'The hug' by Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin, 1968, New York City.

Howarth, S. and Alexander, M. D. 2005. Singular images;

Essay on Remarkable photographs. New York; Aperture.

Thought Nan Goldin’s career, Goldin has focused her photography around personal relationships if her friends and lovers. Goldin’s 'the hug' conveys the complexities of love in brief terms, bring thought to the subjects lives, thoughts, and feelings. As a stand-alone photograph, 'The hug' withholds extreme passion and, with the focus of the lovers wrapping around one another, a strong sense of determination. As their identities are unknown, I feel it heightens the quality of being so powerful and mysterious, especially with the inclusion of intimacy.

The couple is intertwined in each other arms, and have almost barricaded themselves away from the world in a firm embrace. Even the woman's hair seems to barricade their faces, as if for protection. The barricading if view strengthens the desire to know what they look like and who they are.

The shadow the left if the photograph adds to the feeling if combination and adds to the sense of them having their own private place. This shadow limes around their bodies and heads, which suggests a loss in identity. The present of the shadow becomes so strong it could be interpreted as a third person, adding a haunted feeling to the image.

As well as the shadow, the photograph includes the light of the flash, bringing drama to the image. This portrays how photography also puts some I the most private of encounters in the spotlight and creates a stage-like feel.

When analyzing the image, it reveals domination within the couple as one person usually slightly dominates the other. The hug itself appears too powerful to just be a friendly hug which I feel conveys a strong sense if attraction. All these elements are what makes 'the hug stand out, as it includes so many different powerful elements that, together, make an extraordinarily powerful photograph.

Summary of Mary Warner Marien's Essay on Charles Nègre's Chimney Sweep Walking.

Chimney Sweep Walking, Negre, Charles, 1851

The essay initially starts with a discussion on what were seen in 1839 as the strengths and weaknesses of photography and its limitations as an art form at the time. she mentions that Negre was a painter as well as a photographer and tells us that his interest was in making photography not just about realism and exact naturalism, but to take a more artistic and painterly approach, to experiment with shape, abstaction, pattern and tone.

She relates how under his painting tutorage under Paul Delaroche, gave Negre the confidence to try and relate painting technique to photographic technique, and how this led to him using the mediums of both formal art and photography to produce his best work. Using standard and traditional stock figures as a basis, he would use the underclass/ working class people of Paris to depict his scenes.

She then relates the historical context of using the chimney sweep in recently industrialised towns and cities, and the area in which the picture was taken, and also writes about how the technical limitations of the time may have determined a certain amount of composition, and then about the controlled ideas of the composition itself, the appaerance of movement, the shadowing of faces, the imagined or implied relationship between the sweeps themselves.

She goes onto discuss the how it was seen as a sort of documentary photograph (before that term existed) and how there was no real provision, thanks to lack of proper social outlets, for this to be seen as a sort of confirmation of social ills, though Negre himself was likely aware of it, no real meaning existed to explain this at the time.

She explains the enormous amount of technical work, from line drawings to highlights, and suggests his use of composition and technical work perhaps romanticise the image toward a nobler image. She discusses themes of western art and the ages of man, and how visual devices relate to certain time periods. The faces of the sweeps are obscured, which she suggests implies a deeper historical meaning.
The mid nineteenth century critic Frances Wey has suggested it was no longer art, and Mary Warner Marien  believes " Negre's image was thoughtfully composed by the photographer through an act of will that separated it from the mechanical rendition and moved it closer to the principles of art".

From Mary Warner Marien's Essay on Charles Nègre's Chimney Sweep Walking taken from Howarth, S and Alexander, M. D. 2005. Singular images: Essay on Remarkable Photographs. New York: Aperture

Summery Of The Aegean Sea, Pillion 1990 - Horoshi Sugimoto Essay By Dominic Willsdon ( Kirsty Brown)

Within this Short piece of text I will be talking about Dominic Willsdon’s Short essay on the Aegean Sea, Pillion 1990 a photograph taken by Hiroshi Sugimoto a Japanese photographer. The photograph was originally taken from a large set of other seascapes images; Hiroshi has been creating this set of images since 1980 the shots were taken from multiple places around the globe. The set of Images have all been technically shot in the same way, with the same thought process. Dominic tells us that “sugimoto has travelled to different places to produce essentially  the same image but in a number of variations’’

Aegean Sea, Pillion 1990

This one particular image is shot in monochrome and the horizon line splits the image in half equally between the sea and the sky but somehow made them merge together, it’s like there is so beginning and end. The shot has no other distractions in the shot. For example there are no people in the background, no weather affecting the image it is completely clear as it only shows the sea and the sky.

He  gets a different feel from viewing the image, absorbing what it has to offer, as people may think it just a photograph of the sea and sky but if you look into it a bit closer you can tell that the photo has a certain amount of “discipline” to create an image with such texture to it,  as the sea and sky has a high contrast between them and the sea also holds a fairly amount of grain and the focal length is a bit blurred as the mist falls within the sky. 

References:  

Howarth, S and Alexander, M. D. 2005

Singular images: Essay on Remarkable Photographs. New York: Aperture 

Aegean Sea, Pillion 1990 - Horoshi Sugimoto Essay By Dominic Willsdon 

Summary of Nigel warburton

A SNICKET, HALIFAX



To begin, This piece of text takes a look Brandt’s photograph (A Snicket, Halifax) it looks at the different perspectives on which his photography of the industrial town is perceived. Firstly Nigel talks about how Brandt’s work can be perceived to be a “simple and bold” portrayal of the town or if you were to look at it in differently it could be perceived as a “dreamscape” however Nigel seems to feel its somewhere in between the two that Brandt’s work lies.

Nigel goes in to a small detail of how Brandt worked as Man Rays assistant in the early 1930’s. Informing us he was never officially part of the surrealist movement but that seemed to have adopted an attitude towards the surrealist approach and this reflected in his work.

Looking further into the narrative I have picked up on another key point raised about this photograph and his work as a whole. Which is perspective with an outcome to “intensify the atmosphere of the photograph”, this goes back to point raised about the documentary or dreamscape approach. Nigel explains how his photography was more than “merely formal” It was shot in a certain way to express something more than just documentation of this industrial town. Using a different perspective rather than shooting it at Eye level to create something totally new.

The Final point I want to go over in this narrative is how Brandt was analysed by Wilhelm Stekel, A pupil of Sigmund Freud. It goes into detail of how our subconscious plays a part in our photography, how it lies in our work without us objectively placing it in there.  I feel this Fits well into the narrative and gives the reader a better understanding of how surrealist work does not “strive to depict the content of dreams, Rather they freely move about in the borderlands between the internal and external worlds”. Being able to Subconsciously add into a photograph what they see and feel. 

Bill Brandt, A Snicket, Halifax 1937

original Text Written by:  Nigel Warburton

Taken From the Following book: Howarth, S and Alexander, M. D. 2005 Singular Images:

Essay on Remarkable Photographs. New York Aperture

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller Introduces you to his take on British pop culture and takes a look back on the industrial revolution in Britain, as you go Round the exhibition It’s up to you to connect the dots and see whether you feel how he does about how the industrial revolution and how it  has influenced us.

The First piece I would like to talk about in the exhibition that I feel really stood out was the video installation on the wrestler Adrian Street.

I feel this was the best piece that gives a fine example of how the impact of the industrial revolution had changed his life. He goes into detail of what life was like working in the mines and how bad it really was. I think this and his poor relationship with his father pushed him into doing something that He may not have done otherwise. He really did not want to come back empty handed from leaving the family business behind and he didn’t. He came back in a pair of tight shiny pants, a wig and I quote “A big fuck you” to his father After winning a world title. He has won countless titles and awards since and had great success throughout his career in Professional wrestling. I feel that Jeremy Deller made this Fit well in the exhibition and I took more away from this  than any of the other pieces.

            Adrian Street and his father, 1973 (photo: Dennis Hutchinson) ©Dennis Hutchinson 

 Upon saying that after going round the exhibition the second Piece I want to talk about is, the Shaun Ryder Family tree. again being able to look back to earlier family occupations it was clear to see again heavy industrial jobs down the line, there seems to be a trend that I have picked up on within this exhibition. It seems the children of these family’s at some point start breaking away from the hard, dirty traditional jobs and look for something different and seems to be those who have had it the worst seem persevere, taking a different path in life  and coming out on top. contributing to the British popular culture, Maybe if Manchester was not an industrial city the Happy Monday's might not have been so good. 

Diane Arbus - A young Brooklyn family going for a Sunday outing, N.Y.C. (1966) By Liz Jobey

Diane Arbus - A Young Brooklyn Family Going For a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C. (1966) By Liz Jobey

A Young Brooklyn Family going for a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C. 1966, Diane Arbus

Liz Jobey starts her essay by talking about Diane Arbus’s photographs and how they raise a multitude of questions, in particularly she comments on this image of a young Brooklyn family and how fictions are always made on photographs.  She goes on to depict the image, giving her own in depth questions revolving around the family and a detailed description of the family in terms of their expression shown through the image which is summed up well by Diane Arbus herself “They were undeniably close in a painful sort of way”.

This quote delves deeper into the relationship of this couple and Jobey goes on further by finding out about the story of this family and each individual within it.  This quotation came from the letter Arbus wrote to Crookson, who was the magazine editor for the Sunday times.  He modified Arbus’s comments, which shifted the feeling of pain from the couple to the photographer, which Arbus wasn’t happy about.

The text carries on by describing Arbus’s rise in fame; her photographs were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, alongside two of her contemporaries, Lee Friedlander and Winogrand.  Jobey then talks about what made the photographs disturbing, the style in which she engaged with her subjects.  The appearance and attitude of people would draw her to them because she saw something that people wouldn’t necessarily see if she didn’t photograph them.

Her daughters were left to look after her estate and kept an eye on the release of her images after her suicide in 1971.  There was a chronological aspect to her work, as she took another shot of the Brooklyn family later on in her career.

Arbus was a liberal American, questioning “all-American” values and she was somebody who was for the freaks, people who were different from society, she hailed them because they held their own away from the mainstream and showed a true sense of American.

Reference:

Howarth, S. and Alexander, M.  D.  2005.
Singular images: Essays on Remarkable Photographs.
New York: Aperture
A Young Brooklyn Family Going For a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C. (1966) By Liz Jobey

Summary of Nigel Warburtons essay on the image A snicket by Bill brandt

The essay I have been given to summarize is by Nigel Warburton on the image ‘A Snicket’ by Bill Brand. To start off Warburton talks about how the image has 2 purposes or aims, one being documentation of industrial towns and the other being how Brandt creates a ‘dreamscape’ a theme that is often brought up within the essay. Warburton discusses how Brandt’s work never really fit perfectly in to one category or another on multiple occasions and argues that while he was never really recognized as a pure surrealist he had always worked well in the grey area between the real and the dream world.

  talking more about the image itself instead of the artist Warburton talks about how there are multiple different prints of this image and how the one in particular that is being discussed is physically darker and more dramatic than other prints. This was due to the fact that Brandt was very prolific in dark room editing and would often re edit some of his work. This image was darkened dramatically apparently for dramatic effect and Warburton talks about how Brandt strips the image down to bare detail and makes it more geometric and mysterious. Brandt justifies his re editing and re interpretations of his work by saying ‘’photography is not a sport. I believe there are no rules in photography. A photographer is allowed to do anything, anything in order to improve his picture’’

 in the last section of the essay Warburton states a few points others have raised about the technicalities and symbolism of the image and discusses how that using a path as a metaphor is also crucial in 2 other pieces of Brandt’s work and talks a little more about his technical skills with geometry and reductionism before ending the essay with a statement about how Brandt’s work can be justified by the word ‘’surrealist’’ and a small section about the grey between dreams and reality that surrealists explore.

A Snicket Bill Brandt 1937

Summary of Thomas Struth: San Zaccaria, Venice 1995 by Sophie Howarth

Summary of Thomas Struth: San Zaccaria, Venice 1995 by Sophie Howarth

Thomas Struth: San Zanccaria, Venice 1995

   Sophie Howarth starts off her essay by writing about the people in the image: telling us what she believes they are doing there and possibly what they are thinking. Her first comment is about the couple, who are tourists at this magnificent place of worship. She instantly explains how the viewer can tell they are tourists and not people of the community. In the next few paragraphs, she writes about the people who are sat and gives us information about these people. 

   Howarth then goes on to give more information about the photographer himself. Giving us information about what Struth had intended to do on his trip. She also speaks about the camera Struth used, the size of the negatives and roughly how many negatives he would of produced during his shoot. 

She then goes on to give us her belief of why Struth choose the original negative rather than any other of the 60 or so negatives that had been produced as well as telling us how he took the photograph and why he took it with that certain technique.

   Howarth goes on to explain how Struth became inspired to start this project, along with it two quotes by Struth explaining himself. 

   She then speaks about how he photographed the tourists, as he "never mocked individuals". She also explained how Struth allowed the visitors a "level of privacy" by not showing their faces. 

   In her next paragraph, she is pondering the future of Struth photograph: how it will be seen and how it will be considered. 

   Howarth adds into the essay a poem by Phillip Larkin about a cyclist being confused of why he stopped outside of a church even though he was a non-believer himself. Which nicely concluded Howarths last paragraph about the place of worship bringing people who are believers and non-believes together for their "common hunger for something mysterious". 

Martin Parr – Jubilee Street Party, England, Yorkshire – 1977

Martin Parr – Jubilee Street Party, England, Yorkshire – 1977

Adrian Street and his Farther, 1973.
Dennis Hutchinson

Val Williams wrote an essay on Martin Parr’s Jubilee Street Party. In her essay she talks about Martin Parr and his work style and a small bit on how his style has changed. She also talks about how the location of the Jubilee Party was located in a different place than you would think also how a piece of food in the image pulls the whole image together.

Martin Parr - Jubilee Street Party, England, Yorkshire, 1977

Val Williams goes into detail about the image. She talks about where and when the image was taken, you see this from where she says ‘Made in west Yorkshire in the mid-to-late 1970s’ Here she gives a location and a rough date as to when the picture was taken. She has also mentioned the collection of Martin Parr’s that this image belongs to ‘the Bad Weather series’.

Williams also talks a lot about Martin Parr himself and how since this picture, Jubilee Street Party, was taken Parr’s style changed considerably ‘to reject black and white photography in favour of colour’ Here she mentions how since the image and the Bad Weather series Martin Parr decided to move away from black and white photography and started to experiment with using colour photography instead, Val Williams does not mention why he decided to make this change in his work style though.

I the end of the essay Williams discusses how the cake in the centre of the table pulled the whole image together and how without the cake the image would be ‘lacked a centre’ The cake was the main viewpoint of the whole scene, it stands out higher than the other lots of food and it creates a path leading to the mill chimneys which then leads to the clear sky’s as it towers over the surrounding buildings.