Unit 2 Intimate portraiture project

 

         The Intimate Portraiture project

Task 1 (AC 1.1 and 1.2)

Research the works of 3 photographers in preparation of the work on the project

Jo Spence

I first came across Jo Spence in my photography therapy Changing Perspectives with Jon Rees https://www.iamjonrees.com/. Jo Spence was a charismatic personality and an early pioneer of photography therapy. She has captured her fight with breast cancer. She was a middle-aged woman and no beauty but her pictures were very powerful.

Jo Spence was a feminist artist and activist who explored themes of gender, class, and self-identity. After Spence was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, she made several series of self-portraits documenting her battle with the disease until her death from leukaemia a decade later. The photographs expressed her physical and emotional state. Her doctor and collaborator Tim Sheard explained, ‘Spence is representing the honest emotions felt living in an unruly body that cannot conform to the pressures of female perfection expected and idealised in Western society’. With Rosy Martin, Spence developed a co-counselling practice they called 'phototherapy', which aims to resolve emotional issues, anxieties, or past traumatic experiences through role play and photographic portraiture.

The images of her experience with cancer were a different way of looking at illness; it was a different way of presenting the female body and the female subject. Laid out with unflinching detail, Jo's eyes meet the viewer with a defiant direct gaze, refusing to give in, refusing to be objectified, refusing to go quietly.

She was also proposing a different way of making art. One that placed personal experience at the centre of the work. One where it was perfectly valid for art making to be a space for making sense of one’s experience, history and emotional trauma. Jo’s work made visible a female experience that was not visible at the time and it celebrated the personal as a political and socio-economic construct. Subjects as domesticity and mother-daughter relationship were also presented in her work.

What was clear in her work was a commitment to using the camera to explore highly personal subject matter and a direct, confrontational disregard to be polite about it. In the piece above, ‘Middle Class Values Make Me Sick’ she writes: “If I don’t need to please my parents any more, why the fuck should I worry about pleasing you middle class bastards?” Why indeed. 

Jo Spence (1986) Putting Myself in the Picture, London: Camden Press.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=p-4s93Oj9mM&feature=share

Mary Ellen Mark

My other favourite portraiture influencer is Mary Ellen Mark with her documentary portraits of ‘unfamous’ people …

In 1995, Mary Ellen was introduced to the 20x24 Polaroid camera. She has worked with it often since then—both for editorial and commercial assignments and for her own personal projects. There are only a few working cameras in the world, so she feels fortunate to have one nearby. One of the challenges of working with the camera is that there is no “post-production” so everything has to be perfect when the shutter releases.

Mary Ellen Mark achieved worldwide visibility through her numerous books, exhibitions and editorial magazine work. She published photo-essays and portraits in such publications as LIFE, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. For over five decades, she traveled extensively to make pictures that reflect a high degree of humanism. She is recognized as one of our most respected and influential photographers. Her images of our world's diverse cultures have become landmarks in the field of documentary photography. Her portrayals of Mother Teresa, Indian circuses, and brothels in Bombay were the product of many years of work in India. A photo essay on runaway children in Seattle became the basis of the academy award nominated film STREETWISE, directed and photographed by her husband, Martin Bell.

When photographer Mary Ellen Mark died in 2015, she left behind a wealth of images from her extensive career as a photojournalist. Mark dedicated much of her photography to documenting people on the margins, whose stories might not otherwise be told; over extended periods of time with her subjects, she approached her work with empathy and humility. Some of her most celebrated and recognised series include Streetwise, 1983, an assignment for Life magazine on street kids in Seattle, America’s “most liveable city”; Ward 81, a 1976 look inside the maximum security section of Salem’s Oregan State Hospital; and Falkland Road, 1978, which saw Mark photograph prostitutes and sex workers in Bombay. 

Photograph from Ward 81, a women's security ward of the Oregon State Mental Institution, the only locked ward for women in the state. 

What was different about Mary - she would visit families through their lives. She even wanted to adopt a child prostitute who was her project subject.

         MARY ALLEN'S TOP QUOTES:

“I just think it’s important to be direct and honest with people about why you’re photographing them and what you’re doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.”

“The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life.”

“What I’m trying to do is make photographs that are universally understood ... that cross cultural lines. I want my photographs to be about the basic emotions and feelings that we all experience.”

“I’m just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven’t had the best breaks in society. I’m always on their side. I find them more human, maybe. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence.”

“I think photography is closest to writing, not painting. It’s closest to writing because you are using this machine to convey an idea. The image shouldn’t need a caption; it should already convey an idea.”

“Every photograph is the photographer’s opinion about something. It’s how they feel about something: what they think is horrible, tragic, funny.”

“I don’t think you’re ever an objective observer. By making a frame you’re being selective, then you edit the pictures you want published and you’re being selective again. You develop a point of view that you want to express. You try to go into a situation with an open mind, but then you form an opinion and you express it in your photographs. It is very important for a photographer to have a point of view – that contributes to a great photograph.”

“Everyone asks me how I get my subjects to open up to me. There’s no formula to it. It’s just a matter of who you are and how you talk to people – of being yourself. Your subjects will trust you only if you’re confident about what you’re doing. They can sense that immediately. I’m really bothered by photographers who first approach a subject without a camera, try to establish a personal relationship, and only then get out their cameras. It’s deceptive. I think you should just show up with a camera, to make your intentions clear. People will either accept you or they won’t.”

“I belong to a bygone era when magazines sent you out to do a thorough report. It was a more traditional kind of photography reflecting a world that didn’t want images of it to be perfect. We don’t look at the truth anymore; instead, we look at whatever reassures us.”

“I don’t think you can develop or learn a way of seeing or a point of view. A way of seeing is who you are, how you think and how you create images. It is something that is inside of you. It’s how you look at the world.”

https://youtu.be/bgo5cL0jYcI

Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry needs a little introduction. He has been one of the most important figures in photography for more than four decades.

The multi-award-winning photographer has taken some of the most recognizable images in the history of photography, including his iconic 1984 image Afghan Girl, arguably the most famous portrait of the 20th Century.

His photos have been featured in every major magazine in the world and he has been a member of co-operative photo agency Magnum since 1986.

You could call him a photojournalist, documentary photographer, or even a portrait photographer, but McCurry shoots with the simple objective of capturing images that will stay with the viewer for a very long time.

When you look at a Steve McCurry photograph you simply don’t just look at it, instead, you are drawn into it: there’s a sense of mystery and timelessness about his photos that make them unique.

"I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape, that you could call the human condition." 

Steve McCurry

In his 40 year career as a photographer, Steve McCurry has travelled to the far corners of the earth to shoot conflicts, landscapes and cultures. But the one region that continues to occupy a special place in his heart is Asia. 

"The thing that fascinates me about this region is that we’re all playing these different roles but we’re all part of the same human race. We’re the same, but we do things in different ways. We eat different foods, live in different houses, and speak different languages."

Steve McCurry

Whatever the setting he happens to be shooting in, the emotional focus on his documentary photography invariably returns to the human factor. His affinity for photographing people has distinguished his work from others and has helped him earn countless awards.

Reference:

https://artwithinthecracks.org/

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/

https://artificialwombzine.wordpress.com/

https://maryellenmark.com/

https://www.anothermag.com/

https://photogpedia.com/

Task 2 (AC 2.1, 2.2) - Development of ideas for the project

Task 3 (AC 2.1, 2.2) - Intimate Portraits

This assignment required me to shoot photos of a person/ people I have an intimate connection with. I have chosen my family members - children and myself. The reason I was photographing myself was for a therapeutic purpose. “ I am my own muse, the subject I know best” - Frida Kahlo.

When photographing my son, I intended to show his two faces - one anxious and another calm and content.

The first picture was taken at the indoor golf course. I have used the available lights to add meaning to the portrait: Even if you struggle with mental health issues like social anxiety there is always a light at the end of a tunnel.

My son’s special interests are astronomy and aircraft. His hobbies help him to connect with people who have got similar interests. Also being knowledgeable about these subjects give him a confidence boost.

To me, intimate portraiture means capturing the personality of the model. I have successfully captured joy and playfulness of my youngest boy. 

For the last year I have been using a camera to take photos of my moods and emotions as I suffer from bipolar disorder type 2.

Being happy about expecting my fourth child. I have always wanted a large family because I have seen how much joy it has brought my beloved Grandmother being surrounded by 8 kids and grandchildren.

There is a big age gap between my kids because I had to work on my mental health and ensure the youngest child is more independent. 

This picture represents how other people see me - as a smiley and confident person but they do not know what is happening behind a closed door. During hypomania or depression episodes I would avoid contacting others. Thanks to modern medicine I am stable for months.

My hypomania has got two faces: one is irritable and hard to engage in conversation due to obsessive thoughts over projects. Another one is full of energy, friendly and joyful.

The picture below was taken during my depressive episode when I was physically unable to perform simple domestic tasks and would sleep for hours. I was so exhausted I could not be bothered to wash myself or even put bedding covers on. My own mother did not recognize me in this photo.

Task 4 - Using available light (AC 2.1, 2.2, 2.3)

See Unit 3.

Task 5 - Assess your Outcome (AC 2.4)
I did well capturing the mood and personality of subjects. I was not aftraid to be truthful while taking self-portraits. I wish I have taken even more pictures with my Canon Camera.

I used shutter speed settings and paning technikiem to create  more dynamic picture of my son on the swing.

F4.00-F6 settings were mostly used to focus on the subject and blur the background.

Most of the pictures were spontaneous so natural sun light was only available.




Task 6 - Health and Safety (AC 3.1)