Positions and Practice PH0701 17/18 Study Block S1

Introducing the Global Image

Week 1 Presentation 2

 Windows On the World

 

NOTES

Presenter Transcript

Although it was perhaps a simple matter of technical necessity to direct the camera towards a bright scene, it is nevertheless an interesting coincidence that three of the earliest photographs ever made incorporated windows. It is almost as if these photographs were prophecies for how the medium would be used and how it would be commonly described.

My notes

The three early photographs referred to above, could well have incorporated windows, not only because it would have been a good light source, but perhaps (in my opinion) because recorded images at the time were taken indoors. Having tired of making images of what/who would be inside at the time, the image maker’s natural inquisitive nature would have lead him to a window as the only other possible source of interest – to capture the world outside.

Presenter Transcript

The metaphor of the architectural window as an aperture between an internal or enclosed space and the infinite world beyond is a powerful and recurring motif that is incorporated by practitioners and discussed by writers and critics alike. It describes the universal act of photographing a subject whereby the viewfinder is always overlaid onto something. Photography always frames, always crops into a larger whole.

My notes

That’s an interesting metaphor. ‘A world beyond the window’ is a hugely strong statement. So much so, that it may well be the title of a film or a book – it’s powerful yet mysterious. It’s title allowing infinite possibilities for capturing whatever is happening (or has been made to happen) through a single or the multiple apertures of a window.

Presenter Transcript

Intrinsic to this analogy is the possibility of a two-way exchange. Photography, the window, offers us views of the world outside our own but it also allows the world a glimpse of the photographer and their own unique vision. It is simultaneously a window and mirror.

My notes

We would assume a photographer will indeed be visible to the subject as he is photographing them. Even if a large group, the photographer will always be visible at some point. However, the ‘world’ may well not even see the photographer. He may be distant from the subject/s of interest or photographing a landscape where he will never be physically identified.

On the other hand, the ‘world’ could also get a reflection of the photographer’s heart and soul. His passion. His commitment. His politics. His humour.

Presenter Transcript

This idea lay behind John Zakowski seminal exhibition, Mirrors and Windows, American Photography Since 1960, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1978. As stated in the press release of that exhibition, “in metaphorical terms the photograph is seen as either a mirror, a romantic expression of the photographer’s sensibility as it projects itself onto the things and sights of this world, or as a window through which the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality”.

My notes

I would agree with both statements as written in the Pres Release at the MOMA. I would perhaps add another consideration for deliberation, contemplation and meaningful discussion: That of voyeurism.

Presenter Transcript

This mediating quality of the photographic window, its particular way of expressing presence and reality, was heavily criticised in Susan Sonntag’s first essay of On Photography in Plato’s Cave. In Plato’s philosophical model a group of people who have been imprisoned since childhood have an understanding of reality formed only by the shadows that are cast on the cave walls by the things outside, beyond the cave opening.

My Notes

I note with interest Susan Sonntag’s essay relating to Plato’s philosophical model with a tinge a sadness at the realization of such a world. I can hardly image their speechlessness at even being given a mere glimpse of the outside world. Of colour. Of movement. Of smell and of texture and touch.

Presenter transcript

Sonntag used Plato’s allegory to encompass her critiques of how photography was made and consumed and its limitations and shortcomings as a means to educate and communicate. Many of Sonntag’s arguments were formed around and against the photograph as an object, as something that was synonymous with collecting and with possession and ownership.

My Notes

In addition to my previous notes above – and I can see Susan Sonntag’s arguments against the photograph as an object – I would also consider the photograph can be used as a piece of information. Like a single page reference book.

Presenter transcript

As we have seen, with early daguerreotype portraiture the photograph as a particular commodity was an important aspect of its early history, an interesting point to consider today when photographic prints have become a scarcity relative to previous generations. Right from the outset the photograph diversified as a commodity and importantly became particularly synonymous with distant places. In addition to the portrait one of the core activities of photographers of the 19th century was in making and selling topographic views that were reproduced and sold as postcards and stereo cards which, when viewed with a stereoscope, a ubiquitous object in many homes by the end of the 19th century, produced a three-dimensional effect.

My Notes

Today we do not use a printed hard copy of an image (a photograph) as something to behold in many households. In fact I would go so far as to say this now applies worldwide. Interestingly enough, and not satisfied with a world of spectacular digital images comprising of infinite detail, we also now have a thirst of viewing such digitally captured imagery in 3D.

Presenter transcript

In Europe, photographic publishers specialising in landscape and topographic imagery were established by the 1850s and in America by the 1860s. As they are today, principally photographs were sold in the vicinity of where they were made, consumed like souvenirs and mementoes.

My Notes

Such ‘souvenirs’ were popular in the UK too. Especially at seaside resorts and were sold to holidaymakers and day trippers alike looking to bring something home to share with other family members and friends. The Victorians were not only masters of pier building, but also gave the British public an overall experience and souvenir that was not always available in major cities.

Presenter transcript

However, by the early 1870s, publishers began selling each other’s photographs and so circulating images of places on a large scale. This meant that photographs of distant parts of the country were accessible and growing in presence, allowing, for instance, east coast Americans to see the splendour of Yosemite thousands of miles away in 3-D. To provide a sense of the scale of this industry, the largest such publisher, the Kilburn brothers, based in New Hampshire, who operated between 1865 and 1909, produced 3,000 mounted cards per day.

My Notes

Confirming my opinion as for the need for information (by way of a photographic record – a photograph), was the Kilburn Brothers family business producing hundreds of thousands of images per year, sending the across America and Canada to share images of other places and people. Benjamin Kilburn became a photojournalist and had work published that made it’s way around the world. He was also credited with the invention of the Kilburn Gun Camera.

Presenter transcript

Topographic images that incorporated rural landscapes, towns, cities and architecture, were by no means the only subjects that circulated and we could certainly discuss the importance of other popular subject matter of early postcards and stereo cards and their purposes. Titillation, amusement, and racial stereotyping were equally prominent. However, the investment in and production of these kinds of images loses significance compared to the scale of topographic imagery.

My Notes

Topographic images became so popular because the public found them to be a critical and versatile tool for viewing the Nation’s landscape. Making them also considered valuable educational resources.

Presenter transcript

You will perhaps have noticed the repeated use of the word “topographic” rather than “landscape”. That is to deliberately avoid overly associating such a broad and diverse group of images with such a distinct genre with certain discourses around its aesthetics.

My Notes

Above transcript paragraph contents noted.

Presenter transcript

As has been discussed by critics and historians, many of these stereoscopic views appear to have an extension of traditional values of the sublime and picturesque from pictorial representation but equally a humbler description of place and its physical features seem to be the objective of many, if not the majority of such views.

My Notes

At the beginning of such images flooding into the mass markets and appealing to anyone who could afford to buy them, publishers would distribute whatever they wanted. Things would eventually change with the public demanding to see images that they wanted to see as opposed images that publishers wanted them to see. More images local to them, their country, their politicians and presidents, with the Spanish Civil War and the Boer War being two examples of news photography and imaging by Benjamin Kilburn.

Presenter transcript

As well as coming from independent photographers, sometimes subcontracted by larger publishers, many of these photographs came from larger portfolios by better known photographers that documented major infrastructure projects, such as Andrew Joseph Russell and Carlton Watkins, who recorded the construction of the Trans-Continental Railroad following the American Civil War.

My Notes

Benjamin Kilburn also photographed the inauguration of president Grover Cleveland along with the floods in Pennsylvania. News photography came to the masses.

Presenter transcript

As well as Americans, European photographers also produced stereo cards of the continent, such as William England for the London Stereoscopic Company, who published the first commercially available stereo cards of America in Europe in 1859.

My Notes

The London Stereoscope Company was probably opened in Oxford Street in 1854 and by 1856 had changed it’s name to the London Stereoscopic Company until it changed it’s name again to the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company. They were hugely successful at selling images and image viewers to the public before finally closing in 1922. Along the way, they had amassed a network worldwide of photographers and staff offices selling and licensing images, paper, equipment and anything else related to viewing and producing images.

Presenter transcript

As well as stereo cards, prints and books, or more like albums, become increasingly popular and began depicting exotic corners of the European colonies and beyond. Frances Frith, Britain’s best known photographer of the period, who began practicing in the 1850s, published numerous such books in the 1860s, including an edition of the Old and New Testaments illustrated with his topographical prints.

My Notes

Popularity of commercially printed images in books and newspapers, paved the way for good photographers to make a name for themselves. Francis Firth was one such photographer and businessman. He travelled to far away places and visited cultures that most of the public have never seen or knew existed other than for a place on a map. He travelled (with bulky and heavy equipment) to Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Sinai, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. To this day, there is a Francis Firth Collection website archiving thousands of old photographs. An interesting website at www.francisfirth.com

Presenter transcript

John Thompson, better known for his images depicting poverty in London, also produced books of the Middle East as well as the Far East, as did the French photographers Maxim de Comp and August Salzmann. These publications, and particularly the phenomenon of the postcard and the stereoscope, something which attempted to provide a truly dynamic individual viewing experience for its users, demonstrate the extent of the appetite that existed for information about places that viewers were unlikely to ever see for themselves.

My Notes

As per my notes above, Francis Firth realized this and made several millions of pounds taking and supplying photographs worldwide.

Presenter transcript

The role of photography here, though, has not been without its fierce critics, not least because such topographic documentation, particularly of places and cultures very different to that of the viewer, tended to go hand in hand with other kinds of imagery, the most extreme and controversial of which being the anthropological or ethnographic portrait.

My Notes

Such critics still exist over 150 years on. Jungle tribes and others that do not have contact with the outside world have been taken advantage of because they know no meaning of commercialisation or the consequences of exploitation in or to their worlds. Photography – the taking of a single image of someone or something – has evolved into moving images that have the power to bring the world right into the palm of our hands.

Presenter transcript

What do you make of the mirror and window analogy? As a practitioner do you identify more closely with one or the other?

Answer to Questions above

The mirror and window analogy is a retrospective view of how images were designed and created. I don’t think that these images were taken with the sole intention of either making us consider a window analogy or the window analogy. This is something that has developed and grown over time and exploration of images to form artistic language that suits the analogy.

As a practitioner, if I had to, I can identify more closely with the analogy of photography being a mirror. A reflection of what the photographer wants the viewer to see about him or her self. A statement of the photographer’s eye, his mind and his creative ability.

 

End of Presenter Transcript