Crewdson is no more

The creative process strikes.  Gregory Crewdson is no more!   Actually what it means is that as a result of the feedback I have reconsidered the essay and decided to concentrate on Winston Link.   As soon as I did this the essay started to take a much better shape and I have been able to make better use of the space available. 

Feedback

Had a tutorial yesterday and as usual it made me think.   I am in the process of writing my essay.  Now 3000 word is not the problem.  The problem is making the words cogent and fitting together so that the result works.   Anyway, the tutorial.   This has helped me junk a whole section of the essay, the one comparing Winston Link's work with David Shepherd.   Perhaps not the immediate comparison that might spring to mind but one that I thought had validity.   What I was looking for was a way of examining the meticulous prep that Link did when photographing steam engines.  Shepherd on the other hand didn't.  This wasn't due to any slovenly approach on his part but rather pressure of work and a realisiation that steam engines were disappearing fast.  

Having discussed this with Paul Hill, well argued it with him, I have decided to ditch this section.   First he is probably right, although I am not totally convinced yet it could not have been a valid point.  Second, it gives me some extra space to rework some of the original ideas.  By ditching the Shepherd section I saved 500 words.   Always very useful to have when writing. 

Having discussed this with other members of the course it is clear that we are all slogging through this process.   None of us are enjoying the actual writing but I think we are all gaining new insights from having to undertake this.    However, I am itching to start the real work of talking photographs,  after spending the last few weeks just sitting and listening to other photographers talk about their experiences I just want to get stuck into a practical module.  Still, I need to concentrate on the task in hand and get this essay finish.

Blogging a month on

St Martins in the Field - London

One month from the start of this blog it is time to take stock and see how things have shaped up.  Well from my perspective it has gone very well.   I have no idea if I have anyone reads this on a regular basis but for me that is not the point.  I enjoy the process of writing this and that is good enough for me.

One of the benefit I have found from writing this blog is that I can put some idea out and then read them back.   It helps me sort through my ideas and then come to some more reasoned conclusion (See all the posting on Crewdson).   I suppose the bottom line is that I enjoy writing this and if no ever reads this I don't care.

Annie Leibovitz

Patti Smith and Family

Annie Leibovitz

As promised my thoughts on the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.  The overall impression was one of amazement.  Amazement not at the glossy Vanity Fair front covers but rather amazement at the images of her family and her long time relationship with Susan Sontag.  I really cannot say that I would have, haven't, taken images at such a distressing time.  And then to publish them for all to see.   Amazing!

As for the glossy end of the work well they are just that Glossy.   I am sure they pay the bills but they are not her best work.   To illustrate this there were two images of Demi Moore when she was pregnant.  The first was the famous one that appeared on the front cover of Vanity Fair.   The second was a much more personal shot of demi Moore and her then husband Bruce Willis.  This image was black and white of Demi's bump with Willis's hands around it.  This, to me, was more intimate   and loving whereas the Vanity Fair shot was just a publicity shot for a movie that Demi was involved in.   Interesting, the Vanity Fair shot was supposed to be private shot which Leiborvitz thought would have made a great front cover.  She was right, of course, but it still has none of the power of the more intimate shot.

Annie Leibovitz has always claimed that she prefers the images on the inside of the magazine, especially when at the Rolling Stone magazine, than the glossy front cover.  Her exhibition confirms this.   

The best display of the whole exhibition was the two walls which were like huge contact sheets.  They were made up of numerous prints which were probably no bigger than A4.    They were organised in some form of timeline and many were smaller copies of the large prints seen throughout the exhibition.   The small scale and relative relationship to time added to the effect of a great photographer working through her life.

One final question.   Why did Annie Leibovitz's mother insist on showing how flexible she was in many of the family shots?  The captions only explained so much but image after image there she was with one leg cocked up in the air.

Anyway, a very impressive exhibition and one that I was able to get a reduced rate as I am a student.   Now I knew there was a reason I am studying for an MA!

Walking Walking Walking and Titian

Diana and Actaeon - Titian 

- by the way I wasn't allowed to take any pictures - only the media were - there's encouraging the ordinary punter!

What an exhausting day!   I have just got back from London having spent most of the day walking around central London.   Oh I managed to see three exhibitions that I planned and two that I didn't.   More on the exhibitions I planned to see another day but as for now the exhibitions I didn't plan.

First Titian.   You maybe away that a very wealthy man who inherited some old masters has decided that he wants cash in on the paintings.   Now I have read an account of why he has to do this and I remember thinking the reasons appeared to be genuine.  However I can't remember what they are.    Anyway, we are in the current situation that he wants some money - £100 million to be precise or else he'll sell the paintings and we'll never see them again.   I am sure that this is being uncharitable but having been in the presence of two of the paints this morning I was underwhelmed.   

Perhaps it was because the National Gallery stuffed them into some dreary room.   Or perhaps when I went there it was full of artistic mafia and media types - apparently the big wigs of the National Gallery had decided that today was the day for a big media push.  Well, unfortunately I got into the room at the same time as these other people and looked and looked at the painting...I just couldn't find it in my heart to like painting.

I know that is some sort of mother load for western painting but I am sorry I didn't find it rewarding.    It should be noted that the lighting in the room was appalling.    You couldn't see the colours properly and the spots they were using kept highlighting the canvass pattern whilst at the same time obliterating  the paint that covered it.   Nonetheless, I can't say I think it is worth spending/giving £100 million pounds to a rich man for the privilege of viewing the paintings.   As my son has pointed out £100 million is the underspend on sciences and I feel that is were the money should go.   

On the train home I read that the Lottery heritage fund has decided to spend one year's budget on this painting.   I just wonder what is going to be lost to save the painting.   However, the Evening Standard did make a very interesting  point.   Over the past 12 months many of the leading lights of the art world have made a fortune from selling their back catalogue.   Perhaps they would like to donate this money to help keep this painting?

There that is better.  What I say won't in anyway change anything but it makes me feel better.

As for the other unintended exhibition I went to well I am sorry to say by the time I got to see it I was exhausted - all that walking you see.   Still it was interesting all the same.  The exhibition was the British sculptors’ drawings: Moore to Gormley at the British Museum.   I didn't stay too long but some of the drawings were breath taking.   They were just that drawings but they show why their creators are considered some of the best artists around.  I particularly liked the Anthony Gormley sketch of the angel of the north.   

Exhibitions

World Press Photo Exhibition

South Bank Centre

Well tomorrow I'm off to London for my six monthly fix of exhibitions.   This time I am hoping to visit the following:

Annie Leibovitz at the National Portrait Gallery

Taylor Wessing Portrait Photographer of the Year - also at the NPG

Landscape Photographer of the Year - National Theatre

World Press Photos - South bank Centre

Babylon - British Museum

If I manage to get around 3 of these I will be happy.

I would love to get out to the Wildlife photographer of the year but this is out at the Natural History museum - I don't think I'll have time or energy to get out there!   

I hope the weather is fine tomorrow as I prefer to walk around central London rather than take the tube.  I always take the train on these days as this also allows me to relax going to and from London.   

Newtwork Count:

Newtwork:   368k

Newtworks: 471k  

1697 Words

The essay writing has started in ernest.   1697 words written yesterday.  However, these will not last the editing and reediting that will take place over the next few weeks.  It just felt good to start the process.

In the beginning there was the word..

Red Deer Rut

The authors of the the King James' really knew what they were taking about.  Of course, they were translating the greek text of the bible into English  but nonetheless they were true.  In the beginning there is the word.

This is how I feel at the moment.  I need to find the word or to be more precise 3000 words.   I have started the essay writing process and like many creative processes it is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.   The problem is finding the first portion of that 10%.   I can provide the perspiration just were is the inspiration?

In truth I have just written 700 words of my first draft.  Actually, this is incorrect.   This isn't my first draft but rather the first words put down on paper to get me started.  I will be very surprised if any see the light of day beyond the start doc v0.2.  But you have start somewhere and this is where I have started.   

Having too much information is as much of a curse as too little.   How do you edit out the chaff so that you only include the wheat?   Time will tell if I am successful in this particular endeavour.   

Still its better than working for a living (Thats 33 years of experience talking!)   Now if I could only find that word...

Newtwork Google Count:

Newtworks: 193k entries

Newtwork: 464k entries.

More Crewdson Nonsense

Fireflies - Gregory Crewdson

The more I look at Crewdson's work the more I find I love and hate it in almost equal measure.  The hate comes from his corporate work of the last decade.  I just find Twilight and Dream House so depressing and yet so fascinating.   Love him or loath him you have got to accept that he insists on the highest production values for his images.   Note that I don't say for the images he makes because that would simply not be a correct statement.   I have spent sometime thinking about how to describe Crewdson and I think the best way to do this is 'an artist'.   I really do have difficulty seeing him as a photographer.   However, it can equally be argued that this is the point of his work - to be ambiguous and so his input and role are ambiguous.

And then I see the wonderful images contained in Fireflies and again I have to start to question my assessment of Crewdson.  These are a series of images of fireflies Crewdson tried to capture in the summer of 1996.   They are simple black and white images taken at dusk of the patterns left by the fire flies as they fly across the summer vegetation.   They are marvelous.  They look like fairies dancing in the warm summer evening.   Entrancing.   Gone are the obsession with precision and instead we have a more free flowing image of nothing more than white blobs.   They are the better for this.    I have been reading about David Shepherd's attempt to capture the last days of steam in Britain.   He claims that his beautiful oil sketches capture the atmosphere of the time in a way that photographs can't.  I am not sure this is entirely true but it does indicate what Crewdson's later images lack - atmosphere.

Newtwork  Google Count:

Newtworks 471k entries

Newtwork 369k entries

Long Live the Newtwork

What a wonderful word.  I thought I would google this and found that there were 464k entries!   The best link I found was for a Newtwork Administrator on the ITWire web site.   Google it its wonderful...it looks like I am not the only one who makes typos.   Long live the Newtwork!

The box is back - Hello to Newtwork

As I sit here writing this the box has returned.   This time it has none of its menace. Gone is its arrogant confidence replaced, instead, by a sorry gapping wound to the head.   This wound has proven fatal as the contents have been removed and now the box is just an empty shell.   I would like to make a crowing sound at this moment but unfortunately the war between me and the box didn't quite go according to plan.   Instead of having a fully functioning network printer we have had to settle for a printer share from my son's computer.    I am sure that if I was that motivated I could have installed it on the newtwork (This was a typo but I just love the word I will start using this in future instead of network) but I am not.

The box has moved

Today is the day.  The box has moved and we will install the printer.   Wish me luck

The box

It just sits there in the dining room.   Its portent mensing all who pass.   The box will not be ignored.   But why is the box sitting there?   It's all to do with the DMU I'm afraid ( well I would say that wouldn't I.)   To tell the story of the box is to tell the story of my son's master's course at the DMU.   Yes we are a family of two master's students at the same university.   Not sure how unique that is but there it is.

The other day my son announced that he wished to print off a 500 page govt. report that he need for his latest assignment and how much would that cost?   Once I had come down off the ceiling he started to realise that perhaps printing the whole document off was, perhaps, a rather expensive way of going about things and that he would probably find other ways of finding the information in the report.   This, however, made me start to assess our printing needs over the next 2 years.   He has essays to write and so do I.  His, however, can be submitted in electronic form, mine can't.   To obtain his MSc he will have to write a 15k word paper which will not be electronically submitted.  I will have to write a 10k word thesis.   My wife also wishes to use the same printer at the same time.  In short time has come to...well get a box.

The box, of course, contains our new colour laser printer and tomorrow I will have the pleasure of installing it on our network.  The salesman who sold me the printer said that it would be straightforward  to setup, which of course is short hand for not straight forward at all.   We hope that the printer should be far more cost effective than the current small inkjet printer.   This will not stop tomorrow from being a real pain.  I hope I am wrong but I have been here before and setting up anything on a network is always fully of unforeseen pitfalls.

Autumn Colour - Gallery on line.

I have just posted the new gallery - Autumn Colour

Autumn - a short project

I have been fascinated by the changing autumn colours locally.  As I mentioned previously on Saturday I took a walk through what remains of the countryside near to where I live.   I was looking for autumn colour.   I soon found it.  However, the biggest surprise I got was that most of it is provided by the highways agency.   It would seem that much of the brazen colours I came across were from trees planted either to hide the M1 or other main arterial routes.   This raises an interesting question about the environment of man's impact upon it.   If there was no motorway then we would not have such a vibrant autumn and yet the motorway represents huge environmental impacts.  Does one merit the other?   Of course motorways are not built for their aesthetic beauty but rather their blunt functionality.  None the less some small part of their impact on the environment has been for the benefit of humans.    This doesn't even address the issue of nature preservation i.e. motorways are some of the largest nature reserves in the country.  

Anyway, enough of this prattle I must go and start putting the autumn gallery together and publish it on my website .

Autumn

DMU Path

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.  What a wonderful day it has been.   The sky is full of character and mischief.   One moment it is dull; the next there are beautiful shafts of the cleanest light streaming across the countryside.    This might sound like I have overdone the grape juice but I just love autumn.   This also makes it sound that I live in the middle of the country but I'm afraid that is not the case.   Whilst I did take a walk in the countryside this morning I was never more than 400 metres from a motorway.   Still I was able to commune with nature - well have a chat with some non-plus cattle - probably the reason that they were non-plus was because a number of the compatriots were being shipped off to market and well our dining table.   Still, it didn't stop me spending a few minutes with a small herd whilst I ate a rather juicy apple.   This was not such a good idea in retrospect - as soon as I started walking again my aging joints started to complain.  Oh the joys of getting old!   Still this wouldn't stop my good spirits - especially after the mood I have been in over the past two weeks.   It really was a joy to be out.

The DMU path image was a follow on to another one I made last week.   I just love the combination of leaf, colour and the line.   My colleagues on the course wondered what I was doing but I just had to capture the image.   I am not sure what that says about me.

Bird watching

One the strangest thing about bird watching is that at times you end up watching clumps of earth.  This morning I was walking through fields and scanning them for returning Red Wings and Fieldfare.   However, every time I thought I saw a bird I checked out the sighting with my binoculars and was frustrated to find all I had seen was some suspicious looking clump of earth.   I could argue that the visibility  was really quite low, it was, but the truth is that my eyes are not as good as they were and I was a little too optimistic.   Perhaps my neighbor is right - bird watchers are twitters - well at least this one.

Hi Dynamic Range Images (HDR)

Noon Column

Castle Court - Leicester

(Examples of HDR Images)

We had a brief discussion between lectures yesterday about High Dynamic Range images (HDR).   I use this technique more and more in my photography but in a way that I think helps the creative process rather than over-blows it.  The technique is very seductive and it is very easy to apply the tone mapping in such a way as to make the whole thing look artificial more like a neon painting than an image.   However, if used in amore subtle way it can greatly enhance an image.  The technique I use involves creating virtual copies of the original image and using these to increase and decrease the exposure.   I have found this to be more successful than the more traditional method of capturing 3 bracketed images and then blending them together.   One final thought about HDR that I still have to clarify in my mind.  

It certainly helps me with my photography but I am also aware that this is not to everyone's taste and that is a good thing.  If it wasn't then we would not have the freedom's that we currently enjoy.

Gregory Crewdson

What can I say?   I am on the trail of this photographer - if that is what he is now - and the more I look the less I like.   I thought about this in the shower this morning, the place I always think about things, and the latest idea I have about Crewdson is that he somehow symbolizes big business America.   The analogy that I am currently working on is that of George Lucas and the latest Star wars movies ( Episodes I - III) .    Here you have visually stunning imagery and digital excellence with no real heart or substance.   You find the imagery breath taking at first glance and then realise that there is no soul or story other than a weak attempt to stitch a story together that enables another magnificent set piece of digital cinematography to explode on the screen.   In the end this becomes the only reason to watch the movie and really this is just not enough.

The same can be said for Crewdson.   His images are breathtaking in their application and technique.  However, once you scratch the surface you realise that there is nothing there at all.  The soul has been bleached away by corporate approach to photography.   perhaps the best way to look at this is that in his later works Crewdson not only had director's of photography and camera operators.   It no doubt was his vision but this remoteness to the process meant that ultimately the soul is missing.

I really wonder what I will think tomorrow?  It is a fascinating exercise to examine an artists ( I no longer think of Crewsdon as a photographer) and try and work out why his work does not do it for you.   A Ho....now off to lectures.

Gregory Crewdson - I'm not sure

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled from the series 'Twilight', 2001, © Gregory Crewdson

As part of the MA course I am taking I am examining the work of Crewdson.  In many ways his work is fascinating - the use of high production value cinematography techniques to produce ambiguous images is challenging and at the same thought provoking.   The images are almost a dreamlike world, perhaps a nightmare of frozen moments taken out of their normal reality and placed before you for you to dissect.   This, of course, is where my problems start with Crewdson.  Firstly, there is his method of production.  He does not actually take the photograph but rather directs the whole process.    This leads to the question - is he a photographer?   I am still grappling with that one and have no firm answer yet.   If he was producing a movie then he would be a director/producer but not the cinematographer.  Does this mean he cannot be the photographer?   I do wish I had answer to that.  Still this is the beauty of thinking about images and trying to work out what they say to you.

The second point which really is the more important of the two points is this - do I like the photographs?   At one level it is hard not to admire the images produced.   They are works of great craft and precision.   They are produced by a whole team of technicians coming together in way that is a marvel of organisation and creative endeavor.   But this is also where the images, for me, tend to die.   They are beautiful in their creation but remain too much of a pastiche of other works.  Perhaps the best way is to compare Crewdson's work with Edward Hopper, a painter he openly admits as one of his main inspirations.  Hopper's world is a dark and less well defined one when compared to Crewdson's clinical preparation.  The mood of Hopper's work is ambiguous in a way that Crewdson's is blatant.   Perhaps this is the difference between a painting and a photograph.  A photograph always implies a clinical record of events, even as in the case of Crewdson, the events are a pure fantasy - the product of the marvelous control he has over the creative process.   The photograph always implies it records the truth.  After all ' the camera never lies'.   Any photographer knows that this is not true and the only truth that a camera records is that that photographer wishes it to do, no more no less.

I guess the only way to end this ramble is to say that I am still not sure about Crewdson.   However, the journey to find out is what the course is all about.   Here endth the rant.

I have been lost today

Campus Centre

Arrghh!   The internet crashed today.  Having spent a wonderful hour checking the network it would seem that the problem was in 'the cloud' rather than on the local network.  To think one time I thought it was really interesting to know about http or TCP/IP - thankfully no more and now all I have to worry about is when the system crashes.

The good thing about this was that it gave me time to look over some of the books I've recently bought.  I have to say I am humbled when I look at the photography in the Wildlife Photographer of the year. Now interestingly I started to compare the photographs of a snow leopard and Gregory Crewdson -both elaborate setups and yet recording a beautiful creature the other ...well I am not sure yet whether I really like Crewdson's work. ( I know this is almost a heretical comment from someone studying photography but the artificiality leaves me cold - well that is the case at the moment and things may change! Watch this space)

Emma, one of my fellow students has circulated a set of mug shots of all my fellow students.   Interesting to see how each persons sees them self.