'Evidence': one of the most significant photobook createdThe photobook 'Evidence' was created by artists Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel in 1977. The two artists created the book by combining a collection of photographs that were found in the archives of American industrial organisations ( the photos had previously been used to document tests and technological experiments ) and put them in an order with any information or insight into what was happening in or the purpose of the photographs.
Here are some photos from the book: |
"While the notion of a document is historically tied to ideas of certitude and confirmation and is primarily used in the legal realm, this certitude has all but vanished from contemporary consciousness. The experiences of the 20th century, its large-scale enterprises of propaganda and disinformation, have created an attitude, which could be called habitual distrust as well as advanced media literacy. Documentary modes still appeal to institutional modes of power/knowledge and cite their authority, but the effect is rather a perpetual doubt; a blurred and agitated documentary uncertainty..."
-- Maria Lind and Hito Steyerl, ‘The Greenroom: Reconsidering the documentary and contemporary art’.
When given the task of taking photos of 'the grey area', it took me a while to come up with an idea for this abstract task but I had the idea to take photos of a place that doesn't have any use and simply is suck in the grey area. Near my house, there is an abandoned building that has had many uses as well as there have been many people how have tried to turn it into something else ( such as a cinema ) but it has to fall through every time and therefore the building is stuck in the grey area of neither having a purpose or being knocked down.
I thought this would be a really interesting place to take photographs of for this project due to the reasons above as well as the beauty and interesting shapes of the building. Also in these photographs I was able to capture the way the building has been affected by being in the grey area. You can see all the cracks, vandalism and lack of love that the building has seen due to no longer having a purpose.I wasn't able to go inside the building due to it being locked up, however there is a video about the building ( which you can see to the side ), which shows the inside of the building too and I think the inside emphasises it lack of use and love. |
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This photo book is based in California about the conspiracy theory about how the presidents and other important people meet and discuss issues, the group was called Bohemian Grove. The book contains images from CCTV cameras and photos Latham has taken himself of the surrounding area and images he took seeking into Bohemian Grove. The bottom of the page edges are deliberately uncut so you have to peek behind the main page to see, such as conversations between the members in the Bohemian Grove.
I have included a video that describes what the Bohemian Grove is like and the goings on that occur. |
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I took one of Jack Latham's photographs from this project and added grids and shapes to analysis how Latham positioned the photograph. As you can see the photograph is very symmetrical and Latham has intentionally lined up the centre of the church with the centre vertical and horizontal lines of the frame which is very dramatic as it demonstrates how this is the main focus of the photograph. This is further emphasised by the lines in yellow as the middle third of the frame encases the church inside, we can also see this with the red triangle. Overall this photograph has been taken in such a beautiful way due to the lighting, positioning and soft tones.
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There is in fact no such thing as an instantaneous photograph. All photographs are time exposures of shorter or longer duration, and each describes a discrete parcel of time. This time is always the present. Uniquely in the history of pictures, a photograph describes only that period of time in which it was made. Photography alludes to the past and the future only in so far as they exist in the present, the past through its surviving relics, the future through prophecy visible in the present.
-- Jon Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye
For me the noise of Time is not sad: I love bells, clocks, watches — and I recall that at first photographic implements were related to techniques of cabinetmaking and the machinery of precision: cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing.
-- Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
Julian Germain
Julian Germain met Charles Snelling in 1992. A couple years after Charles' wife had died. Germain said that it was the colourfulness of Charles car, house, plants and flowers in the front window that were “the reason I knocked on his door and we met.” This was the start of their friendship that created an 8 year long photographic documentation of Charles’s life, which ended in 2005 with the photo book of ‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’, five years after Charles had died. The title of the photo book came from a saying Charles used to say. I really liked his use of capturing the bright colours and the way the he captures simple details of Charles life but in such a beautiful way. I also like how the photos/compositions seem so natural and effortless and almost incidental but it truly captures Charles life without any filters or a false display.
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John GotoIn 1977 Lewisham Youth Centre, John Goto made a series of photographic portraits of young British African Caribbeans. It wasn't until 2013 that circumstances allowed him to first exhibit and publish the work in his book 'Lovers Rock'. He had told people that he would have the Youth Centre open (where he had photography classes) and people could come in and he would take their photos. What made me want to include this project in the Clock for Seeing project is the way these photos capture these people in a moment in time and have the focus and the beauty of what people in everyday life just look like, with no props or being told to wear anything, they are just themselves and what they looked like in that moment. I also really like beauty of these photos as I like how it is presenting black people in this beautiful way, which juxtaposes some peoples attitudes in the 1970s. And I feel like that is really impactful.
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Helen LevittHelen Levitt is a street photographer, who spent decades taking photos of everyday life in her local community of New York. She took both black and white photographs as well as colour ( but I personally like the coloured photos and I like how they each have a prominent colour that contrasts the dreys and mundane colours of a street). In her life she also used other mediums from photographs to artist books and filmmaking. Her work went early from photographs of chalk drawings, to portraits of New York subway passengers and vivid colour photography.
I have include a video of one of her exhibitions which i got some of my information from. |
I got to take one photo on the Fuji GS645S medium format camera and I feel like the photo is okay but could be improved. I feel like even though the photo is in focus I feel like the subject could be more centred. I also think there is too much space above the head so I feel like next time I will try a close composition as well as a a more centred image. I also think I would try a different background as I feel the colour of his coat sort of blends in with the surroundings and I want to subject to stand out.
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For my first attempt at making my clocks for seeing zine, I used a template for a quarter-fold zine that if folded out would make a poster. I opened this template up in InDesign and added my images in the places I felt would be the most successful. I chose one of my favourite images to be on the poster as I feel that this image is really impactful in a larger scale as the way the colours pop and juxtapose each other is really successful ( as well as the way the branches mirror the movement of the wave graffiti). After I was happy with where I had put these images in the template I then printed it out double sided on to an A3 pieces of paper to allow it to make an A3 poster but a A5 sized zine. I then trimmed the zine and folded it together. Overall I felt that i was really happy with how the zine came out and I really liked how I put the photos together (link colours).
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