Roswell Angier, (2007), Train Your Gaze, AVA Publishing SA
When this book arrived I knew it was going to be of continued use. I am still working my way through it but it will be one that stays on the book shelf when others disappear. The chapters each focus on one area of portrait photography and the book can either be dipped in and out of or read in order. There are exercises and assignments at the end of each chapter for the student photographer that I think would provide a good course in themselves. It's a really good balance of practical, technical and theory. The photographs in the book are often challenging the idea of what I think of as portrait photography and this is what I feel will be of use to me as the OCA course is going to be a particular challenge to me as I usually go out of my way to exclude people from my pictures.
Jane Brown, (2009), Exposed, guardianbooksJane Brown has been a photographer on the Observer newspaper for over 60 years and this book is a retrospective of her work. The pictures are black and white and shot in natural light that seem to show her subjects (actors, writers, musicians, politicians) as they would be away from the camera. At a time when celebrity culture means people want to be shown as some ideal version of themselves, this is a refreshing change.
Nan Goldin (1986), The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Aperture Foundation
I think people either love or loathe Goldin's work - there is no middle ground. This famous series of pictures of her friends growing up in New York I think has resonance for each new generation. Goldin's pictures, for me, show great affection for her subjects even if the pictures are hard - depicting violence, drug use, problematic couples. You know that she was very much a part of this group - and was a lucky one - she managed to conquer her addictions but many of the friends she photographed were lost to drink, drugs and AIDS. There is nothing glamorous in this book, the friendships and dependencies were very real.
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| Nan Goldin "Siobhan in my mirror" |
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| Jayne Walls "Emma in John Lewis mirror" |
Jane Hilton, (2010), Dead EagleTrail, Schilt Publishing
Jane Hilton grew up in suburban England with a love of wide open skies and cowboy films. She went to Arizona in 1988 and this book is a record of her drives across the South West documenting American culture - in this instance the disappearing world of the cowboy. It celebrates their lives and the West. The photos are taken inside their homes where they are generally surrounded by western bric a brac as they hold on to their heritage. These are authentic cowboys who have put on their best clothes for their photograph. I know Arizona fairly well and these men can be seen all over the small towns of the state - whereever the big cities haven't yet encroached.
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| Jane Hilton from "Dead Eagle Trail" |
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| Jane Hilton from "Dead Eagle Trail" |
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| Jayne Walls "on the road to Fort Bowie" - a no longer used post with no sign of a house. I wanted to give a feeling of the remoteness of the location so put the road in shot disappearing to the horizon. |
Mary McCartney, (2010), From Where I Stand, Thames & Hudson
Daughter of Paul McCartney publishes her first book of photographs. I have to say that being the daughter of a Beatle has opened many doors. I doubt that if she wasn't of such parentage would she have got the access all areas to the actors, musicians, writers, performers as she has for this retrospective of her work since she turned professional in 1995. I like a great many of the photographs but don't know that there are any I would consider to be particularly special -or that show me a different side of a well known personality.
I also thought it quite interesting that she has 5 forewards to the book - her own, her husbands', family friend Sir Peter Blake, musician Chrissie Hynde and her father - it's not really putting a book out there and letting it stand or fall by it's own merit.
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| Mary McCartney "London 2003" - I've chosen a shot of unknown people from the book as there aren't that many of them in there - most photos are of celebrities, and of celebrities who are McCartney family friends - if they aren't of famous people they are of beautiful young people |
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| Jayne Walls "Emily and Aron, 2010" - beautiful people known to me |
Don McCullin, (1996), Sleeping with Ghosts, Aperture Foundation
A retrospective of a brilliant photojournalist - probably a photographer whose work has inspired all successive generations of photojournalists. The book covers battlegrounds around the world, poverty in this country that you can't quite believe, and the light and textures of India. Some of the pictures are harrowing - man's inhumanity to man through wars and famines but also in the pictures of homeless of London's East End and the poverty shown in Bradford. Looking at the shots of the war zones, McCullin looks like he was so close to the action that he must have come back from the brink many times.
Martha A Sandweiss, (2002), Print the Legend - photography and the American West, Yale University Press
This is an indepth look at the story of the populating of the American West coming into being at the same time as photography was starting. There are stories of adventurous photographers, native Indians, gold prospectors but too few photographs. It is essentially a history book showing how people on the populated East coast came to understand the west and how the nation was developing and expanding.
Victor Skrebneski, (2000), Steppenwolf, Sourcebooks Inc
Portraits of the actors who make up the Steppenwolf Theatre Company to celebrate their 25th anniversary. The shots are black and white and taken against a white background. They are straightforward portraits of actors. These are not celebrity portraits, they show regular looking people who don't appear concerned with their appearance. The shots are either head shots or 3/4 body shots. These people look as though you could know them in your own life - they don't seem untouchable, if you asked people you know to stand in front of you while you took a picture, this is what they could look like.
Agnes Sire and Jean-Luc Nancy, (2010), An Inner Silence: the portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Thames & Hudson Ltd
This book was published following an exhibition of the same name shown in Paris in 2006. The title of the exhibition came from a quote of Cartier-Bresson when describing his approach to portrait work: "Above all Iook for an inner silence". The pictures in this book are similar to the feeling of the pictures in the Jane Brown book - photos taken without artifice, not feeling intrusive whether the shot is of a famous person looking directly at the camera or an unknown subject seemingly less aware of the photographer. What I like about these pictures is how the photographer has caught the subject so well that you have to look at the shot for a while to notice the background or anything in the picture other than the person. When I have been taking pictures of people I have struggled with the background - which makes me realise that if I were capturing the person correctly, the background wouldn't be so important.
Veronique Vial, (1996), Men Before Ten, Beyond Words Publishing Inc
These are black and white grainy shots including actors, writers, photographers, musicians, film and theatre directors. Vial has photographed each of them before 10am on the day of the shoot - her idea being that by 10am men have the face on that they will keep for the day - but if you catch them before 10am you might see the real person. I think it's a clever idea to build a portfolio around. The men don't appear too concerned with appearance, whether they are photographed still in bed, undressed, getting ready for the day. Vial has a brief caption with each shot giving her impression of the subject or the shoot. On the actor Peter Falk she writes "Peter is as warm, funny, humble, and sincere as a man can be. We talked about his love for art, and for painting in particular. he is the man his face describes". I thought that was a wonderful description - brief but encapsulating everything that you see when you look at the photograph.
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| Veronique Vial shot of Peter Falk |
Veronique Vial, (2001), Women Before Ten, powerHouseBooks.com
Vial has taken the idea from her earlier book and captured women before 10am. For me this didn't work as well as the earlier book. Women (and I am no different) seem more concerened with appearance so even the pictures of women getting up in the morning seem more staged, or the women more prepared for the pictures. I notice that I prefer taking pictures of men - it may be that I assume before starting that women are going to want to refresh the lipstick, look at each shot, decide which has to be deleted and which can remain - as that is me. Men seem to just let me get on with it and tell them when starting and when finished.
Walker Art Centre, (2010), From Here to There: Alec Soth's America, Hatje Cantz Verlag
This book was published to mark the exhibition of the same title held at the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis from 12/9/2010-2/1/2011.
My tutor suggested a number of photographers to look at - some I was familiar with and some not so on looking at the internet I knew that I would find something in Alec Soth's work that I appreciated and so bought this book. I realised on looking at this retrospective of his work focussing on American that I was already familiar with a number of the pictures but hadn't necessarily registered who they were by.
There is something foreign to UK life about his shots but they feel familiar to me through personal travels in the US. There is very much a sense of the pictures being a result of a road trip and the overall feel is an offbeat portrait of life in small town America, away from the tourist routes. Soth seems to find what is easy to overlook and the shots have a solitary feeling to them. I can see a photo of a theatre, or a street, and I can visualise the whole town.
The book includes an interview with Soth and copies of a blog that he writes to. He mentions that he spends a lot of time dreaming up titles for his work - he likes to have a title before he has the shots. Soth says that he finds it remarkable that when he asks students for their titles they don't usually have them or don't feel the importance of them as he does. I thought his comments on titles particularly interesting as it's something that I struggle with throughout the OCA courses. I want a title to be informative or interesting but not pretentious. Soth makes a very good comment that the title of Nan Goldin's work "The ballad of sexual dependency" is a case in point - the title gives a sense of the work being urgent and unexpected - it makes you want to explore further. If the work had been titled, for example, "Downtown" it would have given a lifeless feel when the pictures are the opposite. That said, I note in this book a number of Soth's shots are title "untitled" or a shot of a boy holding a chicken is called "boy with chicken" so perhaps this is an area he is still working on!
I've selected 3 photos from this book and done a comparison on photos of my own which were each taken prior to me having the book.
1) In Soth's picture he has chosen to shoot from further away - therefore making more of the desolate scene than in my shot. On the day I took my photo the sky wasn't particularly interesting and the bus had turned to white in the desert sun so didn't stand out very well from further away. I also wanted to try and show that the bus had been abandoned at the side of a remote dirt road, but had at some time been home to someone so wanted to include the open back door and the mattresses. In Soth's shot I love the feeling of solitude and isolation.
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| Alec Soth "untitled 2008" |
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| Jayne Walls "on the Ruby Road, Arizona, 2010" |
2) I'm always on the look out for signs that make me smile. In Soth's picture it looks as though originally it was to advertise a live band on Saturday night but Joy has turned that into a party to celebrate her divorce. The makeshift sign, the ramshakle cabling and the girlie calendar all give a picture of the venue for the party without it needing to be seen. I took my shot as I liked the sound of Lou the "internationally acclaimed story teller" who probably hadn't been very far beyond the town limits where he was telling stories.
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| Alec Soth "Joy's Divorce Party, 2005" |
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| Jayne Walls "Lou The Great, 2010" |
3) Soth's picture and my own make me think that the items have been deliberately left in place - Soth's either for others to sit and drink beer, or for passing photographers to grab a shot - my own as a photo opportunity. Soth's shot has been littered with Americana - the flag, the beer, whereas my own shot has nothing so obvious relating it to America but for me there is still a suggestion that this is America in the style of the early washing machine. Soth's shot, taken with the river in the background, suggests to me that this is a place where items - and probably the people who use them - have washed up.
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| Alec Soth "Luxora, Arkansas, 2002" |
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| Jayne Walls "Tubac, Arizona, 2010" |
