Daido Moriyama's Tokyo - a Monograph Review

Picture Taken from the book 'Tokyo' By Daido Moriyama

Daido Moriyama (2005). Tokyo. Japan: Reflex new art Gallery. p56-57.

---

The Book Tokyo by Daido moriyama is about explorations in japanese street photography and its difference from american street photography. The photographs were taken just after the second world war so it is almost a documentary piece of work about japan rebuilding society and returning to a normal way of life.

Although the book is by a japanese photographer the book follows english reading rules (left to right) as opposed to the japanese Right to left Reading rules. The opening of the book begins with 6 pages of text written about Daido moriyama by Marcel Feil. He talks about How street photography is synonymous with america and new york and how Daido wanted to explore a japanese way of street photography. He goes on to talk about the style of the images. how and where they were shot and a few facts about moriyama. although the text has a few quotes from moriyama the fact that he did not write it himself gives a bit of a less personal feel to it

The images themselves are all in monotone black and white, they fit the pages completely with no borders, because of this the book is very unique. many monographs use glossy paper and white borders to retain image quality or as a stylistic choice but the paper and printing style is different for tokyo. The paper is stiff and very cardlike but retains clear image quality (when images are clear) and is printed very well for black and white images. there are no pages that are too dark, no matter the amount of shadows or highlights in the image.

The pictures are in a quick snapshot style and were shot with a small handheld camera. there are clear images and then there are blurred action images due to the quick shot style moriyama chose. The images don't seem to follow any specific narrative or meaning but have obviously been placed in a specific order. there are single page images and many double page spreads. They are very interesting to look at as it shows the cultural differences between the eastern and western world.

Critical Review of - Tokyo Adorned, Thomas C. Card - Jake Robinson

Critical Review of, Tokyo Adorned, Thomas C. Card

Japanese street style has intrigued, inspired and captured the minds of many sub cultures for decades now pushing the boundaries in fashion, originality and creativity and it has now been captured by Card in a whole new way. Scouring the busy streets Of Tokyo Card starts by selecting individuals from theses tribe like groups to capture a series of photographs that convey the true meaning of Japanese street style.

The choice of bringing these individuals into a neutral studio environment really gave the book a totally different dynamic without this I Don’t feel that the viewer would have fully appreciated how each style truly reflects the subject’s personality. Shooting the subjects in the busy street environment would have really taken away the personal feel to this photo series.

So what began as studies of how Subjects fit into Tokyo’s various “fashion tribes” does this book really take a broader examination of style within each individual, I really feel that it does. The book has a very intimate and personal feel to it, you see for yourself the intricate designs and styles and the time it has taken for each individual to create this look, being in a studio environment really leaves no distractions and gives you a real insight into each subject on a personal level. The book resulting in a 54-subject portfolio is a true celebration of how style shapes and defines a person’s identity.

“Fashion revolves around trends, but true style comes from an understanding of yourself,”

Thomas C. Card  

Review: Jake Robinson
Book: Tokyo Adorned
Author: Thomas C. Card 

Image: http://threepluscollective.com/Tokyo-Adorned

Date:  4/15/14

Critical Review of Sally Mann's 'Immediate Family' /Introduction - Nicola Bayes

When beginning to read Sally Mann's introduction to 'Immediate Family', I was instantly hit with the idea of home and family within the first line, which seemed to be singled out from the first of ten paragraphs. After this, Mann leads with a few facts about where she grew up and describes the surroundings in beautiful detail, almost like introduction of a novel.

Throughout the ten paragraphs leading up to a collection of fifty-three black and white photographs, Mann states that she remembers 'the heat' whilst growing up in south-western Virginia. This made me reconsider whether the controversial nude images of her three children, which I slightly believed to be a shock tactic, could be completely innocent and a normality within her family. But is it morally wrong of Mann to publish nude photographs of her children for all the world to see? Did the children have their say on the matter, even in there adolescence?

I feel throughout the introduction, it gives us a strong insight of her children's childhood, from the highs to lows. But I can't help but wonder, did these children want to be photographed? One of the last photographs to be included within the sequence was of Mann's son, Emmet. He is waste-level within a lake of some-sort, with a rather chillingly serious expression on his face, with a caption of 'The Last Time Emmett Modelled Nude, 1987'

Whether you feel Mann's work is controversial or not, you cannot deny her photography and texts capture the innocence of a child in a spectacular way. 262

Critical Review of the article Ha Ha Ha: Ray's a Laugh

Jan Estep is an artist and an associate editor of New Art Examiner.  In his article he discusses and depicts the work of Richard Billingham’s ‘Rays a Laugh’, he also talks about a film called fishtank (1996), which is in a sense a filmed version of ‘Rays a Laugh’, and lastly he makes a connection between Billingham’s later work to ‘Rays a Laugh’.

Putting the emotional tonality to one side, Estep questions the artist intent and purpose of publishing such private images.  Family secrets are usually not exploited at all; never mind in this sort of manner and I concur with Estep on questioning why would you allow the privacy of your own family to be exposed?

He talks about the familiarity of photographing ones family and friends but how awkward they could come across to Billingham as well as the viewer, they are somewhere between empathy and cruelty, love and hate, which I half agree on because I think it comes down to the individual and their family background.  I believe that it’s one or the other, not in between like Estep suggests.

With Billingham moving on to urban landscape work Estep suggests, “they feel less specific, and less driven by personality” and are overshadowed by earlier work which I believe is true but however, I think this is fairly obvious because how can there be anything as personal as family and the family home?

I believe that Estep’s article is thoroughly done, and raises lots of interesting questions about the motives of the artist and the book, however I do believe that he rambled on too much in certain areas of the article.

Reference:

Estep, J. New Art Examiner, September 1999, Vol. 27 Issue 1, p28, http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=d840dd7d-f2ed-4fdb-b944-0094e335296c%40sessionmgr112&vid=1&hid=119&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aft&AN=505827343

Review of: "Spoken Image: Photography and Language - Clive Scott" by Emily Tweedie

Review of: "Spoken Image: Photography and Language - Clive Scott" 

by Emily Tweedie

   The family album us something that we all have had, but is dying out due to advances in technology. In society in this day and age keep photographs on things such as Facebook and other social medias.  
Clive Scott splits his book into separate paragraphs. 230 pages into Clive Scott's book, he starts to explain what his perception of what a family album is. He believes that the father creates the photographs for the album and the mother puts the album together, although what is not considered that the "family" has a different definition in this century. A family has a range of definitions, different structures than the original "family", such as having two mothers or two fathers as well as families being split up and the child lives with either of their one of their parents.
   Scott explains that the family album being sociably acceptable. This is a true statement as there is only "good" things in a family album; there is rare amount, if any pictures of the family being sad or unhappy. The content is only things that we would want other people to see; such as marriage, graduation, and the family progressing naturally.
   Scott also writes about the family album being in a narrative structure. The family album seems to start off with the beginning to the current day. It continues to have the strong, remember-able points of a families life. I believe this point to be true, as I don't think anyone would put the photographs in a random order.
   In conclusion, Clive Scott makes some good points in his book although with them being considered in this day and age then there could be a good argument of to whether these points are true or not.

Cover of the Book

Harvard Reference:

[Book] - Clive Scott, 1999, The Spoken Image: Photography and Language, Reaktion Books, 26/03/14, http://lib.myilibrary.com/Open.aspx?id=226525&loc=231&srch=family%20album#, WWW. 

[Image] - 26/03/14, http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781861890320, WWW.

Critical Review of the Introduction/ Essay to Elinor Carucci's Closer - Mike Bennett

The introduction to Closer by Elinor Carrucci is a kind of justification of the photographs themselves, and partly a biography of herself and of the images contained in the book. Seven paragraphs long, it, along with the book, tends to predominantly fixate on her mother and her mothers presence.
Explaining how the camera both helps her to maintain a  distance yet document a closeness, and how the process brought in her extended family, father, brother, lover, and how zooming in specific details made the the images more universal, and how she has now two different memories of these situations, the real but fading memory and the photographic version, frozen in time.

Nataly and I, Carrucci, E, Closer, 2001, Chronicle Books

One cant but help but be amused by her idea that this is a normal family with normal levels of intimacy, when it could be easily argued that her entire fame comes from the unusual amount of either closeness or familial nudity on display, all by a group of very attractive people which presumably has in no way hindered her cause either.
Despite that, the essay, co-written with Gadi Taub, is an insightful piece, clearly carefully considered,
and helping us to see her view of her own work and her view of the world. She obviously is devoted to both photography and to her family, using one to see herself through the other and vice versa.
In many ways, the text is a reflection of the imagery, allowing you to look inside her particular family politik.

Carruci, E, Closer, 2001, Chronicle Books

Book Review, Jake Robinson

New York Vertical, Horst Harmann 

Review; Jake Robinson

Horst Harmann’s, New York vertical Communicates the aesthetic and feel of New York in an ambitious new way, Encapsulating The reader in a 6 x 12 Inch  format, you see and perceive the city in a whole new way. The book contains 66 Monochrome Photographs that are entirely composed in a vertical format that really convey a different perceptual feel of the city. Each photograph is accompanied by a quote from people that know the city only too well, this is consistent throughout and compliments the photographs giving a greater dynamic to the feel and sense of what you are taking in in on each page that almost puts you in the photograph.

The use of one camera, one format and one film stock I feel was a good choice for this book I don’t think it would have flowed in such succession the way it did if had been shot differently. Upon reading the book You will truly appreciate the technical ability and time that has gone into this work and it will change your view on how these photograph have been composed and put together these are not just snapshots of New York on an expensive camera these are photographs that were strenuously though through over a five year period and composed to a standard otherwise impossible to achieve, giving you a recognizable iconic photo series of the city in a 90 degree perspective. 

Reference: 

Image; https://editionpanorama.com/typo3temp/pics/604222bd7f.jpg
Book; Horst Harmann, Published by; TeNeues
Book Review; Jake Robinson 

Review of Twiggy, A Life In Photographs By AJ Scott

                                             

 Twiggy A Life In Photographs, Chronology

 By AJ Scott

Twiggy, Dailey Express (1966)

A Life In Photographs is a documented recreation of the life of Lesley Hornby (Twiggy) The book itself reflects on past experiences that have helped Lesley grow into the super model she is now with the help of influential photographers.

Whilst reading the book and looking at the images featured it becomes clear that the book creates a timeline for us to follow just like how we would read a story. Twiggy documents her experiences with images clearly referenced with the story behind the making of the images. The beginning images look as though they were kept in a photo album which leads me to the question that conventional means of documenting life has changed from a single image on each page with the experience written on the back to now having several images to a page and text beside the images for justification. Is this because its easier to view or has our understanding of visual imagery changed? I feel that we read an image from left to write so instead of reading the images and flipping the page we are drawn in with the story promptly placed next to the image.

Twiggy A Life In Photographs is just like our old family albums it feels private yet at the same time public. It makes us follow a story of development and growth. Our photo albums act as an archive of our life created by a family member and that is whats so special about A Life In Photographs Lesley refers to several people in the book as a friend, best friend or family.

Reference Material:
Terence Pepper, Robyn Muir, Melvin Sokolsky. (18 September 2009). Chronology. In: Twiggy A Life In Photographs. London: National Portrait Gallery Publications. p112-139.

Review of Catherine Lampert's Essay "Family Of Own Gender" - Roxie Fortune

Catherine Lampert’s essay “Family of Own Gender” is an introduction to The Devil’s Playground, a consolidation of Nan Goldin's work.

Lampert claims Goldin's attitude towards her portraiture is about exchanging gifts with her subjects, such as moments, consent and print. She also states that Goldin was a merely a spectator to her generation’s lifestyle and eccentricity. Although I feel this might be the case, I cannot help but question if Goldin herself, may have been the director of some scenarios she photographed.

Lampert also claims goldin's images to be “Snapshots” and that she allows her subjects to “self define”. I feel it is the intention of Goldin to produce and capture some of these moments, which leads me believe that Goldin is defining her subjects and creating compliance so she could depend on her subjects, enabling her to produce the work she does.

If Goldin's work is vernacular and merely a voyeur to these situations, why is her photography seen as sub cultural? It’s well documented that she had close relationships with her subjects and kept their emotions close, which enabled her to create an intimacy in front of the camera. I don’t believe goldin's photography to be voyeuristic because of the clear intention towards the relationships with her subjects.

I believe Goldin’s work to be very personal and produced because of her relationships with the subjects and certainly not truly voyeuristic. It takes intelligence to see the exploitation some people may read within your imagery, and the benefits to producing this genre of work. Being highly controversial in a world of artist is one way to go down in history, and who better to produce with than your extended family.

Referencing:

Nan Goldin (2008) The Devil's Playground, London: Phaidon.

rivew on: wake up Besma tahir

Wake up

By Adam Jeppesen

“wake up”  is a casual blue note book looking book published by steidl in 2008, the book had no introduction on it what so ever, and as I went through the pictures I realized a mysterious atmosphere in his images which got me interested to know what could this notebook mean, Adam puts together a selection of contemporary pictures he took over seven years of traveling, his work is a mix of fiction and documentary.

As an introduction on the first page of the book you see a dead, fallen tree in a middle of a forest, and on the second picture you see tea cups with red drops all over the place, and opposite that picture there’s a letter that seems almost like it’s by two people that love each other, but are far an apart from each other, I have assumed from the letter that one of them is waiting at home while the other is traveling, one mention a plant dying and the other ended the letter by “I wanna hear yr voice on the phone, maybe t’mor’row”.

The letter proves the atmosphere his pictures show, a settled isolated and uncertain expectation in every image, a sense of a quiet and calm appearance, an untold story, heavy darkness and blurry lights, you can sense the loneliness in most of his pictures, it’s almost like he is searching for something unknown, it certainly gives the impression of a thoughtful narrative personal search.

I think that he way the book was is presented and the narrative sequence of the pictures the book is holding is put together carefully and took a lot of thought, the simplicity of the book cover and the picture on the introduction goes perfectly with the meaning of what the book contains. 

HR-Mljet by  Adam Jeppesen

A Book Review of Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places: The Complete Works

‘Uncommon Places: The Complete Works’ by Stephen Shore was originally published in 1982 by Aperture and has long been unavailable.  This version of the book is essentially a director’s cut, there are ninety-four additionally images on top of the original forty-nine.  Stephan Shore was one of the first artists to take colour to another level, beyond the realms of commercial based photography.  His large format colour work of the landscape has become a foundation over the past thirty years for a vital photographic tradition.

The book is essentially a documentation of Stephen Shore’s trips around North America between 1973 and 1979.  Taking the original ‘Uncommon Places’ into account and expanding upon that work to represent a more modern day America, as if to carry on this continuation of time, a passage of time.

The title of the book “Uncommon Places” is a very controversial heading because the series suggests otherwise.  Showing familiar places in America, taken using an ordinary viewpoint, but what I think Stephen Shore is trying to show is that everyday places are taken for granted and the beauty that is within them is often gone unnoticed.  His images are often bleak and isolated, there doesn’t seem to be much going on, suggesting a lack of movement in the landscape.  Nevertheless, they are also pensive and observational with the use of colour composition, which is a fascinating contrast all at the same time.

The layout is thoughtful and shows a great range of juxtaposed images on a double page, whether this would be the comparison between motels, parking lots or even just simple roads.  You can’t help but compare the images side by side and point out the differences.

To conclude I believe that ‘Uncommon Places: The Complete Works’ is a brilliant documenting piece of art that focuses precisely on North America cultures in the 70’s.  Stephen Shore is an artist I wasn’t too familiar with in the past, but the way he encapsulated the American culture and the way its presented in this book is nothing short of phenomenal, I would recommend this book to any passionate photographer.

Fifth Street and Broadway, Eureka, California, September 2, 1974, Uncommon Places: The  Complete Collection, Stephen Shore

Reference:

Stephen Shore. Uncommon Places: The Complete works. (2004) Thames & Hudson 

Review of 'Liebeslied' by Rut Bless Luxemburg. -Nicola Bayes.

Rut Bless Luxemburg is well known for her investigations and exploration of the urban landscape. She produced a set of photographs named Liebeslied, or Love song, and was first exhibited in London in 2004. Luxemburg studied photography at London College of Communication and gained her last formal education at the University of Westminster.  

The resulting works of  ‘Lovestory’ are quite lonesome yet beautiful, some being instantly recognizable and some being almost abstract. Her long exposures allow her to use light eliminating from the streetlights, which I feel creates a searching feel to her photographs. There seems to be no sequencing to the photographs as the dates are not in order, yet I feel Luxemburg may have set the sequence to what she felt works best which creates a sort of journey throughout her monograph.

Accompanying these images, Alexander Garcia Duttmann adds a page of text for each Image, calling these ‘my suicides’. They seem to be a story, which describes Luxemburg’s photography within the scene. I found this quite strange considering the viewer flows through the images like they’re on a quest to find something, making their own story along the way, only to be hit with a rather large explanation.

There is no introduction to Luxemburg’s ‘Liebeslied’ and each image is set on there own page with a large which boarder, the only text being the plate number, and the year it was taken. I feel this adds to the sensation of searching and isolation of the photographs, making them more intense and foreboding. When admiring this book, I felt as though I was taking a journey through the unknown, on a quest to find something through the portals and gateways within it, and almost feeling lost when the images end.

After reviewing Luxemburg’s ‘Liebesied’, I felt as though she had taken me on journey, which was intense, enticing and somewhat distorted. I have never come across Rut Bless Luxemburg’s work before but I feel I will have to take a look into her work more often.

 Rut Bless Luxemburg,  2001, Liebeslied, Black Dog Publishing ltd.