The following have spent time within their locality and/or in an autobiographical way:
Keith Arnatt: www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/keith-arnatt-666
From the webpage above I found my way to a page on the Tate website that showed 133 of Keith Arnatt’s images. One of the first that I saw was the Self-Burial (Television Interference Project). I was familiar with this from the Foundation in Photography (FiP) course. At that point two series of images by Arnatt caught my attention: Walking the Dog and Miss Grace’s Lane.
I find portrait photography a challenge and seeing an entire series made up of just people standing with their dog in everyday locations appealed to me. I like candid photographs and these have the feel that Arnatt simply stopped a person in the street and asked if he could take a photo of them with their dog.
Miss Grace’s Lane struck a chord with me because in the last 12 months I’ve run a route from home into the countryside down small lanes. While running out and back I’ve noticed the rubbish and other items that people have discarded along the roadside and in the hedgerows. Bottles, cans, plastic containers, fast food containers. These seemed like an excellent way to bring home to people the damage we’re doing to our environment, not far away but close to home.
This also fits in with one of the themes I was developing during the FiP course around waste and so it makes sense to continue exploring this theme during this course, whether formally or as a side project.
Looking at the 15 images found on the Tate website for Miss Grace’s Lane the first thing that struck me was that of those where the sky is visible, only three appear to have been taken on overcast days. Of these two of them are of dumped tyres.
The next thing that I noticed was that 6 of the images contained a red (or very close to red) object as the central focus of attention. Arnatt seems to have sub-themes going within the overall theme which would allow for a variety of ways to group the images when displaying them.
One of my favourite images is
I like this image because of the tin with the cats face on the black refuse sack. The objects to its left almost make it look like a cat is emerging from within the bag. Something that could be seen as a comment not just on the way we discard rubbish, but also on how we can discard living things like pets.
Gawain Barnard: http://gawainbarnard.com/
Three of Barnard’s project on his website appear to link in to the location and / or autobiographical theme Maybe We’ll Be Soldiers, Boredom to Burn and Journeys by Train.
The first of the three is interesting because of the way in interleaves images of young people with images of vegetation. Sometimes both shown together but also singularly, with single images of a person or vegetation being alternated in between double images.
The area where we live is not just places and things, it is inhabited with people. Including some of these would add to the richness of a set of images that are based around a locality.
Boredom to Burn brings the focus in to very small areas rather than the wider landscape. The majority of these images being black and white, or very similar in tones makes images like the pink, melted paint tin stand out more. The image of the next of eggs highlights the loss of animal life that can occur from a wildfire, something that is missed when media reports on such events because of the focus on human property and lives.
Journeys by Train is an example of how something that million of people around the world do every day can produce works of art when approached with a different mindset. The daily commute is an opportunity to be creative if you allow it to.
The link included in the course material did not work when I attempted to access it. The Art Institute of Chicago website did have a link to an exhibition of Tina Barney’s work and so I’ve linked that page [Accessed 8th August 2019]. However, there was only a single image and no links to other webpages containing the work. I therefore researched Tina Barney’s work at: http://www.tinabarney.com/
Theatre of Manners (http://www.tinabarney.com/#/theaterofmanners/) is a body of work where Tina Barney photographed family and friends in domestic surroundings and was built up over a number of years. The Square Mile assignment could be attempted in a similar way but it would need to be something that developed over a longer period of time than the course allows for in order to justice to family, friends and the places they live and work.
Roni Horn: www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/roni-horn-aka-roni- horn/
The link included in the course material did not work when I attempted to access it. The Tate did have a link to the exhibition and so I’ve linked to the exhibition page [Accessed 6th August 2019]
In Another Water (2011), Roni Horn produces a series of images of the River Thames that show just areas of water. There are no landmarks or other indicators that would give a clue as to where the the photos were taken. In fact they could have been taken on any river or body of water. The only indication of where they were taken comes in the acknowledgments at the end of the book and is stated simply as Central London during January and May of 1999.
Horn has taken something that tens of thousands of people see every day, the River Thames, and explore how its appearance, it’s texture, how it’s affected by the light hitting it.
Within the series three photos drew my attention more than the rest. The first of these is an image of the Thames while it is raining. The way the surface of the water is lit up leads me to think that it wasn’t a darkly, overcast day but that it was still a reasonably bright day. Maybe it was just a short shower.
The surface of the water is covered with evidence of the rain hitting it. Dozens of small circular areas of ripples where each rain drop has struck the water can be seen. Although I’ve been near water when its been raining I’ve never noticed the effect that it has on the surface of the water. Just this single image has made me want to be more observant when I find myself in that situation.
The other two images that drew my attention are very similar in that they show small waves on the surface of the water but what makes them stand out is the colour of the Thames and the glossy look that it has.
What makes this an interesting book to read is the footnotes, 832 in total. Interspaced between her thought’s on water, it’s opacity, it’s blackness, are thoughts based on films, books and poems. There are also brief descriptions of people who have drowned themselves in the Thames.
Reading through the footnotes I initally thought that the number she had written was a lot, but then I began to notice that occasionally they would repeat. Subtly, Horn introduces certain elements, people, books, poets like Emily Dickinson, all without you realising that you are learning something that might pop up in your memory one day, leaving you wondering where you came across that fact.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/horn-no-title-p13066 [Accessed 17/08/2019]
Tom Hunter: www.purdyhicks.com/display.php?aID=10
Tom Hunter’s Figures in a Landscape is an interesting series of photos. Familiar scenes from the landscape, the White Horse; Cerne Abbas Giant; housing estates; sea shores and lakes, as well as more unfamiliar ones like the statues of Poseidon and Aphrodite. For me, what leaps out from this series is the titles for the photographs.
The Girl with the Wine Glass, a photo taken in a public house or a restaurant, you can see similar photos on social media but the title elevates this one and makes you think of a painting like Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.
The Cult of the White Horse, a photo of a horse figure carved out of chalk hills, that can be seen in a number of places around southern England, has shades of artwork like The Introduction of the Cult of Cybel at Rome by Andrea Mantegna ( https://www.nationalgallery.co.uk/products/the-introduction-of-the-cult-of-cybele-at-rome/p_NG902 ), as well as other ancient art works.
Producing a series of images based around a theme it would seem is one thing to consider but the titles for each of those images (and whether or not to give them titles) is something that should also be considered.
Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Stills series gives not clue as to what you might see when looking at one of her images, but Tom Hunter’s titles give you a level of expectation as to what you might see. Without seeing The Cult of the White Horse you would not know whether you were going to see a real horse or one calved out of a hillside (assuming you were even aware of the existance of the latter).
Karen Knorr: http://karenknorr.com/photography/belgravia/
Karen Knorr’s Belgravia is a series of images of a group of unidentified people from a certain class of society at the times that Margaret Thatcher has just become Prime Minister and her brand of politics was starting to effect Great Britain and it’s people.
In a similar way to Tom Hunter’s photo titles, Knorr has added captions for her work that give you a bit more to consider when looking at the images. Without the captions the viewer can make whatever assumptions they wish about what is before them. The addition of the captions either influences how the image is seen first of all or forces the viewer to re-evaluate their initial thoughts, depending on whether they are read before or after the image is studied.
Although some of the images and captions are a sign of the time when they were produced some appear as relevant today as they did then. One of the images is of a young man sat at a desk looking out of a window. The caption reads “I wouldn’t vote for any particular party but rather for a Leader.” In light of recent discussions in the media about unelected Prime Ministers, this particular image and caption seems appropriate to the modern day and not just a reflection of the world in 1979.
Peter Mansell: www.weareoca.com/photography/peter-mansell/
Peter Mansell’s landscape work shows that when it comes to completing tasks we shouldn’t always think in obvious ways but think laterally and outside the box. We also shouldn’t allow ourselves to be limited in what we set out to achieve.
Marc Rees: www.r-i-p-e.co.uk/
Jodi Taylor: www.weareoca.com/photography/photography-and-nostalgia/
Jodi Taylor explores childhood places in the series talked about at the link above. For me the idea of revisiting childhood places has some appeal but if I was to attempt that then it wouldn’t be the streets that I grew up on that I’d want to explore, it would be the countryside outside my hometown that I’d go to. The areas that allowed me to be in touch with nature, relatively unspoilt by mankind.
One thing that I drew from the discussion of Jodi’s work was about the need to think carefully about how you present your images and the way that an appropriate way can compliment them.
Summary
Each of the photographers discussed above has elements of their work that could be drawn upon for this assignment. Arnatt’s choice subject matter (Miss Grace’s Lane), Horn’s images of the River Thames, Hunter’s captioning of his images, Taylor’s presentation and Mansell’s determination to do what he set out to.
Having done the Square Mile assignment for the FiP course I want to try and do something different, but also something that fits in with the direction my work was developing during that course. I also want to draw on elements of the photographers I’ve come across both while researching this assignment but also during the course of the exercises and assignments for the FiP course.
References
Horn, R. (2011) Another Water: The River Thames, for Example. Gottingen: Steidl
Jenna Powell - Expressing Your Vision 
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