Photography and desire.

Nan Goldin -

Some of Nan's earliest work was based around her photographic journeys among the Boston's gay and transsexual communities. After she graduated in the late 70's she moved to New York City where she began documenting the post-punk new-wave music scene, along with the city's vibrant gay subculture of the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was drawn especially to the Bowery's hard-drug subculture; these photographs, taken between 1979 and 1986 which form her famous work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. These snapshot aesthetic images depict drug use, violent, aggressive couples and autobiographical moments.

What inspires me the most about her work is that she uses her camera as a form of remembering certain things that have happened in her life and how she documents her experiences. Her photographs are normally shot with natural light as well which is something I would like to start doing.

 

First Impressions

For my first response to the brief 'First Impressions' I was unsure of whether to go with landscapes and respond more to the document and location themes that were stated in the brief. I decided in the end to do portraiture and go with the themes identity. My first impressions of Swansea weren't to do with the town but more to do with the people that I was about to live with for the next year in halls. Looking into the themes of documentation and identity, I thought about creating portraits of people but in their own rooms at halls, maybe not having them even in the photograph and just documenting their surroundings that they're in every day. For me, when I first moved into halls I wanted to make my room a representation of myself and what I'm like. It takes us one tenth of a second to figure out our first impression of someone. Rooms may not always be a clear representation of people but I felt people would want to represent themselves through their rooms as clearly as they could. In halls you get to know someone by their possessions first than you do their personalities. Even though I thought this was an idea I could elaborate more on the fact I only knew my hall mates for about 2 weeks seemed a bit forward to ask them to photograph their rooms, also the fact that everyone seemed to be out whenever I was free to do photos and whenever there was good light!

   I finally decided to look more into photographers such as Irving Penn, Bill Brandt, Cindy Sherman and explored more into different types of portraiture. I initially knew that I wanted to do black and white portraits and what better subjects than my housemates, although only a few agreed to let me take photos of them, I was quite happy with the end result. I think I could of planned out the shoot much better than I did, by the time I had thought of a new idea I was very short on time and had to create a makeshift studio in my own room at halls. I did the best I could with lighting etc but what I wanted to portray in my portraits was how kind their personalities are. The way they are in the photographs is completely natural, I didn’t want it to be posed or to have props or anything like that. I caught them all off guard and asked if I could have a quick photo of them, half of them are getting ready for bed/showering and the rest were in pyjamas. I wanted it to be as natural as possible and hopefully showing how kind they’re personalities are. I did get a lot of different results from the shoot but the ones I chose for the finals I think go well with each other and portray them the best.

 

Let's see what happens - Mission Gallery Review

I recently visited the exhibition 'Let's see what happens' at the Mission gallery featuring the work of seven artists, four from Wales and three from China. The whole exhibition is mainly of all of the artist's work that has been influenced by their experiences over the past 4 years of travelling and spending time together in Swansea, Xiamen and Shanghai. Different themes emerge from all the artworks creating a unique installation.

When first entering the Mission Gallery the whole exhibition was arranged in what seemed like a timeline. It seemed to introduce you to the team before you got the chance to take a look at the other photographs. I was unconsciously guided in a certain direction. The photographs that were exhibited I felt took portraiture to a whole new level. It didn't confine itself to the norms of portraiture, which are mainly a model sitting still in front of the camera, black and white backdrops etc, which in my opinion restricts what portraiture is actually meant to be. Maleon and his team created portraits that actually represent peoples personalities accurately, his use of props and backgrounds which I think are the main structure to the photographs, tell the story without anyone having to tell you anything about the person he is photographing. The photos told stories about each individual person and no two photos were the same which was in a way, very inspiring as I have never thought about doing portraiture this way. The photographs are all unique in their own way and the props are never used entirely the same.

What I found interesting was that they had decided to exhibit photographs of themselves working and printed pages of articles almost like a collage, this made it very personal and it was a better way of getting to know the photographers from a different perspective instead of reading about them. I also found intriguing the fact they had incorporated photographs from the welsh photographers in the project at the back of the exhibition. The photographs were in the same style as the ones from where they traveled around China but had a hint of uniqueness to them that you could tell just by looking at them that they were taken in Wales.

The images were all very coherent together, although all unique in their own way, they blended together perfectly. I especially liked personal touches to the exhibition as a whole, from the sketches on the wall, to the collages, you could tell that the installation was personal to the photographers involved in the project. I would definitely recommend a trip to the Mission gallery to have a look around  'Lets see what happens..', it gives you a whole different perspective on portraiture and has inspired me to think differently with my own  portraits and how creative you can be if you push the boundaries of photography.