After choosing the subject as Military as my choice for assignment five – photography is simple, I looked into some war photographers and also some abstract photographers so I could further my knowledge in these areas.
Firstly, I looked into war photography, this is where I came across Roger Fention (1819-1869) a British photographer who is most famous for being one of the very first war photographers as well as an artist who helped set up the Royal Photography Society (Chapman, P 2005). Fenton was commissioned by the Agnews, a Manchester based publisher to take photos of the Crimean War in 1855 taking place in Britain, France and Turkey as allies against Russia (Fletcher, J 2015). Fenton mostly focused on capturing moving portraits of the troops and the empty eerie battlefields at the end of battle. He also did well at capturing camp life and the generic living during the war scenes. There weren’t any photographs of battle or explosions this was due to the year that they were taken the photographic technicalities and techniques were different back then (Fletcher, J 2015). It is believed that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were big fans of his work. Looking through Fenton’s exhibition at the Royal Collection Trust it explains that Agnews also commissioned a painter called Thomas Barker, he was to use one of Fenton’s photographs to create a large oil painting (RCT ND) I found Fenton’s work inspiring and have chosen the image below to show of his work. This is one of his famous Crimean War images, I like the way that the soldiers all look very similar, I think back then this was very common with the facial hair whereas, now it is frowned upon if soldiers are not shaved. I also like the dynamics of how they appear to be in a pattern, one sat down, one stood up and so on.. I interpreted this as they are team, connected, in sync with each other.
Next, I looked into Tim Hetherington also a war photographer but from a completely different aspect. Fenton was photographing the war but was not involved oppose to Hetherington who was a solider within the military and deployed to many countries. Sadly, ended up with him being killed in the Libyan civil war in 2011 when he was killed by a piece of Shrapnel rupturing an artery. Hetherington was born in 1970 and died in 2011 at just 41 years old. He was a famous photojournalist who is known for his creative approaches and his long term narrative projects (Hughe, H S 2008). Hetherington quotes in his book Long Story: bit by bit that he likes to bridge the gap between viewer and subject through intimate small details. In 2011 two months prior to his death Hetherington received a nomination for best documentary catergory alongside co – dorector Sebastian Junger in the film called Perfect Storm. This was a film that Hetherington had created based upon lives of platoon soldiers in Pakistan (Hughes, S 2013). The Tim Hetherington Trust is a trust that has been created since his death to preserve his legacy and keep his photographs archived. Through this site I learnt that is was after he graduated the first time from Oxford in 1992 that he began looking into visual media which, would help him communicate issues that fascinated him, for example, he was very concerned about damage to the world and he continually tried to understand why people used violence. The first image I have chosen of Hetheringtons to share is called “Exhausted US soldier“, a troop who is resting in the Restrepo bunker in Afghanistan. This image won the world press photo of the year in 2007.
The second image of Tim Hetherington’s I was intrigued by was one from his series called Liberia At Peace (2004-2006). I saw this image on his trust page and found it fascinating. I see it as two different images. The top of the images looks like a silhouette of troops that are patrolling on guard, looking over the building and ensuring everyone is safe. Whereas, below I see people arriving to see a form of music performance? My eye is drawn to the only colour of the image, the red carpet which, lead me to believe that someone important was arriving to an army base or maybe it was family day? This bought back familiar feelings of when it was visiting day at the barracks after being separated from my husband for two months training.
After researching Hethington I decided to further my research on Edward Weston, a American photographer who I used for my homeage exercise in 5.2 which you can see here. Weston was born in 1886 – 195, his work involved a great deal of realism, purity and he closely observed reality working with a large format camera, small apertures and long exposure times to create maximum detail and depth of field (Morgan, A L 2018). Weston was originally known for his landscapes and nudes but in 1926 he decided to turn his focus to realism in objective studies. This is when the famous pepper image was produced, this was called Pepper no.30 (image below). Weston explained in O’Hagan, S (2010) article that: “It is classic, completely satisfying – a pepper – but more than a pepper: abstract, in that it is completely outside subject matter.” The pepper was photographed in a way that made it look like a modern sculpture by Hans Harp. I like the way that although Weston’s images are in an abstract manner you can still work out what they are for example the mushroom in exercise 5.2 and this pepper. Although you can see what they are often the patterns and imaging techniques used on them can make them appear to look like something else.
In 1922 Weston had a meeting with Alfred Stieglitz who was the Dean of American photographers at the time, this meeting followed with great results and effect on Weston’s work which was identifiably becoming more abstract throughout the years (Hamilton J W 2012). When reading an article by Zhang, M (2017) based around the famous pepper image I came across an interesting youtube video where we get to look around Weston’s old home and they discuss some of his work and the techniques he used to use for his images, he is described by his Grandson, Kim who is taking the tour as “A master of composition” . Please note there is some nudity within the video.
For my final research I wanted to look at another abstract photographer. Although Weston did have some abstract work in his later years he was also a very well known landscape artist and therefore, I wanted to look at an artist who solely worked on abstract techniques focusing on more patterns. This lead me to find the work of Angie McMonigal a fine art, commercial architecture photographer based in Chicago. McMonigal’s work is based on building patterns, lines and curves. McMonigal says that all her images are actively shaped by human and the buildings themselves hold ambition of the planners. She is drawn to big cities from her interest in symmetry, lines, curves and she finds the contrast held within a city interesting (Struppert, N 2015). I have chosen an image from McMonigal called Miami (below). This is a clear example of the work that she produces, often in black and white, with lines and points that draw attention to the viewer.
Chapman, P (2005) Art: Roger Fenton http://kb7qr2lp2e.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Art%3A+Roger+Fenton&rft.jtitle=The+Independent&rft.au=Peter+Chapman&rft.date=2005-09-17&rft.pub=Independent+Digital+News+%26+Media&rft.issn=0951-9467&rft.externalDocID=897695101¶mdict=en-US Date accessed 02/01/2020.
Fletcher, J (2015) Roger Fenton https://www-tandfonline-com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/doi/abs/10.1080/03087298.2005.10442822 Date accessed: 02/01/2020.
Hamilton, J W (2012) A psychoanalytic approach to visual artists. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucreative-ebooks/detail.action?docID=887963 Date Accessed:02/01/2020.
Hetherington, T Trust. About Tim https://www.timhetheringtontrust.org/about-tim Date accessed: 02/01/2020.
Hughes, S (2013) Tim Hetherington, his life and death. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21041645 Date accessed: 02/01/2020.
Hughes, H S (2018) Long Story Told: Daniel Castro Garcia On Tim Hetherington. http://kb7qr2lp2e.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Long+Stories+Told%3A+Daniel+Castro+Garcia+on+Tim+Hetherington&rft.jtitle=PDN+%3B+Photo+District+News&rft.au=Holly+Stuart+Hughes&rft.date=2018-01-01&rft.pub=Emerald+Expositions+LLC&rft.issn=1543-0294&rft.volume=38&rft.issue=1&rft.spage=96&rft.epage=96¶mdict=en-US Date accessed: 02/01/2020.
Morgan, A L (2018) The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists 2nd Edition. Weston, Edward (1886-1958) https://www-oxfordreference-com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780191807671.001.0001/acref-9780191807671-e-1416 Date accessed: 02/01/2020.
O’Hagon, S (2010) Edward Weston: the greatest American photographer of his generation? https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/aug/18/edward-weston-photography Date Accessed: 03/01/2020.
Royal Collection Trust (ND) Fenton’s Crimean Commission: 8 March – June 1855 Fenton’s Crimean Commission: 8 March – June 1855 Date accessed: 02/01/2020.
Struppert, N (2015) Angie McMonigal / Chicago http://www.womeninphotography.info/blog/2015/12/16/angie-mcmonigal-chicago Date accessed: 03/01/2020.
Zhang, M (2017) This Famous Pepper Photo by Edward Weston Was a 4hr+ Exposure at f/240 https://petapixel.com/2017/08/15/famous-pepper-photo-edward-weston-4hr-exposure-f240/ Date accessed 03/01/2020
Heather Wade OCA Blog 