Careers in Photography…

36 thoughts on “Careers in Photography…”

• I’m not quite sure what ‘taking photography seriously’ means. I think ‘photography’ is too general an appellation in this context.
  The government has certainly taken commercial photography seriously in the last twenty or so years and must have spent millions on it, some of which I’ve benefited from; admittedly they’ll be cutting budgets now.
  Photographic education has never before been so widespread and vibrant and with the rise of digital it seems everyone is more engaged with photography and video; so apparently no problem there.
  In the early 70s virtually the only place that you could see a serious exhibition of photography was at The Photographer’s Gallery, now the arts’ calendar is full of them, all over the country.
  At least this pair have jobs to go back to; in commercial photography it’s commonplace to have the cup dashed from your lips and tens of thousands of pounds of potential turnover evaporate.
  Photography is an easy budget to cut but, as they say, this is more of a gesture.
  I’m not sure how much the gesture is worth when compared to the future value of a visually documented government.

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• I think Roger Tooth of the Guardian had some interesting things to say about this. Imagine if David Cameron had his own personal photographer during the next election (or at any other time for that matter) would independent media get the same access?
  Given Cameron’s background in PR and how every other aspect of politics is so heavily stage managed these days it could have led to the interesting, if somewhat sinister possibility of ‘official’ pictures being made available rather than allowing some of the more intimate access to newspaper/agency photographers.
  Of course that situation may never have been a real motive but in the name of transparency I think the decision is probably a wise one.

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• Interesting Mark -one of the things I think which is quite a new development is how photo editors like Roger Tooth are now getting editorial opportunities. It used to be the case that they oversaw the image selection and that was that, now I think it could be argued that in a more visually literate society they are increasingly being expected to justify their opinions.
  I think your point about the Photographers’ Gallery and regional opportunities to see photography is an important one Clive. One role public money has played for a considerable time now is supporting access to the arts. Got to say though, that with the notable exceptions (Liverpool with the Open Eye Gallery and Bradford with Impressions and the Media Museum), it is still my experience that seeing photography exhibitions outside the Capital isn’t easy.

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• Thinking further about government funding of the arts, and its bartering in return for influential art, reminded me of the Arts Council and the previous government’s apparent characterisation of art as primarily of value as a social service.
  The terms of reference appeared to suggest that in order to be given funding there had to be some community element to an application for it to be successful; which led me to think of previous times where the government wished to encourage socially improving art.
  Perhaps the most notable example being the War Artists Commission during the WWII, which produced some very powerful work by artists such as Henry Moore and Paul Nash but also, according to a program on TV recently, a lot of duff stuff too.
  The programme also credited this socially worthy art as the establishment that Francis Bacon kicked against to set off the British art boom which rejected those values.
  So you could point to government policy as, indirectly, being the catalyst for the art we have today in this country.
  The War Artists Commission made me think of other areas where the government was encouraging visual art in the service of social aims; which brought to mind the photographs of Humphrey Spender for the Mass-Observation project; which the government dipped into.
  The name Mass-Observation made me realise that I’d missed a major serious use that the last government put photography to; widespread CCTV.
  On the question of access to politicians I’m rather sanguine about it. I don’t buy the PR wizard line; from what I know it’s more like ‘The Thick of It’ than ‘The Prince’ put into practice.
  The press access would be no different than it is now, if they’re in public they are fair game for anyone and whatever the photographers might wish to achieve the editors no doubt will stick with the thrills and spills; eggs being thrown, people being punched and tripping over, or some telling juxtaposition.
  I remember the frisson I had when opening my copy of Rolling Stone, back in ’76 so the web tells me, to see Richard Avedon’s ‘The Family’ series. People of power pinned to a white background, some of them still wriggling, and examined closely with a hand lens; Avedon the lepidopterist.
  They never surely realised they were going to be held to such scrutiny when he was granted access.
  You can’t grant that access to a whole press pack and come away with that result. A personal photographer with unlimited and familiar access stands a chance of producing work as telling and as meaningful to history as Avedon’s work; even if they have to keep it under wraps during the life of the government.
  The press are good at what they do and will continue to do it, unless all politicians go into purdah. A photographer on the inside can produce a different type of work, perhaps more stealthily forensic.
  The photograph of some of the main players in the last government waiting for the heave ho in Number 10 could have been a harbinger of that.

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• I’m not sure i agree with you Clive that press access would have been the same. Yes certainly out in the street the press will do what they do (I know I’ve done it and i’m glad I rejected that type of work!) but behind the door of No. 10 I’m not so sure.
  I’m thinking the Guardian’s Martin Argyles last pictures of Gordon Brown in office (are these the images you’re referring to in your last paragraph? Because this is exactly the type of image i’d think would be in danger of being stage managed had Brown had an official photographer) or the first pics of Cameron in No. 10 by PA’s Stefan Rousseau. These aren’t the work of the whole press pack at a press conference/publicity call, they’re special access granted to only one or two photographers independent from the government.
  While I wouldn’t suggest any of those images are particularly memorable (not to me at least) I do think ensuring that independent access is important.
  Look at George Bush who had Eric Draper as his official photographer for 8 years and Chris Morris (sorry no direct link but you can hear him talk about his work after the 2:21 mark in this Time slideshow) who produced some great work for VII.
  Did Morris get the same access as Draper? Would Morris have had even better access had there been no official photographer? I don’t know. But looking at the images from both photographers it seems to me that a government hand picking a photographer to work for them is going choose pretty wisely. I find it unlikely anything particularly telling is going to come from having an ‘insider’. As Morris’s says in the slideshow I linked to he found the cult of personality around Bush quit shocking. Is that even an angle an employed photographer would consider?
  And thats not even getting into issues of copyright, assuming any photographer working for a government would sign away ownership of their images in the same way one does when working for a newspaper or agency. I’d say that would make it even less likely for anything other than the official line to make it out there into the world. Certainly not in any meaningful time frame.
  As for Avedon, I think that kind of photography wouldn’t have been affected particularly. I’m talking about access to document specific times and events so that a supposedly ‘free’ media can hold politicians to account. I don’t think either Andy Parson’s or any other press photographer is going to come away with something like Avedon’s portraits no matter the access. I see that being more akin to Jill Greenberg and her of image of John McCain or Platon’s image of George Bush Snr.
  Parson’s was there for the day to day stuff thats directly covered by press photographers and thats where the conflict could have arisen. Its a pretty simple equation, if there’s only space for one photographer are you going to choose someone from a potentially critical media outlet (such as Martin Argyles from the Guardian with his images of Brown’s final days) or the photographer on your payroll who’s images you have editorial control over?

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• Well of course it is a complex, and as it stands now hypothetical, issue.
  I’m not a photojournalist, so I don’t know the intimacies of the trade, all I can do, in a yes or no answer to should the process of government have an official photographer, is take a stance based on what I observe of political imagery in the recent media and ask myself if the status quo is preferable to the possible outcome of what was proposed.
  My personal feeling is that under scrutiny of the media they wouldn’t be able to sustain the position of handing out official photographs of our glorious leaders to the exclusion of all else, and as I say, I’m not sure that was in their minds anyway.
  It may have begun as a simple idea to document the whole process of government from the inside for posterity, with no ulterior motives at the time of conception.

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• “It may have begun as a simple idea to document the whole process of government from the inside for posterity, with no ulterior motives at the time of conception.”
  But, presumably, the media didn’t much like the idea, brought their full weight to bear, and ‘hey presto’ they’ve got their way?

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• I agree the motives may have been entirely above board. But if the idea was to document government from the inside i’d have preferred an entirely independent observer’s take on things. And when I say independent I include not being employed by the mainstream press too.
  As for the type of imagery currently employed in media coverage of politics (and indeed press photography in general) I have to agree with your suggestion its not so inspiring. But thats a discussion for another time I think.

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• “People of power pinned to a white background, some of them still wriggling, and examined closely with a hand lens; Avedon the lepidopteristng, and examined closely with a hand lens; Avedon the lepidopterist.”
  Sorry, but I don’t see this. I see a group of largely anonymous people on whom Avedon and the viewers pin a whole series of baggage and presonal prejudices – to my mind they reveal nothing of the pressures on or behaviours of powerful people.
  Provided that the official photographer was managed in some way independent of the political party in power, I think a permanent No 10 photographer would be a good idea. Argyles’ photos make this point admirably.
  Clearly it is not possible to give intimate access to the machinations of Government to the whole press corp. And the question of whether you would choose your own photographer or a potentially hostile one is a red herring – without your own photographer you’d choose a potentially supportive one. Surely a better option is to have a permanently employed one with appropriate governance in place.

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• @mark – well yes I agree with you.
  The attraction to me is throwing a stone in the pond and seeing what ripples it makes; though I would rather it be someone like Brian Griffin, given full rein to pick and choose.
  I think that would provide a compelling, authentic archive for the future.

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• @nmonckton – in most cases where there isn’t space for more than one person then it goes to the pool photographer. In which case the government (or whoever is being photographed) doesn’t get a say.
  Whether that was the case with Argyles i don’t know. The Guardian may have negotiated their own access.

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• Nigel, that’s your reading of the Avedon work as of now, which is fine, there’s no definitive reading.
  Much criticism hinges on the fact that things are not what we desire them to be.

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• Nigel – if there is nothing about the pressures of the job, do you think that the Avedon images reveal anything about the character of the people pictured? The website claims that Avedon allowed the subjects to choose their own pose and clothing. I am not sure that this is the same as giving the subjects control and therefore I am intrigued by the stare from George Bush Snr (page 17)- did he glare like that throughout the shoot or did Avedon choose that look (which could have been momentary) to convey meaning.
  Stan Dickinson has reminded me that there is a section on Avedon’s method one of the recommended texts for People and Place – Roswell Angier’s Train Your Gaze

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• Haven’t our leaders always used art to portray themselves to their people? Nothing new there then. My feeling is that David Cameron was attempting to give the impression of a more open style of government, whilst maintaing a degree of control. Or it could be that employing a personal photographer was pure vanity on his part.
  I rather liked Richard Avedon’s approach of allowing the subjects to choose their pose and clothes, allowing powerful people to assume they were in control though the photographer was always in control of choosing the moment. Some of the photographs look to me like mugshots.

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• @Gareth
  I’ve read some fairly large chunks of Angier’s book as part of my preparation for People and Place, and my current view (taking CliveW’s point on board) is that I’m unconvinced that portraits say anything much about character.
  You could take a picture of Hitler laughing at a joke – he’s still a megalomaniac – ditto you could take a photo of me with a fierce stare, and it wouldn’t represent me in any way. The issue I have with Avedon’s technique in particular is that it seems extremely aggresive and all the control lies with the photographer. The we come along with our preconceptions about how powerful people are and add another layer of complexity that has nothing to do with the character of the subject.
  There seeme a thin dividing line between this and the well meaning but deluded souls in Victorian times who tried to photograph criminals or the unemployed with a view to establishing scientifically that there was a ‘look’ associated with a particualr class of people
  Maybe at the other end of the course I’ll have a different understanding, but for the moment I think my position is that a portrait says more about my reaction to the subject (either as a viewer or a photographer) than it does about the subject.

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  • I would agree with you on Avedon’s technique, but I guess the question prompted for me by ‘The Family’ is ‘Why faced with the extremely aggressive photographer do subjects choose to present themselves in different ways?’ George Bush Snr glares into the camera and Jerry Brown gazes off into the middle distance – chance, editorial choice by Avedon or something to do with the differences between Bush and Brown?
    It may be a thin line but I do perceive a line. I think people consciously and sub-consciously manage their appearance, but how to interpret the way they present themselves isn’t straightforward.
    Way beyond the requirements of People and Place but of potential interest is the field of impression management kicked off by Erving Goffman in the 1950s.

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    • Thanks for the link on impression management – I’ll be following it up as it’s of interst in my professional life as well.
      I think your post crystallizes my issue. For example – you observe that Jery Brown gazes into the middle distance. We can be fairly certain that he didn’t do that for the whole of the session so the choice is all Avedon’s. And that leads me to ask, what was his agenda?
      There is another question, which is perhaps more appropriate to a psychology course, which is would our reaction be the same if these people were complete strangers about whom we knew absolutely nothing. In a blind test I have serious doubts that we would be able to pick ‘powerful’ people from the passport photos of complete strangers.
      I don’t disagree that people manage their appearance, but it is inconceivable to me that someone can penetrate the layers we build round ourselves in a portrait session of a couple of hours at most.
      I’m not trying to say that a skilled portrait photographer does not produce a much more interesting photo than an un-skiled one, just that much of the interest lies other than in the character of the sitter.

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      • Interesting Nigel, your position does lead us to the big question – why take portraits at all? Google doesn’t have the answer. One for the learning log, surely.

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        • Was going to start by ‘Blogging This’. It’s a brave, probably even arrogant, start to question the whole premise of a genre before I’ve even started the course – but it does seem to be the fundamental question? Is it really a Level 1 question though? 🙂
          As a side issue – I have a science background, and was taught to devise experiments to test theories. Not sure (yet) how to achieve that in an artistic field without veering into pure psychology. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

        • It depends what axioms you build from; is it axiomatic that a portrait is a picture of a person or persons? Does it have to include the face? Could it just be a picture of part of them or something they owned; a metaphor for them?
          We have to move the base line up a few levels before demanding it be axiomatic that it convey something about their character, even if it perforce does.
          I’ve never made portraits out of interest, only for money, paid by a client, not the subject.
          I’ve taken a position relative to the subject, mediated by my client’s needs, with no intention of being a conduit for the subject’s character.
          Does that mean I’ve never taken a portrait?
          They may collaborate and in the process show something of their character, they may leave it at my opinion of an aspect of them or simply be marionettes throwing shapes.
          It takes two to tango. ‘ }
          Three, if you include the viewer meticulously searching for ‘character’.
          On the side issue, coming from a science background myself (Physics & Astronomy BSc Hons retired bored with thermodynamics) I sympathise and I know its a common experience that when physical scientists start reading critical theory in particular they bang their heads against the wall and get very irate.
          Photography, art in general, and the critical bubble they float in aren’t Newtonian, it’s a quantum world of uncertainty filled with the equivalent of the most outlandish models of cosmology; a stack of tottering conjecture that is never going to be proved or disproved no matter how big an art particle accelerator ( ‘the art particle’ I like that ‘ } ) they build.
          That’s as it should be because the rational scientific model, for the foreseeable future, is remarkably inarticulate when speaking to the human condition.
          Art as metaphor, is a much subtler tool for investigating and reflecting how we feel and the flexibility of the lack of logical rigour in its critique reflects the power our emotions hold over our rationality.
          It fits where it touches you.

        • Glad I’m not the only one who wants to bang my head on the wall – that makes me feel a whole lot better – thanks.
          On your first points – I think there are two questions separating out:
          What is a portrait? and What is a portrait for? Part of the latter is about the validity of the claims made for portraiture, which is where I’m coming from in this discussion.
          Hoping that I’ll have a better grasp of the former by the end of the course. Perhaps that will move my position on the latter – perhaps not. As Gareth implies, I think the Learning log will be my friend on that one.

        • Researching into art history should highlight the discourses surrounding your questions.
          But it’s my belief that knowledge of those is precious little help when standing with the cable, or remote, release in your hand and the subject expectant.
          The knowledge is useful in post production justification when you tell yourself a story about the work.

        • I take your point. I am reminded of an episode of the Waltons where the daughter is sitting an entry exam for nursing college and cannot do the maths stuff (because she not been taught it) She asks: ‘why do I need to know this to be a nurse?’ and the examiner responds ‘To pass the entrance exam’.

        • Clive, you’re not actually suggesting are you that it is possible to create a meaningful photographic image and NOT be considering Barthes, Benjamin, Sonntag et al as you look through the viewfinder?
          I’ve just been reading part of ‘Photography Theory’, Ed. James Elkins, in which there is an essay from Jan Baetens (this is sounding very learned!), in which he seems to suggest that Photography Theory writing has, to date, been overly dominated by those from a literary discipline as opposed to a photographic discipline, if I’ve understood it correctly. Discuss!

        • Which came first? The Photography or the Sontag?
          ‘ }

        • OooH! This feel like a subject for another long thread. Not sure about ‘overly literary’, but I could make a good case for ‘overly complex’.

        • Stuck in the middle with you… trying again
          I have believed for a long time that you can’t know everything about photography by looking at photographs, or indeed observing photographers from the viewpoint of a behavioural psychologist.
          If you don’t seriously engage with the practice yourself there are hidden dimensions that aren’t manifested to you in the evidence the process leaves behind.
          As to complexity this is the inevitable corollary of refinement, which is equally at play in science and mathematics as it is in the arts.
          You begin with a simple number line that’s answering all your everyday requirements but one day, as your appreciation and understanding of their power grows, you realise you need to express the square root of -1, so you have invent imaginary numbers.
          Then you have a need to combine them with real numbers, and so complex numbers are born; literal complexity that is a world away from having three apples, giving one to Johnny and working out how many you have left.
          The more you practice photography and analyse your results the more complex your relationship to the process becomes and necessarily you need more complex concepts to express it.
          This is mirrored by those observers attempting to understand it with literal expressions.

        • @clivew
          Don’t disagee with anything you say – there is a karate saying along the lines of ‘You can’t learn to swim by reading books about swimming’ and photogrpahy is the same.
          Also agree with your point about the need for complex concepts – my point was rather narrower, which is that the commentators so often dress the concepts up in complex language – which obscures rather than enlightens. They aren’t alone though – us science types can really enjoy a long and obscure word from time to time.

        • Every profession and priesthood has its nomenclature, its jargon, one function of which is to act as a gatekeeper.
          That’s one of the reasons it is important to study and understand it; if only to know what they are saying about you, because it has ramifications in the realm photography operates in. ‘ }
          As for obscurity I sometimes ask myself if it is simply a lack of skill, or the tools, to express themselves with, masked by long words of ill defined and fluid meaning, which each user takes for their own and slightly remakes, rather than obfuscation.
          They are trying to develop concepts on perhaps the edge of what language is capable of communicating so it is taxing.
          But for me one of the tests of a newly minted concept that is designed to enlighten is its communicability. If it can’t be communicated within its domain, it can’t be influential and therefore not useful; irrespective of notions of truth.
          Something that excited and influenced me recently, was a page José sent me from De Certeau’s ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’; which doesn’t speak to photography ostensibly, but it fitted another piece in to my personal photographic puzzle, as a new, illuminating metaphor for my experience in making a photograph.
          So there is value and use to be found out there for the photographer in texts of multifarious origin. Sometimes a string of long words is just a string of long words but sometimes they can provide an epiphany.

    • I think any portrait session is a negotiation between the subject and the photographer, mediated by the camera.
      It’s a two handed performance.
      As the photographer you have to have a strategy; as you play the opening gambit.
      To mix my game metaphors, it’s a bit like poker, the subject may fold immediately or want to play their hand. It depends on their experience, their sense of themselves and how they want to project it.
      Most times they trust you to do right by them and most times they can, unless they’ve riled you. Hahaha
      Chance, serendipity, is one of the glories of photography; as a strategy you can make a decision not to intervene, just observe and let the subject give them self away.
      I notice in the web presentation of the Nadav Kander Obama Administration series they make something of the fact that the subjects could see the results immediately after the shoot.
      This fundamentally changes the dynamic, previously they didn’t know what you’d taken from them, by the time they did it was cemented on film and print.
      An image that you thought was more characteristic and more interesting might not have met with their approval on the spot but they weren’t to know till you had a print to show and explain.
      Now the whole shoot is instantly laid out before them and anything they initially disapprove of can disappear as if it never existed.
      Would all of Avedon’s work have survived if it had been shot on digital?
      Actually this sort of feeds back into Mark’s concerns; with digital, it is much easier for the ‘client’ to intervene than it used to be, when the most they saw at the shoot was an anodyne Polaroid, so necessarily the temptation must be all the greater, if only in the cause of personal vanity.
      As to what a third party viewer makes of the record of the transaction, that’s beyond the ken of either party.
      The viewer will make their own judgement, on the subject and the photographer; as we’ve seen.

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• @Mark
  Familiar with the concept of a pool photographer as I’ve been a press officer in one way or another for more than 20 years.
  I think it’s a moot point whether the Government would have the final say or not.

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• @CliveW
  An interesting perspective – I think my argument is based on a ‘no subject selection’ premise. If the subject has the chance to mediate the output I agree you wil get a differnt result. I’m sure you will get pictures that are superficially closer to the preferred external persona of the subject.
  Whether that is their true character or not is another issue. As is the issue of whether a portrait photographer ‘should’ allow their subject a choice of the final output. In this I see parallels with written journalism – where few journalists would allow the subject of an article to ‘correct’ their copy for other than factual errors unless there was a very high level of trust between the two parties.

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• Clive, you’re not actually suggesting are you that it is possible to create a meaningful photographic image and NOT be considering Barthes, Benjamin, Sonntag et al as you look through the viewfinder?
  I’ve just been reading part of ‘Photography Theory’, Ed. James Elkins, in which there is an essay from Jan Baetens (this is sounding very learned!), in which he seems to suggest that Photography Theory writing has, to date, been overly dominated by those from a literary discipline as opposed to a photographic discipline, if I’ve understood it correctly. Discuss!

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• An interesting point Stan and Baetens is not the only one arguing this case. A review of a new book in the Guardian draws attention to the fact that the author, Susie Linfield, is of similar frame of mind.
  We are now a long way from my original question – which is absolutely fine, this is a fascinating debate – so just to reassure anyone reading this discussion as a potential student or a even a new student of the OCA. Thinking about photography is a key part of the OCA photography degree programme, but the course is also firmly practice based.

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  • Of course Gareth, it’s vital, that’s why I recommended, on the student site, that students should consider doing the Visual Culture module.
    Taking a properly sceptical critical stance to writings on photography and art in general is not the same thing as ignoring them.
    You can take what’s meaningful for you, at any particular time, from them and incorporate it into your understanding of your practice.

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• Where to start and what to leave out?
  Language is only really complex when one id not familiar with it, there really isn’t a simple way of adequately expressing the idea of a meta-narrative or of reification and when it comes to fetishism of the commodity nothing less than a full chapter of close printing will do. We all suffer at first but familiarity brings a level of comfort and obscurity becomes enlightenment, but as with so many things that are worth doing, it takes effort and practice.
  It is worth remembering that the theorists aren’t dealing with camera operation, they are trying to come to terms with the way that images, and other cultural texts are confronted and understood, or not, by the viewer, reader etc. and how they come into being in a certain way in any particular state of society. Their value to the practitioner is to help her to understand what she is doing and what everyone else is doing, so being able to see where her work fits into the current generality of work, that is to contextualise her work so coming to some understanding of why it is received in the way it is. I cannot remember thinking about the potential punctum in the forthcoming image as I peer through the viewfinder, but I do know that since I became aware of the concept, my images have changed (improved?).
  Oh yes and Sontag never owned a camera!

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