Subculture as Family - Web (Sally Mann)

Sally Mann - Immediate Family & Family Pictures

Mann's work mainly explores family portraits and snap shops, and develops the idea of without photographs there is no way of looking back and the past and remembering it; you just get told about it and how it happened but there is no actual proof of it. Just like the stories that your family tell about the time you fell over on holiday that time.
A camera has become very important within the family and has helped to shape what we mean when saying the term 'Family'. In America, it was seen as extremely important to have a camera within your household to capture the special moments and memories for the children when they grew up. This is exactly the same as today, as nearly every person carries a camera of sorts, it is seen as a typical piece of technology to own.
However, photographing the family, especially your own is completely different than photography others and/or the public. The are many different ways to photograph families, and they tend to be a lot more open as the photographs usually mean something to them, the person who is photographing will always have a certain was of seeing the image, just like a professional. Sally Mann took this art and decided to bring it to her own idea of family.

Candy Cigarette. 1989

Sally Mann photographed her children at a young age, but the images were not your typical image that a parent would take of their children, never mind let others look at. The photographs Mann took of her children represent some of her childhood memories and not those of her children's life. Mann explains this may be because her father had 'a keen sense of the perverse' as he photographed her nude as a little girl. This could be the main reason as to why women tend to be move favoured as family photographers, as the man of the house would be seen as wrong and not right in doing so. 

"Mann's images of children, manipulated to appear sexualized and physically abused, may say more about repressed memories of her own childhood than of her present relationship with her children. Mann says her father, a man with "a keen sense of the perverse," photographed her in the nude as a young girl. Perhaps the psychologist who attends Mann's children would do better to attend to their mother's repressed childhood traumas and ask why a woman who sexualizes photographs of her children would utter the self-denying pronouncement, "I think childhood sexuality is an oxymoron."

The New York Times, The Photography of Sally Mann, (1992). The Photography of Sally Mann. Available at (http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/25/magazine/l-the-photography-of-sally-mann-712292.html?ref=sallymann

Fig2.Mann.S. Family Pictures.


 


Fig3.Mann.S. Family Pictures.

I think that Sally Manns work tells a story of her childrens life and how events portrayed in the photographs do happen, but are never documented by regular photographers and as family snapshots. I think that Manns image have helped to shape the idea of the family subculture, as many people still focus on the good, happy memories that are shown in the family albums and seem to think that things shows in Manns images do not happen because they are not documented.

Photography: A Critical Introduction - Surveyors & Surveyed

In the early days of photography, it was deemed that an image shown through the camera was the truth. It was used in places such as Egypt, USA, Paris, the Himalayas, Syria and other places around the world to portray many different events. Events such as life on the streets, war, scientific observation, pornographic images, charity images of the poor and homeless and recording of monuments. This meant that images that had already been manipulated such as the montages of fairies, ghosts and elves appeared to confirm the supernatural ideas that were around at the time.

The 1930s was the decade where most of the ideas about documentary as social and political objectives were formed, both documentary and photojournalism were said to offer authentic and accurate images of the world as it was, however, many images that were taken during times of war and other events were tampered with, set-up and altered. This was mainly associated with documentary as it became problematic idea and a number of conventions and practises had to evolve to ensure that the images were authentic.  Such practises were those of printing a full image with a black border around it to ensure that the viewer saw the entire reality, and deeming any image that had been taken using flash as ‘illegitimate’.  This made way for codes of conduct that began to emerge on the way photographs were to be taken.

Jacob Riis directly connected photography to journalism by giving the media images to go along with the stories of poverty and overcrowding, and as these images were seen to be true, they gave the evidence needed to provide an insight into the real lives of that time.

As technology advanced, it became easier to manipulate photographs as the digital age was arriving, this meant that no image could be truly real without a witness being there from start to finish, however it can be an offense to show an untrue image in a national and global publication. Many claim that being able to create, manipulate and edit images has destroyed the claim photography once had to show the truth. We all have a subconscious within us that says that untrue images are wrong, yet at the same time we want to believe that the photographs are evidential and more ‘real’ than any other image. 

Modern Times - The 20th Century and Early Modernism

Thinking Photography
The 20th Century & Early Modernism

The early 20th century was marked by an appearance of revolutionary ideas and schools of thought. All were trying to cope with the new world which was ushered in, world which needed order and structure and new ways of understanding how things work. 

This meant that the relationship between man and machine was growing ever wider. A need for human intervention in the mechanical age was on the decline with advancements in technologies. Instrumental to its school of thought was Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity (1905), addressing physics in terms of space, time (dilation – ‘the elapsed time between two events’) and light. Einstein's special theory of relativity generalises Galileo's principle of relativity - that all uniform motion was relative, and that there is no absolute and well-defined state of rest. This theory took place of  Newtonian notions of absolute space and time, by stating that time and space are perceived differently to us in the sense that measurements of length and time depend on the motion of the viewer. It yields the equivalence of matter and energy.

Cubism was a 20th Century art movement that revolutionised European paintings and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. 

Main Influences of Cubism:

- Tribal Art

-Paul Cezanne

- Paul Gauguin

- Henri Matisse 

-Pablo Picasso

These artist were inspired by the raw power and simplicity of the primitive art of those foreign cultures that were being presented to them.

Other mediums influenced by the early 20th century were those of ballet, such as Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, (french: Le Sacre du Printemps) and is a ballet with music by the Russian composer which was first performed in 1913. 

Dada (1915 – 1922), were an anti establishment group who rejected all rational thought and ideas, thinking it was this logic that had led to WW1. It begun were in Switzerland then moving on to Berlin, Cologne, Paris and finally New York. Dadaism used many forms of art including literature, photography, film, sculpture and assemblage. In 1916, Dada established regular meetings at an underground club in Paris’s red light district. 

Romantics, Pictorialists & the photo secession

Thinking Photography

Romantics, Pictorialists & the Photo Secession

As people began to consider how photographs could evoke the same emotion on a viewer as paintings.The Pictorialist movement was a particular style of photography said to have been influenced by Impressionism and artists at the time, namely the Pre-Raphaelites. It was established in response to some debate surrounding photography being seen as a means of documenting and recording. In an attempt to elevate it to an art form photographers began to draw upon painters for inspiration.  

Pre-Raphaelites:

• A group of English painters, poets & critics.

Founders:

• William Holman Hunt
• John Everett Millais
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Joined By:

• William Rossetti
• James Collinson
• Frederic George Stephens
• Thomas Woolner

Formed the pre-Raphaelites brotherhood, who believed that the classical poses and elegant compositions of  Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the teach of art. hence the name, 'Pre-Raphaelites'.

John Everett Millais - Ophelia (1851-1852)
"There is a willow grows aslant a brook, 
    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; 
    There with fantastic garlands did she come 
    Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples 
    That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 
    But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: 
    There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds 
    Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; 
    When down her weedy trophies and herself 
    Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; 
    And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: 
    Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; 
    As one incapable of her own distress, 
    Or like a creature native and indued 
    Unto that element: but long it could not be 
    Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, 
    Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay 
    To muddy death. " - Queen Gertrude; Act IV, Scene VII

Pre-industrial (gothic)

• Provocative
• Influenced writing and photography
• Go back to portraits being less contrived.

Julia Margaret Cameron - The Echo.

The story of Echo and Narcissus is used as a warning to those who love someone that can not love them back and is often used as a basis for understanding the implications of a condition known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). It is also used in reference toBorderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Romantic Period

• Reaction to industrial period.
• Photographs, music, poetry.

Artists of the Romantic Period:

• Alexander Keighley
• Frederick Henry Evans
• Dr. Peter Henry Emerson
• Poling on the Marsh Hay
• Claude Monet

Photography begun to develop, it was no longer a wet process.and instead of photography being inspired by painters, painters were beginning to becoming inspired by photographers. As the end of the century arrived, people were more aware of self & emotions, and that the notion of speed and time is important.

Secessionism

Art Nouvea - formed in 1897 - as the start of new art, and new artists.

Artists of the Secessionism era:

• Anteni Gaudi 
• Pierre-Auguste Renior
• Edgar Degas
• Fredrick Evans
• Alfred Stieglitz
• George Eastman
• Edward Steichen

Period of Reflectiveness, artists used photography to express themselves through the medium, as new technology was beginning to come into play.

Other important artist of the era:

- Leonard Missonne (1870-1943)

- Clarence H. White (1871-1925)

- George H. Seeley (1900-1955)

Alvin Langdon Coburn - St. Pauls Cathedral at Ludgate Circus

Foreign Travellers & English Naturalists

Thinking Photography

Foreign Travellers and English Naturalists 1840-60's

The use of photography became more popular during the 1840’s. As the process of photography became more widely available, it was used as evidence and to document all manner of events. When photography was used in   operation theatres, it was used as a medium (by a medium) that could reveal spirits of the dead. Examples by John Adams Whipple in Hypnotism (1845) also recorded individuals supposedly under hypnosis. All the early indication of photography show it as a means to exploit and manipulate for individual gain.

Despite the initial recognition of the photographic art, and steps forward in printing paper allowing for better results (with the calotype), the daguerreotype and calotype methods did not achieve longevity. They were made mostly redundant past 1850 due to their long exposure times and the resulting restrictions due to capturing moving subjects and the bright daylight conditions required.

Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857) invented the wet colodion process (1851)

Positive: 

• Faster Process 
• Portable

Negative:

• Needed a darkroom
• Had to be quick
• Huge responsibility

Alice In Wonderland - Charles Dodgson aka. Lewis Carroll

Alice in wonderland / Alice takes a trip to wonderland:

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy- chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat- pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again."

 Alice in Wonderland in relation to photography:

• White Rabbit talks of time which is related to the lengthy process in which it takes photographs to be taken. 
• The hole that Alice falls down could be related to the aperture of the lens on the camera.
• Wonderland could be a reference to the inside view of a camera, as it was an abstract thing at the time. 
• The entire book talks of pictures and books. 

Artists within the 1840-60's:

Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi - carte-de-visite/calling cards.

Nadar (Gaspard Mix Tournachan)  - Photographed famous people with risque photographs.

J.F.A Claudet - Stereoscopic daguerreotype - developed an early version of 3D.

Francis Frith - First Pylon view of great temple - Wet Collodion.

Roger Fenton - Cookhouse of 5th Hussar - Documentary photography.

Gustave Le Gray - First known composite

Classical to Romantics:

• Era of Romanticsm
• Feelings/Expressions
• What it is to be human.
• Shakespearean notions.

Victorian obsession with death by Henry Peach Robinson (1830 - 1891)

Henry Robinsons image (above) was made using 7 different negatives.

Post-Mortem Photographers:
Oscar Gustav Rejlander (1817-1875)
-Believed there were two ways of life.
-Made a composite of 14 negatives.
-Used Wet Collodion process.
-Victorian principle of mortality.

Duchenne de Boulonge
Paris - the mechanism of Human Expression

-Used insane patients to recreate human expression via electrodes.
-Believed he could tell a character by the face.
-Phrenology, telling someone's character by the shape of their head.
-Counter to enlightenment

Operating Theatre - a performance
"We perform operations"

Birth Of Photography

Thinking Photography

In the beginning...

18th Century:

• The Enlightenment - Age of reason
• Idea of challenging the orthodox
• Challenging religious belief.
• End of superstition
• Replace by science/reason and evidence
• Based upon experience
• Birth of experimentation and responsibility for own knowledge.

The Enlightenment or The Age of Reason (1650 - 1800) brought an era where acceptance of the world and how it was was questioned and challenge, this meant that people were beginning to challenge the church, especially the Catholics. The Enlightenment / Age of Reason was responsible for creating a way for the art of Photography.

John Locke (1632-1704)
Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

Voltaire (1694 - 1778) 
A group of philosophical thinkers, that helped to create this Movement by starting to question what had previously accepted as 'gospel' from the church, instead of agreeing and conforming with these ideas they began to use rationality and logic to the workings of the world. Before this era, and the new thinkings of great thinkers, religion and superstition had been the explanation for all strange workings within the world.

This new idea based around the idea of rational and logical thinking led to many people beginning to experiment and a want for evidence. An English painter named Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-97) began looking at the effect of light and dark within his paintings. He also started to express the discussions and findings from the meetings know as the Lunar Society, which were a gathering of prominent philosophers, scientists and industrialists, of which he was a member.

Joseph Wright  Of Derby, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery (c.1764 - 1766)

A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, shows a lesson on the solar system, the Orrery is a device used by early lecturers on the subject to attempt to demonstrate the planets orbiting the sun. The term light was said to be a metaphor for knowledge, ideas and awareness. The term 'philosopher' is presumed to be equal to that of a 'teacher'. This would support the idea that philosophers took up this role and were major in the leaps made during the Enlightenment. Another example of Joseph Wrights scientific exploration can be seen in An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. This image was said to be recreating an experiment by Robert Boyle who is thought to have created this experiment and used a number of different animals. 

The era of Classicism is where Photography begun, its roots started in ancient Greek and Roman times encompassing, art, architecture, music and literature. Classical music began in approx. 1750. A music composition written by Joseph Hayden in 1761 called Le Matin is said to be a metaphor for The Enlightenment, as it starts slowly at first and gradually builds momentum. Other composers such as Shubert, Mozart and Beethoven  went forth to bring classical music to how it is known today.

The term Camera Obscura, comes from the Latin meaning 'dark' (obscura) 'room' (camera). This is a small hole in the wall of a dark room or tent that allowed light to pass through the wall and reflect an inverted image on a white surface on the opposing wall. This method is thought to have been used first more than a thousand years ago. The example above was built in 1544 by the Dutch scientist and mathematician, Reinerus Gemma-Frisius, who wanted to view an eclipse as it was dangerous to look firectly at the sun. The circle on the left is intended to show the sun reflecting light through a pin hole which would project the image on the wall and be a safe way to view the sun.

The early camera obscura allowed artists to capture an accurate representation of a scene by allowing them to trace the image being projected. In the beginning the images shown were inverted and upside down but perspective was maintained. 

Jan Vermeer (1632-75) is said to have used a portable camera obscura to create his painting that replicated life like scenes with all the proportions and perspective accurately. Various artists such as Canaletto began to see the benefits of the camera obscura. in their work, and actively used it.

Perspective was a phenomenon that came to light during the Renaissance period. The Enlightenment (or Age of Reason) therefore understood this concept but the camera obscurer was able to further prove the theory. The lens came to be seen as representing fact, a way of truth and could be relied upon to produce photo-like imagery. BeforeThe Enlightenment a lot of experimentation with lenses and chemicals had begun, such as the work of Johannes Lipershey (1570 -1619) had already invented the telescope in 1608 which was a big help to to the invention of the camera.

Creating the permanent image

View from the Window at LeGras 

Joseph Nicephore Niepce (1765 – 1833)
Niepce was the first person to officially fix an image with his View from the Window at LeGras. This image was of a view overlooking a courtyard framed with buildings either side at a farmhouse in France. It was fixed on a piece of metal, coated with silver nitrate, and exposed for approximately 8 hours. This image is said to be the earliest photograph in existence. Niepce is said to have been introduced to Louis Jacques Daguerre (1787 – 1851) by a Optician who Daguerre was working with to try and improve upon the clarity of the lens in the camera obscura.  Daguerre and Niepce’s began working together initially to try and reduce the exposure time required. 

In January 1839, Daguerre announced his invention. Using a piece of polished copper plate, polished to a mirror like finish, the surface was coated with iodine gas and exposed to produce a fixed image. His first image of a boulevard in France required an exposure of  at least 10 minutes which meant any moving subjects were lost. This was evidenced by the one man captured and otherwise lack of activity during exposure in this likely full street scene, made possible from the static position required while having your boots polished. 

French bought and patented the Daguerreotype, and made it free to all but the USA & GB in 1839. 

After this, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77) began to experiment with the idea of different methods to create photographs, and created the Calotype method, which was a more advanced idea of the previous. This was a paper process and created one of the first recorded negative. This image was of a Latticed Window at Laycock Abbey.

It reads: Latticed Window (with the camera obscura) August 1835When first made, the squares of glass about 200 in numbers could be counted with the help of a lens.

The term ‘Photography’ is said to have made popular by Sir Frederick William Herschel (1792–1871), meaning light (photo) and drawings (graphy). As the age of photography took hold there was a shift in portrait painters becoming portrait photographers, adopting the same principles of painting. 

• Painters into photographers.
• Used photography as documentation
• Disruption group
• Working photography/democratic subject matter
• First commercial photographers
• Commissioned for images