This week we considered photographic methodology and conceptual bodies of work. With respect to the latter, we read that concept may not always be clear during the outset of a project, but may develop organically through intuition, repetition, and introspection.
However, Burgin’s quote regarding this process was somewhat jarring: “shoot first, ask questions later”. This idiom is also associated with taking hasty, yet consequential, action without properly assessing the situation. Tragically, there are a number of recent fatal shootings in the United States where this attitude was taken quite literally in the name of self defence.
I was also challenged with the idea that still photography definitively represents a unique, singular moment in time. A photograph can do this, certainly, with Cartier-Bresson’s Derrière la Gare a Saint-Lazare embodying the decisive moment.
However, long exposure photography such as Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Theatres series condenses several moments into a single frame. With exposures that were as long the entire film, each of his images captured, on average, 170,000 movie frames. Such work explores how we can experience time differently though photography than we can in real life.
A pleasant surprise was learning that flaneur, in Beadulaire’s sense of the casual wanderer, was associated with Edgar Allen Poe’s Man of the Crowd, a short story that I was otherwise already familiar with. In Canadian French, however, the word flaneur has the negative connotation of vagrant loiterer. In jurisdictions such as Ontario, loitering where prohibited is an offence subject to fine of up to $10,000.
With respect to my own work, I have explored themes such as solitude. In doing so, I came to embrace a methodology that included a lone subject silhouetted in a vast space, presented as a black and white image with dark shadows and dramatic lighting, shot with a wide angle lens, and using the self-timer on a ground-tripod-mounted camera.
I have also experimented with expressing urban loneliness, the paradoxical feeling of being alone despite being surrounded by multitudes within a large cities: To this end, I made long exposures of crowds, shot from a low perspective with a wide angle lens, and presented in low key black and white.
Finally, I have worked to capture a sense of wonder and awe, by showing humans dwarfed by grand architecture. I use wide angles lenses, symmetric compositions, and black and white presentations for this work.
I have yet to find meaning in my practice that I did not intend at the time of capture, but am open to discussion and feedback to broaden my perspective.
There are a number of practitioners that inspired me this week: Sugimoto for his expression of time in ways that we cannot naturally see, Titarenko for his faceless abstraction of crowds, Brassai for his nocturnal urban wandering, and Andreas Gursky for his depiction of humans dwarfed by vast structures.
Bibliography
‘Andreas Gursky | Selected Works – Charles de Gaulle Airport’. 2024. [online]. Available at: https://www.andreasgursky.com/en/works/1992/charles-de-gaulle [accessed 6 Jun 2024].
‘Brassaï (Gyula Halász). Avenue de l’Observatoire. (Brouillard Sur Paris, Avenue de l’Observatoire). 1934 | MoMA’. 2024. The Museum of Modern Art [online]. Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/58860 [accessed 5 Jun 2024].
‘City of Shadows (1991-1994)’. 2024. Alexey Titarenko [online]. Available at: http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/cityofshadows [accessed 5 Jun 2024].
‘Henri Cartier-Bresson: Principles of a Practice • Magnum Photos Magnum Photos’. 2024. Magnum Photos [online]. Available at: https://www.magnumphotos.com/theory-and-practice/henri-cartier-bresson-principles-practice/ [accessed 6 Jun 2024].
‘Law Document English View’. 2014. Ontario.ca [online]. Available at: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/view [accessed 5 Jun 2024].
‘Theaters — Hiroshi Sugimoto’. 1993. Hiroshi Sugimoto [online]. Available at: https://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/new-page-7 [accessed 5 Jun 2024].
‘Topic 2: METHODS and MEANING: Presentation: Positions and Practice PHO710 23/24 Part-Time Study Block S3’. 2024. [online]. Available at: https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/1311/pages/topic-2-methods-and-meaning-presentation?module_item_id=70213 [accessed 10 Jun 2024].
List of Figures
Figure 1. Henri Cartier-Bresson.1932. Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare. Photos’. Magnum Photos [online]. Available at: https://www.magnumphotos.com/theory-and-practice/henri-cartier-bresson-principles-practice/%5Baccessed 6 Jun 2024].
Figure 2. Hiroshi Sugimoto. 2024. Cinerama Dome. Hiroshi Sugimoto [online]. Available at: https://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/new-page-7 %5Baccessed 5 Jun 2024].
Figure 3. Scott Murphy. 2024. No loitering / Interdit de flâner. Private collection: Scott Murphy.
Figure 4. Scott Murphy. 2018. Lightfall. Private collection: Scott Murphy.
Figure 5. Scott Murphy. 2097. Ghosts of Trocadéro. Private collection: Scott Murphy.
Figure 6. Scott Murphy. 2017. Sentinel. Private collection: Scott Murphy.
Figure 7. Hiroshi Sugimoto. 1978. U.A. Play House. Hiroshi Sugimoto [online]. Available at: https://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/new-page-7 [accessed 5 Jun 2024].
Figure 8. Alexey Titarenko. 1992. Crowd 1. ’City of Shadows (1991-1994)’. 2024. Alexey Titarenko [online]. Available at: http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/cityofshadows [accessed 5 Jun 2024].
Figure 9. ‘Brassaï (Gyula Halász). Avenue de l’Observatoire. (Brouillard Sur Paris, Avenue de l’Observatoire). 1934 | MoMA’. 2024. The Museum of Modern Art [online]. Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/58860 [accessed 5 Jun 2024].
Figure 10. ‘Andreas Gursky. 1993. Charles de Gaulle Airport. Andreas Gursky | Selected Works – Charles de Gaulle Airport’. 2024. [online]. Available at: https://www.andreasgursky.com/en/works/1992/charles-de-gaulle [accessed 6 Jun 2024].
Scott Murphy – Photographer 