As a result of the increasing chaos surrounding the Covid-19 epidemic and, adding insult to injury, a problem with my computer’s connection to the internet (which with luck will be fixed in a couple of days), it seems to be taking forever to get this assignment completed. At last though I think I am nearly there!
I have now developed the films that I shot as an experiment while taking the digital shots for this task. By and large they have worked fairly well, though a couple have needed a bit of editing in Photoshop and if I was to use them for a final set there are a few that could ideally do with reshooting.
Nevertheless, if nothing else it has been a useful and interesting experiment, not to mention an opportunity to get to know my medium format film camera a bit better. I have only run a few rolls of film through it of late so I still have plenty to learn. Not least I need to develop more confidence and ability using a light-meter. Interestingly though I think I am already getter a better feel, on the basis of how pictures have come out so far, for what settings are likely to be right for varying light conditions without having to meter first. Practice, practice, practice! Indeed, I am toying with the idea of using film (probably 4×5 on my large format camera) for the final set for Assignment 5, which I have already started to think about and for which I already have some ideas.
In the meantime, here are the film shots for this assignment, with minimal editing, but organised into diptychs. These are for all eleven of the sites I shot, though as I have already indicated I will use fewer for the final set (I am in the process of making the final choice now), and they are not in any particular order.
I think I have pretty much all I need for this assignment now, having photographed eleven sites, so I have now put together the contact sheets. Of these eleven I think I will actually only use nine or ten; the two war memorial benches are right next to each other and using both would be an unnecessary duplication. I am similarly not sure about using the last bench on the fourth contact sheet as this also to an extent duplicates the very first one. I will make a final decision once I work out a sequence for them, and note the coordinates for each site. Otherwise the images that I am going to use have all been selected and the diptychs produced in Photoshop.
Otherwise, I need to develop the rolls of film that I shot as well and see what they have captured.
Whilst I am continuing to beaver away with shooting for this assignment – I have been very much hampered by the weather of late and it is amazing how much time it all takes, particularly as I am shooting both digitally and with medium format film (more as an experiment in its own right if anything and an opportunity to get to know the camera properly): last week it took more than two hours to cover just five, fairly close, locations – I am nevertheless still looking at possible influences, both on the subject matter and on the mode of presentation.
After this last shoot I remembered some work by former OCA student “Rob TM” that was featured briefly in C&N, in particular his series “A Forest”. This consists of views of woodland, all fairly anonymous and undistinguished in their own right, juxtaposed with studio shots of rubbish and detritus he found at each particular spot. I think there are parallels here between his work and what I am exploring, how a location can take on a particular identity or significance as a result of some human intervention. Here is an example of his work. (I have not been able to find any freely available images on-line so this is an edited screen shot from his website.)
I had also already been thinking about how my images might be displayed and from the outset have conceived of them as a series of diptychs, quite possibly unconsciously influenced this work. The aspect ratio of the digital camera that I have been using is much wider than this so the resulting image is shallow but wide. Nevertheless I think it works. Here is an example, produce by simply copying and pasting the two related pictures into a new, double width file in Photoshop:
When I get round to developing the medium format film the aspect ratio will be much more like that above as 120 film in my Hasselblad produces 2 1/4 inch square frames.
I stil have more pictures to take, but I have at least identified some more potential sites that should give me enough to make up a set.
Although I have only just submitted Assignment 2 and am still working through the course material for Part 3, I find that I am already thinking about possible approaches to this next assignment. I have not done any active research yet but already some ideas are staring to form and today I managed to take some initial test shots to see what the outcome might look like.
At this stage, rather than focusing on one specific landscape I am exploring different iterations of the same sort of physical environment, particularly memorials. I am not so much interested in, for example, large scale, municipal monuments but something much more low key, and even private. One idea that I have had relates to impromptu, temporary roadside monuments which often seem to spring up at the sites of accidents: bundles of flowers tied to lampposts, soft toys, photographs. I have not explored this yet as at the moment I cannot think of enough such sites locally that would offer enough scope for a project.
For now what I am exploring is memorial benches. I do not know why it should be the case but there seems to have been an explosion of them in recent years. In my own village, for example, I can immediately think of at least four private commemorations and one formal one, at the village war memorial. There will be plenty more in the other villages and towns along the valley.
What particularly intrigues me about these memorials is the way they lend a sense, real or imagined, of significance to a particular location that it might not otherwise have. Everywhere is just “space”. It only becomes a “place” when there is some form of human intervention. That might be a physical intervention, as here with the act of setting up a bench, or by simply giving somewhere or a physical feature a name. Turning a space into a place is an act of appropriation, colonisation. The sites that I have looked at so far are not significant in themselves. Setting up a memorial though establishes a sense of significance at least for the person remembered (invariably now dead). Because a place had some significance for someone else in a way makes it significant for the subsequent visitors and viewers, even if only in that it was significant to someone else.
Although I have not done any conscious research yet, there are a couple of artists that I can think of immediately whose work has, inter alia, explored this notion of making a space a place by way of human intervention in and on it. One is Martin Parr’s Scottish post-boxes work: I am not familiar with it and have not yet explored it any further but I am at least aware of it and from what little I have seen, even if it was not necessarily the point for Parr when making the work, I think it is an interesting illustration of my point.
The other, who does appear in my own library, is Eiji Ohashi and his pictures of vending machines in Japan. Some of those that he photographed are in the middle of nowhere. Their very presence though, and I also think the act of photographing them, turns that nowhere into a somewhere.
That said, in some of the cases that I can think of, the chosen sites for the memorials give no indication of having been significant to those remembered. In at least one case that I have looked at today the site seems to have been chosen simply because it is a convenient public space. The result is that even though that space is not inherently significant it nevertheless becomes significant simply as a result of the siting of the memorial.
Two other points also occurred to me as I started to think about this. One is that, in my experience, despite being benches, self-evidently designed and built for the purpose of being sat upon, people rarely do in fact sit on them. For example, one is in a common field just a few metres from where I live that is frequented daily by local dog owners. Occasionally, particularly during the summer months, one might see someone sitting on the bench while their dog plays, but it is not an everyday occurrence.
The other relates to the siting of the benches. Whilst those I have looked at so far are in attractive locales, the views from them are not particularly picturesque. Although they offer welcome respite and rest on a walk they do not necessarily offer views that you would want to experience for their own sake.
Bearing these points in mind, what I have explored so far is the idea of producing a series of diptychs, showing the bench and its immediate surroundings, together with a view from it. For that view I have chosen one straight ahead, at right angles to the line of the bench in order to avoid giving a partial or distorted impression by choosing one over another.
Not for the first time, and almost certainly not for the last, I find myself at the moment indulging in a typological approach influenced by the Bechers!
By way of a further experiment, in addition to using a digital camera I am also using a medium format film camera, in black and white only for now (this is, I guess, a nod in the direction of the influence of Fay Godwin that is almost certainly lurking at the back of my mind when I think of a project like this) but obviously I need to finish the first roll before I can develop it, scan, and post the resulting images. Here is what I have got so far just from the digital camera:
Ohashi, E, (2017). Being There. Tokyo: Case Publishing
Ohashi, E, (2017). Roadside Lights. Tokyo: Zen Foto Gallery
Mark Robinson's OCA Landscape, Place & Environment Blog 