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Joel Meyerowitz

“Everyone has a through line, from the inside of youto the world at large and, by identifying these things, your particular preferences for things, you will make a statement about your take on the world, and people will recognise that you’ve chosen these things and you have found the right form to photograph them in. So, every step of the way you are delineating your identity, and character, and personality and this is what photography canreveal to you. This is the search for identity: your photographs, which are your selections of specific moments in the world, give you a precis identity unlike anybody else. And so, when you put your photographs together people have a chance to say: “(Gasps) Wow! You choose interesting things, or you make interesting frames, or you find interesting people, or you know how to make a landscape really come alive.” This is all about you: your search for your photographic identity, a way of bringing your personality into the game and having other people appreciate you for the originality of your mind and your eye.”

Following Joel's advice on still life photography I have set up a few more shoots:

Still Life Evaluation

Thse are some of the last shoots that I have done. What I realized from these shoots is the importance of the background. It is not enough to choose a neutral colour and try to disguise it by moving the objects as far away as possible and using as shallow a depth of field. The background is not just a ‘backdrop’ but is the final piece to the success or otherwise of the picture.

I also began to appreciate just how difficult it is to find interesting items and that a series of still life photographs need to have a coherent connection to one another to help the project gel. Moving the project forward, this is something that I will have to really try to develop. So far, I have been thinking of the project only as it relates to me and I have to now work on making sure that it may be interesting to my audience.

Final Project: The Through Line

What is my intention with the work?

My intention is communication. Photography reveals me. It is my voice.

Polaroids

I am not sure why I was drawn to photograph sheets of material with the Polaroid camera, but it was an impulse that I felt very keenly as soon as I looked through the tiny viewfinder. I have never used a Polaroid camera before, and rather than just taking the first shot with the lighter/darker button set in the middle and using it as a test shot, I pushed it over towards the dark end of the scale and placed a double layer of translucent paper over the flash to tone it down a bit. The result was a very dark image, compounded by the fact that I didn’t realise it needed to be placed in the dark whilst it developed.

Peering into the glossy square surface, however, did reveal the tiniest hint of the folds within and I used up the all bar one of the remaining frames (7) experimenting with varying amounts of light/flash. Whilst scanning the Polaroids I was able to increase expose to a degree, and the grainy only adds to the aesthetic. I would like to take more, but I only had one colour film, as it is very expensive.

Critical Reflection

I keep returning to these strange, dark, pictures of nothingness . They have some deep quality that holds me. I find that they are, to me, the embodiment of what I have been feeling: an overwhelming blanket obscuring what is all around. It is how my mind feels whenever I am faced with ask to come up with an idea. This realisation is comforting. I realise that is should become a part of the work.

Because I cannot take any more actual Polaroids, I have taken some similar images using the DSLR. These do not have the same quality, I am not sure how much the lens on the Polaroid affects the depth of field, or the perspective, but I will need to have 2 x 3 images anyway to match my still life images. There may be an opportunity in the future to use a medium format film camera.

This is a project of two part - the still life images and the internal process involved with making the work. I hope to combine both in my experimental publication.

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Still Life Photography

My Practice: Studio Space At Home

I have trying to find a suitable area in my house to set up some still-life photography. It is quite challenging as we are all at home due to the lockdown situation. There is only one area where I can leave a small set up, but it is quite dark. I usually have to take long exposures – up to 30 seconds. I want to avoid harsh shadows so try using diffused natural light when I can, and I have a large reflector to bounce some light onto the darker areas.

I have been looking for any things we have lying around. I have wanted to photograph the stones for a while: their rounded form is from their use in the cement mixer during the work to extend the cottage. They help to break up clumps of sand and cement, so gradually get worn down to an even shape. The gold bits have come of an old picture frame and have been saved in the hope that it can be repaired. In images 3, 4 and 5 I placed a small piece on top of the top stone and in pushing it further and further to the left edge, I was hoping to add a sense of tension. Similarly in 6, 7, 8 and 9 it is being crushed between them and also making the top one increasingly wobbly. The exposure time for these images was 30 second and in no 11 you can just make out my hand moving some of the pieces. I had hoped that the effect would be of a piece in the act of falling, but I should have worn black gloves.

I was pleased with image no 12: because there is no way of knowing the scale, it is possible to interpret this a some sort of classical ruin. I decided to make some further ruins:

I am using a macro lens so that I can get in really close and thereby eliminate the surroundings. This allows me to really exaggerate the shallow depth of field at the biggest aperture. And that is also why these came out so brightly.

I love the way that the patterns on the lime plaster echo the dried grapes. Also they remind me of the bobbles on the plaster frame:

Here, I have set up right next to the west-facing window, which is on the left hand side. Although there is some muslin across the window to diffuse the light, it can sometimes lead to a differential of light between the left and right side of the image, which sometimes be mitigated with the reflector, though not always. The paper was not necessary for any technical reason, but I wanted to include in as an object in its own right. It is Kawasaki Inbe Thin inkjet paper.

While I work, I endlessly create mock-up:

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J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1

“I picked this up, and held it in my hands, and felt a kind of electricity, I have to say: it was as if the thing communicated. It had a function, but it also had a presence……” Joel Meyerowitz

Re-evaluating My Project

During December, whilst my main priority was researching and writing my Dissertation, I also carried on working on portraying x-rays for 301. However, I became increasingly doubtful about how to progress. The work seemed to be becoming too contrived, fictionalized, and I was unsure of how I would be able to contextualize the making of it. Maisel’s xray project revealed real evidence of how the pieces had been constructed, or damaged and repaired, but I was fabricating the narrative for mine. I think that a lot of the pressure comes from the way it will have to be presented as a proposal – the way we will have to say: this is what I want to make, and this is why it is important. I am struggling with this and thinking of how I can perhaps adapt the project.

The second lockdown has narrowed down opportunities for moving the project away from home, so I am still looking at how I may be able to use objects/still life as a subject.

Artist Research: Through A Glass Darkly

This recent work by artist, Cornelia Parker, explores objects, in this case glass, in a very interesting and beguiling way. What we end up seeing are not the actual objects themselves, but more like shadows, albeit incomplete and sometimes broken shadows. Whilst not the same as any of Parker’s other work, this element of fracture is a recurrent feature – for example, the exploded shed – and she also reuses some of the glass negatives from a previous work, layering one image over another.

Press Release for the exhibition:

Critical Evaluation of Through A Glass Darkly

Discussing this work, Parker revealed that she thought a lot about still life artists such as Morandi, referencing the way he in which he arranged his objects. Despite the use of photogravure printing, and the collections of antique glass objects, this body of work has a contemporary feel, suggesting that there is still an audience for work anchored in the still life tradition. I think that what I have gained from researching this artist is a better understanding of the importance of process to the realisation of the final work. In a podcast interview with Katy Hessel for The Great Women Artists, Parker talks animatedly about how three-dimensional the photogravure prints look, partly because of her method of varying the density of light used during exposure, and partly the oblique angles the light was held at. When she showed the work at a printing fair, queues formed to look at it because not knowing the ‘correct’ technique of photogravure had led her through experimentation to produce something quite new.

Artist Research: Joel Meyerowitz

I have invested in a digital Masterclass given by Joel Meyerowitz. It covers key moments from his 50+ year career in photography and he talks candidly about what he is thinking about/how he prepares to react quickly whether capturing street photographs, landscapes or portraits. He describes what he looks for in terms of a good print, and shares a selection of portfolio reviews. Just a small part of it is dedicated to still life photography, but it is very thorough and insightful nonetheless.

In 2016 Meyerowitz published his book, Morandi’s Objects, comprising some 270 photographs of the objects which had already been the subjects of Morandi’s still life paintings. These paired down images, so influenced by Morandi’s work marked a departure from Meyerowitz previous books but sparked a new additional oeuvre to his already extensive canon of work: still life.

“Positioned at the artist’s well-worn table, following the lines he once drew to guide him when painting, Meyerowitz allowed Morandi’s discerning eye to sing out softly through the dimming rosy light and the mottled texture of the wallpaper which formed his backdrop.” (Anothermag.com)

Meyerowitz admits that constructingstill life photographs is something that he has adopted late on in his life, although he has previously taken them when they presentedthemselves to him, such as at the end of a social gathering:

“In some ways, that observation has led me to wanting to make still life pictures in which I manage and move the objects – and engage with them in a way that gives me a chance to recognisesomething about the individual identity of each object as well as the way they play together.”

The following is an extract from Joel Meyerowitz’s Online Masterclass, bought through www.mastersof.photography.com

What is a Still Life?

“I’m sure, every one of you has at some point, picked up something you’ve found in a junk store, or an antiques store, or at a friend’s house, or something you have found on a beach: a shell, maybe. You’ve picked it up and turned it around and,suddenly,one side of it delivers a kind of an exciting gasp, and you are surprised at what you found there. To me, that is the lesson on how you make a photograph in general– that sense of surprise – but also, the delight we take from discovering that any object, as you turn it around, might present to you a face that has all of the sweetness, the mystery, the length of time this thing has been alive, it conveys itself through this dented side, or this beautifully patinaed piece of colour around it. It has age, it has a story, it intrigues and invites you and it’s that attitude that I bring to the objects that I’ve found, and I find a way of putting them on the table in which they can be linked to each other as if they are in conversation with each other.

Photography is about the surprise and discovery in a moment. In an instant – something reveals itself to you and to you alone and by recognising it and embracing it you begin the journey into whatever you are going to do. Whether it is a portrait, a still life, a landscape, the food on your plate, whatever you come across that you feel is a revelation, stop for a second, experience it, take it in: it will fire up your brain, your creative moment will be visible to you.

And that’s how photography is made: instantaneous recognition, and then a commitment on your part to pick up your camera and makea photograph of that moment, that still life. Wherever you find yourself: that’s where you are.”

“I picked this up, and held it in my hands, and felt a kind of electricity, I have to say: it was as if the thing communicated. It had a function, but it also had a presence…… its crazy to think that some object can have ‘anima’, can come to life, can be animated… but it spoke to me in such a way that I rescued it from oblivion. I put it on my table top and I have made quite a number of pictures of this – with other objects and by itself.”

Joel delivers his Masterclass in a direct, engaging, almost hypnoticmanner.

Some of the still life composition he has made in his barn studio in Tuscany:

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Critical Theory: Objects

D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 0

Formative Presentation - Friday 4 December 2020

I have been questioning along the lines of what it is that makes us value the objects we choose to live with?

Formative Review Feedback- Louise Fago-Ruskin

In order to enhance the communication of the project, I should try to source some writing/theorists/essays on the subject of objects, belongings, histories, etc, and include some quotes within the work. Suggested reading: The Object, Anthony Hudek; The Object Reader.

- Great, really helpful, I will search this out – probably have to be online.

Experiment with how the work may be displayed. Think about where the work would fit in: which organisations/competitions would value it.

- I am still really unsure about what exactly will be the end result, but obviously it would be good to use lightboxes if I am including acetates.

Idea Developing - Part 1

I have been experimenting with how to reproduce the images.

Still looking at the idea of recreating x-rays, by changing the colour of the background to the opposite of blue in the colour spectrum, which is orange, when the image is inverted the new negative will be blue. However, ideally, I would need to experiment with different shades of orange: this brownish orange became a bit too garish. However, I am also struggling with the whole concept of being so fictionalised. Maisel’s project works because it involves truth. I am not sure about the aspect of constructing fake x-rays. It feels one-dimensional. For now, though, I have no other idea so will push ahead with experiments for how I might take the work forward.

“The photograph mirrors back not a literal but a super – or spiritual reality. In this mythology of creative sight the photograph allows us to see what we would otherwise not see. The camera become an artificial eye which, through the creative ‘lens’ of the photographer, probes the world in an act of revelation. A literal record is transformed into a metaphysical moment of fixed transcendence.” Graham Clarke, The Photograph

Statue:

Perhaps because of the face of Orpheus in David Maisel’s work, I return repeatedly to photographing this small statuette. I am drawn to the texture and patina, but I also find it fascinating how different his mood appears to be depending on that angle I view it from. It is typical of my way of working that I can become obsessed with exploring different aspects of the same thing.

I create endless mock-up, combining different images to get a sense of what goes together.

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N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0

Artist Research: David Maisel

Researching the concepts of Beauty and the Sublime, I borrowed from the College library Maisel’s book of aerial photographs, Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime. Within, searingly colourful landscapes at first delight: eddies of water in vivid hues create beguilingly beautiful abstract canvases. We learn, though, that these are not representations of our planets bourgeoning eco-systems, but poisonous scars, barren tracts of land and water, polluted – often beyond recovery – by mankind’s extraction of minerals or the large-scale removal of forests. We are torn between fascination and regret.

Having found his work interesting, I researched him further, looking through the projects included on his website: www.davidmaisel.com So much of his work involves aerial photography, but his work based in the Getty Research Institute, History’s Shadow, is on a smaller, land-based scale and was immediately intriguing to me.

In 2007, Maisel was working as the scholar-in-residence at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Using their archive, he wanted to create new work to around the theme of change. One of his recurring interests involves exploring processes that interweave the histories of art and science and for his sabbatical at the GRI he based himself in the paint conservation laboratory.

The spark for Maisel’s project, History’s Shadow, was walking into the lab one morning to find a large blueprint spread across the window.

To Maisel, this x-ray felt thrilling and alive. He was intrigued by the disconnect between the painting and the brush marks. The images reveal things that cannot be seen on the outside and presents them together. They show both the front and the back at the same time.

“I felt like Orpheus was really looking right into me, that he was making some kind of direct contact. This notion of the fluidity of time - I think he sort of emblematizes for me so much. It’s not just that he’s looking at you. It’s like he’s gazing right into you. And the thought that an art object, or even an x-ray derived from that art object, can do that to me was really kind of a revelation. It melts time away. And to me I think maybe one of the themes here is sort of what’s constant over time? Where does time kind of fall away? And how art objects get to be this kind of transmission across time. “ David Maisel NGA Interview August 24, 2015

This was the spark for him to begin researching the Institute’s archive of x-rays, of which there were many hundreds. His process involved selecting those x-rays that ‘spoke’ to him. These he then rephotographed on a light box in a darkened room, so that whatever light would be coming through the x-ray and directly exposing his film. Maisel regarded the x-rays as a template from which to work, just like a negative is a starting point to a print. He looked at cyanotypes, gold tone and daguerrotypes to select the colour swatch to work into his own prints.

Historical Research: X-rays

Since its invention, the x-ray, has captured our attention and imagination due to its appeal as both an object of scientific illumination and also for its strong visual aesthetic.

X-rays discovered in 1895, by Wilhelm Rontgen, professor of physics at Wurzburg, and radioactivity, discovered the following year by Henri Becquerel gave scientists the ability to visualise the inner world of matter. In 1896, one of Rontgen’s assistants, Ludwig Zehnder, made the first x-ray of the human body (-although it was actually made up from several different people). Also in that year, a portfolio of x-ray images was published comprising 15 simple but very beautiful images, by Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valenta.

Originals of these photo-gavure prints are valued not just for their unique place in the history of photography, but also for their visual beauty. They are held in collections in museums around the world.

This publication highlighted both the importance of this photographic process and also its “luminous, eerie beauty.” The Photobook: A History volume i, Martin Parr & Gerry Badger

Idea Exploration:

Having come across the images for History’s Shadow, I immediately tried to recreate this aesthetic with my own objects. It was about 10pm so instead of using a camera I quickly took photographs with my phone, under artificial light. Importing them into photoshop I did the barest minimum to see whether I may be able to replicate something similar. Inverting the files works to an extent, but I also changed the colour tone to bring out the blue colour visible is so many of Maisel’s images.

Appraisal:

I think the subtle blue works well on this one, although the background is too densely black. Conversely, the blue version of the glass with ceramic head is too garish. The lump of cement with the boot print is intriguing as there is no clue as to scale and the crosses look as though they could be representing a war cemetery. I picked it up from a building site together with a smaller piece with a different pattern, because they appealed to me as modern fossils. My initial feeling is that the objects can be manipulated to resemble x-rays in a superficial way simply by generating negative forms in photoshop and playing about with colour and contrast.

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O C T O B E R 2 0 2 0

Photographer’s Block

I have felt unable to photograph for most of this year. I find the process of forming work based around a framework of critical theory leads me to question my rational for taking my camera outside and invalidates the process of taking first, thinking later. I know this is probably a warped way of thinking about it – a crack in the pavement that I have slipped down – and I need to readjust and find a critical framework to resolve this issue. This should then help to move my practice on and raise my work to a higher level.

This feeling still prevailed into November. I feel that my practice is based around visual language and aesthetics: it is the visual that interests me more than anything else. I find myself very drawn towards Japanese arts culture and the value they place on elements of tradition, aesthetics, craftsmanship and design. Ceramics, textiles, photography, art, calligraphy, paper-making, woodwork, architecture and ikebana are all inspirational.

Dr James Fox’s three part series on the BBC, Art of Japanese Lifeoffered up many inciteful glimpse into the meaning behind the making of many of these ancient traditions and how they are practiced today. I find many surprising parallels between different aspects of Japanese culture, and what it is that I wish to achieve in my own work, such as they way in which ikebana translates the visual language of balance of form into a connection between creator and viewer.

Practice:

Inspired by a book, and to kick start photographing again, I took a few shots around my home on the theme of light and shadow for our group lecture.

We find beauty not in the thing itself but in

the patterns of shadows, the light and the

darkness, that one thing against another creates…

Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty

In Praise of Shadowsby Junichiro Tanizaki, is a poetic paean to traditional Japanese aesthetics – in a free-ranging style that moves from architecture to Noh theatre, and from cookery to lighting, Tanizaki teaches us to see the beauty in tarnished metal, the sombre dignity in unglazed pottery, the primacy of organic materials that bear witness to the regular touch of human hands.

A small paperback, it is as much a book of images as it is a text, made up of full-bleed examples of traditional Japanese art, architectural photographs and facsimiles of textiles and handmade papers.

Evaluation: I love light and enjoyed trying to capture the shadow of the muslin cloth hanging across the window. I have to move in close to avoid the large object hung on the wall just to the right so I am limited to how I can use this space, balance the window shadow within the frame. And the light kept fading in and out as clouds moved across. I like the arrangement of the two pictures against the dark grey and I play around with how to balance them as I set out the page and add the text. The images are banal, particularly the wild clematis, but can form a part of an investigation into balance of form: the arrangement of positive and negative space.

Equipment: Nikon D810 Nikon 50mm lens

Evaluation: I love light and enjoyed trying to capture the shadow of the muslin cloth hanging across the window. I have to move in close to avoid the large object hung on the wall just to the right so I am limited to how I can use this space, balance the window shadow within the frame. And the light kept fading in and out as clouds moved across. I like the arrangement of the two pictures against the dark grey and I play around with how to balance them as I set out the page and add the text. The images are banal, particularly the wild clematis, but can form a part of an investigation into balance of form: the arrangement of positive and negative space.

Equipment: Nikon D810 Nikon 50mm lens

I am interested in still-life photography. I am not sure how this fits in with the 301 module.

Experimentation: Colour & Macro

I am still unsure of what direction to go in. As well as form, light, texture, etc – and although my work is generally of a muted palette – I actually love colour and the way certain colours work with one another. I can contemplate the systematic investigation into colour theory by Josef Albers or imagine how it must feel to be immersed in the work of Olafur Eliasson or one of the Infinity Mirrored Rooms of Yayoi Kusama. Colour often brings me up short, but I think I probably like it most when it is used in an abstract or graphic form.

Practice:

I have borrowed a macro lens for the ERC, but I am not sure if it is working properly (having never used one before I did not know what to expect) and what I can see through the viewfinder at some focal lengths is very different to how the images come out. However, this has led to some interesting colour abstractions.

This photograph of cobweb, taken through a dirty window, is fairly typical of how I react to the tiny things I see – as in the low sun picking out these hair-breadth threads and radiating colour. The open aperture to narrow the depth of field and blur out the background (and dirty foreground) made focusing impossible as I did not have a tripod available at the time. This constant observing, and interest in even the simplest and commonest things in the natural world is expressed by Rinko Kawauchi and quoted in Weightless Light:

“Even when I walk around Shibuya (in Tokyo), I find myself running towards a little batch of flowers. I find comfort in them. I think this is a very normal sensitivity; on the contrary to what people may think, I think it is sound.”

And, of course, Kawauchi has beautifully captured these colourful, light-catching strands:

Evaluation: I have paired some of these abstract colour images up with more regular close ups of objects around my house or garden. I do not really feel that they work, as they are too random and leave me as a viewer with a confused, Why? And I have no answer to that so do not think I will take this any further within this module.

Equipment: Nikon D810 & Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG Macro – natural lighting

For my first experiments with macro, I used a piece of Lunaria, backlit against a dark background. I really enjoy photographing natural objects and love how the texture of the papery seed-head comes out. I wanted to explore the graphic quality of the images which seemed to project some sort of tactile quality.

I think that the subtly of the blue tinge in the colour version is preferrable to the harsher black and white image.

Experimental Printing

As a result of the lockdown, I have been experimenting with different papers for inkjet printing at home, including Awagami Inbe Thin Whitewashi paper. It has a beautiful rough texture, but despite its name, it is more of a cream/ivory colour than white. At 70g/m2 it is only a little thinner than ordinary printing paper, but is semi-translucent and the image glimpsed through the reverse side is very attractive. I have printed off some of my Lunaria images on this paper and I think that the simplicity and organic nature of the subject matter works very well. The paper is quite strong and can be handled easily without fear of spoiling the surface finish.

I am still unsure of what my project will be...