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Strategies - The Open College of the Arts

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Strategies

ArlesMy impression of this year’s Rencrontres photography festival at Arles was a little mixed, not least because there was no conspicuous theme to unite the exhibitions and practitioners as has been the case in previous years. Further more, this year there weren’t even the familiar iconic animals across the festival’s branding, which threw me a little – although it wasn’t quite as traumatic as the great branding crisis of when Opal Fruit became Starburst. There was nevertheless, an impressive array of contemporary work on show, as well as some exciting photography from the archives and historic projects, and I’m pleased that we had the opportunity to take students there at the beginning of September.
congo
For me, the most impressive work was a documentary by Alex Majoli and Paolo Pellegrin examining contemporary life in the Congo. In places the predominantly monochrome worked seemed very traditional yet was resolutely resistant to this. I found myself being enlightened by the work and steered away from visual stereotypes of West Africa. The project contains montage and colour work on a fairly epic scale. It is practically unheard of to see solo exhibitions of photographic practitioners at this stage in their careers in the UK, and that I suppose is why we go to Arles to see it.
Terms that we found ourselves returning to throughout the visit were ‘formulae’ and ‘strategies’ – with respect to how practitioners had imposed upon themselves fairly rigid criteria with which to execute and/or edit a photographic project. Not usually one to get hugely excited by exhibitions curated from historic archives or anonymous photographers, I was happily impressed by Vernacular – a small show of three series from collector Jean-Marie Donat’s archive. The three sets were of family snaps from the 1930s and ‘40s and categorised into: images of people posing with a costumed polar bear (mostly across ski resorts in Germany), images of white people ‘blacked up’ – which ranged from stage performers to formal portraits of children, and images where the photographer had shot the scene with the sun behind himself casting a shadow onto the subject. While the first two categories touched on ideas of prejudice and ‘the other’ quite transparently, it was the final set that was perhaps the most unsettling. Taken en masse, the shadow (usually appearing to wear a heavy overcoat and a trilby) was like a nefarious voyeur haunting the photographic process, cropping up with paranormal regularity: A fairly prosaic criterion – a classic photographic faux pas – becomes something far more potent and loaded. See more images here.
ukraine
Celebrated photographer Stephen Shore’s retrospective was a festival favourite. While I have no qualms with the brilliance of Shore’s work, the exhibition was disappointing for me, following a tedious chronology of his oeuvre. Perhaps more interesting connections could have been made by juxtaposing his recent work – such as that make in the Ukraine – with his earlier American Surfaces. Nevertheless, it was a treat to see Shore earlier, more conceptual projects, such as his ‘day in the life of’ narrative: this piece resembled the kind of exercise or visual experiment that might be asked of elementary photography students, to explore creative strategies by making exposures at regular intervals. Interestingly, Shore montage of frames made at 30 minute intervals contained more repetition than one might anticipate and revealed a peculiar mechanistic quality. Again – a simple and strict strategy that when brought together can have a remarkable visual impact and provoke thought.
toon
A project that didn’t go down terribly well was Toon Michiels American Neon Signs By Day and Night, which, as the title suggests, show pairs of American neon signs; one shot during the day, and one shot at night. Perhaps the project would have benefit from more consistent composition across the series, and identical framing of each pair. While some pairs did seem to show considerably different views and environments in the each image, even when switched off these giant monoliths still commanded a dramatic presence and are not really all that less potent as their illuminated partner, which appeared to be the objective of the exercise.
bouetA much more light-hearted body of work, but which seemed to have universal appeal, was Thierry Bouët’s Personal Affairs. Bouët contacted the sellers of unusual items on a local classified adverts website. The series of portraits of the sellers with their items might easily have taken a dry typological visual trope, however, the photographer approached each object and individual differently, and designed a tableau unique to the item and its vendor. In many of the images, Bouët captured something of either the burdensome nature of the thing the seller wanted to dispose of or, the reluctance which they harboured at having to get rid of something they are actually quite fond of. While the work is visually witty, and the accompanying stories equally humorous, the project also talks of consumption and our interconnectivity and sense of community through stuff.
Some find briefs and strict shooting approaches restrictive, but I hope these provide good examples of what can be achieved when something is enforced on a project. I’m not promising it will always work, but I suggest embracing it.
What strict strategies or creative formula have worked for you?
[OCA student images by Richard Down and Matt Rosemier]


Posted by author: Jesse

7 thoughts on “Strategies

  • A nice summary of the visit Jesse. This was my first visit to Arles for the Festival and I was impressed by the sheer volume and variety of the work on show. After a fairly intensive two days of viewing and an awful lot of discussion, in and out of the galleries, I can say that I got a lot from it and would recommend fellow students experience it at least once (to say nothing of the beautiful city and the kind weather). By the way, although Richard Brown may have wanted to go to Arles, I’m not sure he would want to take the credit for my photograph.

  • My tutor has recently set me a brief for a re-shoot of an Assignment, suggesting that I produce square images in sets of triptychs. I was really surprised how it changed my way of looking at landscape and what to include in the frame. Thank goodness for iPhone and its apps!

    • Catherine, I find it easier to work in portrait format, for me it’s better for excluding and the rest tends to be negative space.

  • I’ve recently made a trip where weight was a very important factor so I only took my camera with a 50mm. I’m not a trigger-happy photographer so this was a bit challenging as I knew I would have to photograph as if producing panoramas/composite without the security of a tripod, meaning lots of frames, and al, the other technicalities. But it was worth it!

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