National Photography, national subject matter…
Detail from Out of the Ordinary/Extraordinary
A fascinating piece in The Freeman View this month entitled Why is Photography so American? coincided with my visit to an exhibition of new Japanese photography at the Barnsley Civic, Out of the Ordinary/Extradordinary. Clearly this beautifully hung exhibition posits that there is such a thing as a national photography. That is, not localised subject matter but a specific take which comes out of being embedded in the culture. I am certainly willing to be convinced that this may be the case, certainly it seems at least arguable that Simon Roberts’ We English reflects the fact that the photographer is English and not just notices the sunbathers wearing socks and sandals but understands that there is significance in the act which merits a photograph. The chubby young woman in traditional dress above jars with the idealised notion of Japan and what the Japanese look like. Arguably it is the equivalent of the socks and sandals.
Why might any of this matter for OCA students? Well one reason is that the trap of the exotic has wide jaws. It tempts the unwary into thinking that the best photographs for assignment x are the photographs from the last holiday. This is rarely the case, the strangeness of the subject matter tends to overwhelm the students’ ability to make judgements. Interesting shots to the student because they are of novel subject matter do not necessarily have the same impact on the tutor, leading to disappointment when the feedback arrives.
A second reason is that it is an issue which will not go away. If photography is about anything it is about our sense of identity. There is no definitive answer. To argue wholeheartedly that there is a national sensibility would be to argue that Michael Freeman’s photographs of Yunnan or Jose Navarro’s photographs of Scottish Crofters are somehow invalid, that they represent a take on the subject. Well if we accept this, at what point does the perspective become valid or invalid. If Jose lives with the crofters for 3 months is that sufficient? If I take photographs of English subjects is that somehow more authentic than photographs of the Welsh Valleys which I visited frequently as a child. Simple answers always provoke more difficult questions.
For a while now I’ve had a thing about Japanese photography (a trip to Barnsley may be required), and the article above put me in mind of Michio Hoshino, a Japanese photographer who took photographs of the Alaskan wilds. Now, I’ve no idea what would constitute Alaskan national photography, but some of Hoshino’s images are superb…
Somehow I missed this post…thanks.
It is a really interesting point, and something that I believe I personally would have to look at carefully, living in another country.
But then the question comes to mind, what about travel photographers? Aren’t they traveling exactly to capture that which is new and /or novel?
But then again, I guess I have to say, that it is probably the duty of the photographer (read: student), to try and capture something that is special, and not just novel to him / her?
Not sure I’m putting this right…
I think you are putting it right Dewald, if by travel photographers you mean photographers who do editorial work for the travel media. There I agree, they are hoping to capture and present the exotic to present it to an audience in a way that will attract some of that audience to visit. The questions I think that remain is what are overseas reportage photographers seeking to do and do they do this better because the environment is alien to them. Not sure there is a clear answer to this one, but I would be interested in your experience. Has your experience of living in China led to you taking different photographs over time?
Gareth, I believe the answer is yes. But then, one of the more recent things that made me look into the way I shoot, and what I shoot, was actually a 13 year old student, who asked me why I don’t take photos of China, which threw me, since I had been doing exactly that (to my mind) for the past few years. But thinking about it now, I wonder if he wasn’t talking about the local ’socks and sandals’.
I had the opportunity to visit the propaganda poster museum in Shanghai, and although it was not of photographs, there seemed to me a very strong link in the current trend of composition and poses, and the ’staring at the sky’ poses that the farmers and army men showed in the past, and today’s modern photography and even stronger in wedding photography.
Now I’d be thinking twice, but most likely go ahead, and shoot the picture that may be what defines local photography, but for a different reason, and hope to put a different spin on it.
Nearly two years ago, I returned to my family home, after been gone for two years, and although little had changed, I found that I had an unlimited amount of things to capture, things that were there from the start.
I would say that it is sometimes necessary to be on alien territory, to capture that, but to return and see again what you have become blind to. Even if it is socks and sandals, but then you may see it in a different way, and capture it in such a way, as to put it in a different context (or narrative).
A small warning though… that feeling of seeing everything new, smelling new smells and being able to isolate you from the people you can not understand, to focus your senses to see clearly, and capture that, can be addictive, and I think that may be what drives a lot of travel photographers.
I never did make it to Barnsley…
Anyway, I fell into the trap of using holiday snaps for Ass 5 of TAoP. I believe I managed to pull it off too by approaching the subject matter in the way I wanted (apart from a faux pas of mixing colour and B+W again). However, it has taken a while and a landscape assignment to make me look at my local area with fresh(er) eyes. By forcing myself to work in an acre that covered a few hundred feet of the street where I live, I absolutely had to explore things that I am painfully familiar with. Travelling abroad does this to me every day I’m away – my eyes are always open. That’s what being somewhere else does to you.
I also believe that, regardless of what you photograph, you will be influenced to a degree by what you take serious time look at from other photographers. I don’t mean a few minutes, I mean studying. Look at National Geographic and you will no doubt strive to shoot their style of photographs. Look at Martin Parr and he will influence you. Similarly, with cultural or national photography.
Incidentally, Paris Photo had an excellent collection of Arabic photography last year. Not the sort of thing that would necessarily inspire me to work in that way, but very interesting nonetheless. I’d go back again this year, but I’ll be back in Japan
Those who wish to go beneath the surface of the questions that Gareth has raised need to consider insights from both Feminist and Post-colonial criticism, the view of the outsider and so on. I think one could do a great deal worse than have a look at Abigail Solomon-Godeau’s “Photography at the Dock”, its not a beginner’s book nor does it address the issues directly but much of the content could help towards some sort of understanding of the issues raised here.
Here’s a link to Photography at the Dock which could well figure on the photography MA reading list
…were we to have an MA, which of course we don’t, but it doesn’t stop me thinking about it