Review of Stephen Hughes Book: Photographs

 

The Front Cover of Stephen Hughes: Photographs



I found Stephen Hughes book to be quite interesting, I would categorise Stephen Hughes book as colour landscapes. The purpose of the book is to ‘Suggest a particular notion of the social landscape in today’s Europe’. I would class his work as documentary work as the photographer is traveling throughout Europe photographing changes in some landscapes due to the social environment. I liked the introduction to the book, I found it very successful and useful it gave me plenty of information as to what the book is truly about and it also tells you a story that relates to the images that are shown in the book. The book is laid out in a smart organised way. It starts off with one off Stephen Hughes’ images and then goes into the introduction. In the first few pages he has decided to have the title pages in a pastel colour with bold white text. After the introduction the images are laid out only on the right hand side of the book only and there is only one image per page and all of his images are in colour. At the last page of the book there is one page with small versions of each image printed on it and with each picture there is the name of the image and a date from when the picture was taken. Stephen Hughes images show different things. In some country’s you see a struggle in the environment but in others he shows the wealth. All of his images seem de-saturated and remote, he is quite distant from his subjects. His earlier images is where he shows the more worn down areas and the struggle but as you go through you see the wealth where there is much more colour involved in them.

Beachy Head, England 1996

Port Talbot, Wales 1998

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.

Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller is a well-known English conceptual artist who was born in 1966. He was educated at Dulwich College and in 1985 – 1988 he was educated at the Courtauld Institute of Art (both in London) Deller also accomplished his MA in Art History at the University of Sussex in 1992.

Deller has been interested in art and culture since his childhood as he used to visit museums quite often. In 1986 Jeremy Deller met Andy Warhol and then spent two weeks at The Factory in New York. It was in the early 1990’s when he began making artworks, he would show them outside conventional galleries. In 1993 he held his own gallery at his parent’s house (as they were on holiday) and he titled it Open Bedroom. Quite a bit of Deller’s work is collaborative. His work also has a strong political aspect in the subjects that dealt with and devaluation of artistic ego through the participation of other people in the creative process.

Adrian Street and his Farther, 1973.
Dennis Hutchinson

In 2001 Jeremy Deller staged the Battle of Orgreave, 1000 people got involved in the public re-enactment in this. In 2006 he became part of a touring exhibit of contemporary British folk art, in collaboration with Alan Kane. 

This is an image of Adrian Street and his farther, 1973 that Jeremy Deller used in his recent exhibition ‘All That Is Sold Melts Into Air’. This image represents the connection between the Industrial Revolution and the start of British rock music. Adrian Street was a professional wrestler and his father was a coalminer in this image by Dennis Hutchinson. I like this image as I find it unusual and I think it shows the connection between industrial and rock rather well. I also like the looks on the miner faces as they look confused and slightly discussed yet Adrian Steel looks proud to be who he is.