Tuesday session started at 14:30 with Dr. Dean Kelland and Niki Gandy
Dean started off with the fact that they were going to give us a task that aligned with Alice’s work on The Photographer’s Eye.
He said that we should continue taking images in line with our choice of one of the five approaches from Szarkowki’s book but that there would be “Time” in my case, images with a Colour theme.
Eggleston Explained
We were then shown a page from William Eggleston Art Foundation website and discussed some of the images and Eggleston’s approach to photography.
Dean told us that during the time period of Eggleston’s career growth, he started using Colour Film especially. At the time many of the contemporary photographers were using B&W and sneering about colour photography. For Eggleston to make this decision was a kind of a breakthrough moment, kind of like the punk movement in music. People were simply not taking the type of photos that he was and this caused some people initially to be critical of his work.
What’s in a name?
We were also invited to note that each photograph was titled “Untitled” and reminded that if the photographer intended it have no title at all it can be left blank. The fact that Eggleston has named these images as “Untitled” tells us that it means something. To me it leaves it open to interpretation and doesn’t guide the viewer down a set path of understanding. Artsy.net have a great article on “Untitled” titles This is echoed in a famous quote by Marcel Duchamp ” a “title is an invisible colour”—and it’s a colour that, for better or worse, wiggles its way into even the most resistant artworks.”
Dean told us that Eggleston was a Democratic Photographer and thought of all of his photos as equal with no standout works. The subjects in the photos were all considered by him and hopefully the viewer as all being equal also.
Apparently the process for Eggleston was to see a scene and take a single photograph, without moving around to capture a different angle.
Some of the images that were produced have a dominant colour, as you can see red in the ceiling image, and also a lot of red in the Car Wash image. This was done intentionally and everything about the image is framed perfectly.
Comparison
Lee Friedlander was a contemporary of Eggleston at the time who shot mainly in Black and White but shot equally “mundane” images that are considered to be on a par with Eggleston’s catalogue. Images of road signs, street scenes, room interiors are commonplace in Friedlander’s work too.
Wolves Walk
With this we were given a Nikon FM3 35mm film camera for each group and asked to go and fill the 36 frames with a mixture of our Image themes.
Walking around Wolverhampton with Gin and Noah we were stopping now and again to take an image or two of whatever subject we were interested in. My colour selected in the first image was Blue so I chose to stick with blue images on the film, I remember taking images of a mannequin outside a pub, where a young woman was stood vaping while the conversation continued inside the building.
I took a picture through a window of a beauty parlour as there was blue colours in the window and in the building as well as a clock on the wall at the back of the shop.
There were a couple of other pictures too but half way through the film we noticed that there was an issue with the camera. After you wind on using the advance lever, it shouldn’t let you wind on again until you’ve pressed the shutter release. I think that if one of us had taken a photo, and then wound on correctly, the next time one of us picked it up and tried the wind on lever it moved to the next frame. I suspect that there will be a large number of frames that are unexposed when we get the film back from the processors.
Meeting the locals.
We had a couple of encounters with the people of Wolverhampton, in the church yard an excitable man was talking to us and talking about Kanye West whilst Noah was photographing a flower. I thought that I smelt alcohol but it might be that he was under the influence of something else too. Moving on from there we saw an elderly gent trying to reach through a fence with a rolled up newspaper to reach something. Gin popped over the fence and found that this guy was after a 2 pence coin which he said was a rare edition but he looked like he was what might be considered a “hoarder”. As Gin was coming out over the fence, a guy came out and asked what was going on but he was fine. After this we noticed an iPod Nano on the floor near the civic centre so Noah handed it into the reception of the University building.
Developing Skills
Upon getting back to the uni we sat in the basement and rewound the film before taking it out of the camera. A few of my coursemates played a game of Uno Flip which I’d never seen before. I’ve played Uno before but never seen the flip version which was intriguing to see. The other groups came back too and then Dean and Niki supervised the removal of the rolls from the cameras. One group hadn’t shot all of the frames so were told to keep it until Friday and get the last lot of frames used up.
Each of the used films will be taken to be processed ahead of Friday’s meeting with Alice. We may see what we all captured then I guess. For that seminar on Friday we should have the five images uploaded to padlet.
Summary
It was interesting to hear about Eggleston’s methods and to contemplate using some of his style of images whilst keeping Szarkowski’s approaches in mind. Some of my images are partially inspired or influenced by photographers such as Eggleston, I too enjoy the mundanity of the everyday.
The use of the broken film camera was a little annoying as I think we’ve missed out loads of frames, Noah said that he would not have known that it should stop winding so was glad I was there. It was interesting to help each other out with the camera too, I tried taking an image of the shattered library window and couldn’t fit it in the frame as I was too close, that’s when Gin pointed out it was a zoom lens, I simply hadn’t noticed..
I am looking forward to getting into my Full Year Project fully and start producing some work for that. I can then pass this by Niki to see of it’s what I should be doing or if there are any problems with whatever I select to look into first. I know too though that this is still early days for my coursemates so fully understand that the year will start off slowly..
Another thing I’m looking forward too is getting back into the dark rooms, both colour and black and white.. I’ve now got 42 films in all various guises, 120, 35mm, pinhole, ISOs 100,200,400 and 800, 645, 6×9 and 6×12, all waiting to use in the darkroom on the enlarger. 20 of these films have been filled since the end of my first year in May so I’ve a few images to make yet..
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