Friday 8 July 2011

Unconscious influences and disillusionment

Looking at the work of renowned photographers can be inspiring and depressing in numerous ways. Good photos can make you want to go out and take good photos yourself. That's great. And when you realise that your shots echo those you admire it can be disappointing, but is to be expected. Disillusionment sets in when are taking photos that you think have some originality, only to discover someone else has been there before you. And when you think back you realise that you had seen their work earlier, but not picked up on it. That is annoying. Interesting, though, that images can work on us without our realising it.

In my case it was seeing some of Thomas Struth's Paradise series which reminded me of my 'smallscapes'. There is a distinct difference in that the Struth images take a wide view, whereas I am deliberately getting closer.

ivy and bramble study


I was browsing today and came across a link to a photographer from across the estuary, who unsurprisingly photographs similar locations to those I frequent. There is a long-standing tradition in British photography of recording seaside towns, almost to the point of cliché. And for those who live in those towns the time when they shut down has a desolate appeal. I've been at it ever since I picked up a camera. It was looking at Joe Kennedy's gallery that I found a shot in his Off Season gallery (currently exhibited at the Harris Museum in Preston) which reminded me of one I had taken last year. The subject is the same, but the execution different.


Maybe it's because I have a background in painting as well as photography that I resisted the temptation to make an 'art' photograph by placing the subject centrally in the frame and chose to use the play with the picture plane. To me this is a complex image. It could be considered as three images in one - being deliberately divided in two.

The red left hand portion harks back to the Pop Art movement and painters like Peter Blake. It emphasises flatness and graphic elements. The colour range and texture are limited. The right hand portion emphasises tricks used to convey depth and space on a flat surface - converging lines and distant objects made small. The eye is lead to a white arch, centrally placed in the frame of the whole.

The two halves of the picture contradict each other in their rendition of depth, yet the colours play against each other (red and greeny-blue), and the brick work echoes the colours and tones of the painted wood. Another aspect of the photo is something that interest me which I haven't explored too much as it's potentially trite. The interplay between natural and architectural objects. In this photo that is represented by the bare branches of the tree overlaying the triangular lines of the distant suspension bridge.

It's good to revisit earlier shots. Sometimes they can surprise you, as this one has done me. Looking at it again has lifted the ennui which had descended following the Struth shock to my system.

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