht dulden.

(Corinna Felski, 2007)

What's up...

It was quiet on my blog for the last few days… which does not mean that I was idle this week… quite the contrary: I put the finishing touches to my multimedia piece (with all the input I had received from tutors at LCC, Magnum photographers, friends and my own judgement), reference prints needed to be produced, captioned, CD sleeves designed and printed… you get the idea, the devil is in the detail and it takes a fair amount of work to get to the final product… In addition, I was busy finalising my critical assessment report on my project, which I will post on this blog by the middle of next week… Demonstrating how cutting edge this course is, we will be the first year of photojournalism graduates at LCC who can submit their blog as the accompanying piece to our major project… A move I obviously welcome a lot… More on that next week… I was also experimenting with a Hasselblad 500 C/M lately… And it is time to think about the next year and line up projects for my post college life… That is also for a later post…

But for now the next step will be our collective final degree show, which will take place at the London College of Communication, Elephant & Castle, London SE1 6SB; the opening night will be on December 3rd from 6pm… i.e. in a mere 24 days! All welcome!

Lost in the woods...

Darrenkamp - revisited

Allerheiligen

Der abend umflattert mich mit schweigsamem flügel
Der tag ist hin mit dem heftigen wirbel
Dem wilden und unersättlichen treiben.
In schneller und planloser jagd
Stürzten sich meine gedanken in fülle
Die einen die andren verschlingend.
Ich seufzte: wann wird dieser augenblick kommen
Dass ich über dieses und jenes noch sinne?
Der abend ist eingetreten – stille.
Ich bin für mich und ungestört.
Nun bieten sich mir reichlich die stunden
Doch steh ich da magnetisch gebannt
Die augen heftend nach der lampe
Die draussen unbestimmt zurückstrahlt
Im dunklen spiegel der nacht.
Ich will nicht mehr denken.. ich kann nicht mehr:
Ich möchte nur meine knie beugen
Gar nichts denken – beinah beten.

(Stefan George, 1868 – 1933)