dream and do

nothing

and

nothing

and

no one

and

no one
not even you

can bring me down

21 weeks until my journey

to

I c e l a n d

and that is all

for now

I am happy

familiar

dream
and
do

The Mugshot - course work

weekly research using library books

While the mugshot was used for police and prison records in the 19^th century, contemporary photographers often use this portraiture style as tool for visual communication. Although its initial use is still in place and as a crucial tool of objective identification of the individual and record keeping, it is also used for creative exploration of ideas, featuring the human face.

Whether it is for record keeping or conceptual image making, the characteristics are the same. It is objective and observant; attention is often drawn to the eyes. The compositions are often repeated and controlled by the photographer according to the different concepts. Lighting and colours are standarised as well as the photographed people; in many cases their personalities are removed. Mugshots are typically studio portraits or as Alex Kayser describes his own work ‘physiognomy studies rather than portraits”.

On a classic mugshot everybody seems equal and not more than a face and its features.

Contemporary photographers have different approaches and even though their images work within the theme of mugshot, there are examples where the viewers are allowed to see behind the face and the intense gaze.

In Bettina von Zwehl’s projects sitters were directed and asked to carry out certain tasks, and the photographer captured their spontaneous feelings and emotions.

“Her subjects wear the same clothes, wearing the same faces, adopt the same poses, face the same lighting conditions. They carry out the tasks she set them; to fall asleep, sit in darkness and silence, to hold their breath, to exercise. She documents reactions.”

Leader, D. (2007) Bettina von Zwehl. Primal Scene Photography. Brighton. Photoworks. p.24

In an interview with Charlotte Cotton she says: ‘”I continue to be fascinated by what appears and disappears in people’s facial expressions if they let go of their photographic ‘mask’ .“

Cotton, C. (2007) Bettina von Zwehl. Interview. Brighton. Photoworks. p.71

In a way her balanced compositions are like experimental studies, presented by intense and aesthetic images.

Her ‘Profiles I’ series broadens the scope of the classic mugshot.

Bettina von Zwehl
Profiles I

The images are arranged in pairs, facing each other yet in separate pictures, looking at each other yet also gazing into the empty non-space between the frames. These portraits make direct reference to the wedding portraits of Frederico da Montefeltro by Piero della Francesca, a painting commissioned by the husband after the death of his wife.

Piero della Francesca

Portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino (c.1470)

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

In each of the pairs the profile is perfectly positioned. The absence of eye contact with the viewer, but the same time linking the two people through their eye contact between the pages is created by the photographer.

Lowry, J. (2007) Bettina von Zwehl. Symptoms, Signs and Surfaces. Brighton. Photoworks. p.41

Rineke Dijkstra’s work is another example of new interpretation of portrayal of human beings. Many of her compositions are mugshots, simply posed images. Her models are calm and reserved; young mothers posing shortly after giving birth, children and young people on the beach or standing by a tree, toreros after bullfight, legionnaire dressed in different uniform on each shot, in various stages of his military career, and a child asylum seeker photographed at irregular intervals. Some of these sitters’ portraits taken after an important event, a difficult action but the faces remain mute.

“The two closely cropped photographic busts of “Tia”, the first taken shortly after the birth of her child and the other five month later, show subtle yet impressive changes in her facial expression, a yar

dstick of the strength and energy that Tia gained in just half a year. The impression of exhaustion, of inner emaciation in the first picture gives way to that of a revitalized, restrained yet radiant woman in the second.”

Stahel, U. (2004) Portraits. Afterwords "After the climax" as a focal element in Rineke Dijkstra's portrait photography. New York. Schirmer/Mosel and D.A.P. p.150

Rineke Dijkstra

Tia

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

June 23 1994                                      14 November 1994

Suzanne Opton’s collections of soldier portraits are striking images of currently serving soldiers and veterans. These are photos of human beings whose lives have been on the line daily and they were willing to share their intimacy with the viewer. Suzanne Opton keeps the uniformity within the shots but placing the model into a different, unusual posture.

The series of American soldiers were displayed on billboards in 8 cities in the United States in 2008-2010 and caused controversy at the time. The faces are still; some stare directly at the viewer and some stare away as if they were dead.

“These American soldiers volunteered to be photographed, but had photographer Suzanne Opton posed them conventionally, or upright, their psychological defenses would have been engaged. As it is, she has successfully disarmed them. Suddenly these young men, trained to kill, seem heartbreakingly vulnerable and defenceless…”

Ewing, W.A. (2006) FACE The New Photographic Portrait. London. Thames & Hudson. p.43

Suzanne Opton
Soldier: Conklin 2005
Soldier: Claxton 2004

Suzanne Opton
Soldier: Jefferson 2005
Soldier: Birkholz 2004

In his project 'Heads', Alex Kayser photographed people from every walk of life. The portraits presented in a manner of classic mugshot, similar to classic police records using tight frames, plain background and uniformed composition. The carefully chosen 184 faces then compiled in a well-presented, black and white book, a catalogue of human physiognomy. His sitters share the same neutral expression; similar look and we look at these headshots as analytic studies.

As we turn the pages and a new face stares at us from every page, we compare different people with the same expression. We notice the differences, in the same time we sense their link to each other. They emerge into one group photo, into one face. In a way this collection reduces everyone to the same creature, a face with two eyes, a nose and a mouth. 

  

In Alex Kayser’s words: “…184 times the same picture.  Only the faces change.”

Kayser, A (1985) Heads, A Conversation with Lyn Mandelbaum and Alan Axelrod. New York. Abberville Press Inc pg.9

Alex Kayser

Stephen Jashijan

New York City:

artist and performer

Alex Kayser

Dean Johnson

New York City:

poet and performance artist;

works at various Lower-East-Side nightclubs,

including Pyramid and Save the Robots

Alex Kayser
Perri Masco,
New York City:
musician 

Alex Kayser
Eido T. Shimano (Roshi Tai San)
New York City:
Zen Buddhist priest, The Zen Studies Society

Alex Kayser
G. C. Smith
New York City:
World War II Air Corps veteran

Winter - Manchester - Holga

recent photos
January is so grey in Manchester

i miss film
and i miss the days when i took more photos for no purpose

See the full gallery on Posterous

Oh...

...hello, I've got a pine tree in my room!

.

king with a  multi-purpose crown

collodion wetplate (previous blog)

The body as object of medical research - course work

research using articles via e-resources

Medical illustrations have been made for thousands of years and mainly used as documentation, offering accurate records of the body, identifying patients’ condition and diseases, helping medical research, diagnosis and teaching.

Originally drawings, eventually photography has grown to be an important aid of medical recording.

On clinical images, the human body has been used as an object, controlled and placed into various positions. People, even when their face included, are anonymous, many illustrations are unisex. In most cases patients can not be identified. This is due to that only their body parts and innards shown or because of the range of imaging devices and technologies are used for the captures.  This is not always camera but x-ray, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, and other sophisticated machines. The development of new way of imaging techniques over the years has resulted in the ability to break down the human body into tissues, bones or even its smallest cells. Many times the body is not shown as a whole. People are often shown in their most vulnerable state, fighting diseases, opened up during surgery, unconscious or even dead.

Medical research and teaching need this level of objectivity and representation because it helps the understanding and the development of science and patient care.

Pituitary tumour as an enlarged
 mass in the brain of a 48 year-old female patient
Source: Wellcome Images

X- ray, Barium meal
Source: Wellcome Images

The human body is a fascinating environment and many clinical photographers’ work cross the line of science and art.  While keeping their educational values, with great artistry and sensitive representation, they come closer to documentary art. 

Lennart Nilsson

www.lennartnilsson.com

Lennart Nilsson, pioneering medical photographer, was born in Sweden, in 1922. Nilsson started out as a photojournalist during the mid 1940s. During the 1950s, he began to experiment with new photographic techniques using microscopes. In 1965, his groundbreaking work, The Drama of Life Before Birth, was the cover story of Life magazine, introducing the public to unprecedented views of prenatal life, surprising in their clarity and immediacy. He followed his experiments with photography and light microscopy with his use of a scanning electron microscope.

Giant Steps 2008, RPS Journal, 148, 4, pp. 150-155, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 21 January 2012

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His book, A Child is Born, telling the story of conception to birth. Nilsson's photographs were arguably the most important images of the 20th century, shedding new light on human life. First published in 1965, A Child is Born has stayed in print ever since.

Smyth, D 2010, A Child is Born, British Journal Of Photography, 157, 7783, p. 18, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 21 January 2012

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Source: www.lennartnilsson.com

Participating in medical research and documentation of procedures also turned some non-clinical photographers to this exciting branch of photography.

Max Aguilera-Hellweg

http://maxaguilerahellweg.com

Max Aguilera-Hellweg spent some twenty years working as a photojournalist for Roiling Stone, The New York Times and Life. Then, one day in 1989, he was thrown violently by his horse and had to be operated. While convalescing, a magazine gave him an assignment, a series of photos of a surgeon at work. The experience was a revelation. Over the years that followed, Aguilera-Hellweg photographed some sixty surgical operations. In 1997, the results were published as The Sacred Heart. The photos are stunning. All were made following the same formal protocol: the operating theater is dark, with a beam of light revealing only the part of the body being operated on and the hands of the surgeon and his team. The powerful light seems to freeze the open flesh and blood, creating a baroque, Caravaggesque atmosphere. Some of the images are especially moving, such as the ones showing the separation of two newborn Siamese twins and the operation on a fetus with spin bifida. Each photo comes with a text describing the operation for the layman. The most compelling texts are the artist's own accounts of his experience. Some of his descriptions are even harder to take than the most brutally raw images, but there is always a huge respect for humanity.

Leydier, R, & Penwarden, C 2006, Max Aguilera-Hellweg, le coeur sacré / Opening the Sacred Heart /, Art-Press, 323, pp. 48-49, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 21 January 2012.

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Source: www.maxaugilerahellweg.com

Theodore Wan

Theodore Wan, medical photographer and artist’s intriguing series of medical photographs, completed in 1979. The large format, black and white photographs mimic the technical precision and visual codes of medical illustration, staging actual diagnostic or preparatory procedures associated with surgery, with the artist himself positioned as the patient.  In addition to being medical illustrations these photographs also functioned as art – specifically, by Wan’s own account, as self-portraiture, and as a form of self investigation. Wan’s photographs are both art objects, a new kind of self-portraits, and teaching aids. His body is being constrained and manipulated into surgical positions, bombarded with x-rays and subjected to the judgment of others. The way he is feminising his body on some of his images is curious and raises the question of sexual orientation.

There are also a number of photographs of Wan alone, and with others, in front of a large grey and white minimalist grid that functioned a photographic backdrop. As such, it is functioned as a pointed reference to the Lamprey system of anthropometric photography for purposes of racial classification, but which also has medical applications.

Conley, C 2008, 'Theodore Wan and the Subject of Medical Illustration', RACAR: Revue D'art Canadienne/Canadian Art Review, 33, 1/2, pp. 14-27, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 21 January 2012.

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Source: cited publication

Wellcome Centre Medical Image Gallery:
'X-Ray vision' 1997, British Journal Of Photography, 7122, pp. 20-22, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 21 January 2012.

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.

"my soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child;
its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same.
everything interests me, but nothing holds me.
i attend to everything, dreaming all the while
i'm two, and both keep their distance
- siamese twins that aren't attached"

[fernando pessoa: the book of disquiet]

selfportrait

do u know who i am

budapest

college work

This project is about humans' consciencious and unconsciencious facial expression.

My original idea was simply to compare the smiling and not smiling face and its physical appearance and effects visually. However, after research about expressions, both controlled and spontaneous, inspiration from Bettina von Zwehl's work, and further more, my personal experience during the photoshoot, selection and the edit of final photos, led me to a more complex observation and conclusion.

I understand that the stimuli for genuine and pretented expressions are coming from different parts of the brain. I also believe that there is always one 'real face' at a time and the others are used for hiding the real emotion a person feels at that particular moment, for the purpose of deceive or manipulate other people or even the person himself. 

This project is an observation about humans, including myself, and comparison represented through two simple images of each person. Although it might appear as a cold and over-objective study, I strongly feel it is an intimate and understanding approach.

Snapshots of people I approached on the street for photos. With pairing the two images the black and white represents the person's 'acted' face and the colour version shows the real mood I felt they were at the moment of the quick photoshoot.

I might be wrong though; we can never really look into strangers or even people we think we know well.

 

Once again, I thank these kind people for their help and willingness to take part in this small project.

Bettina von Zwehl - http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/main.html

The Artist by Michael Hazanavicius

My first cinema visit in 2012 was to see The Artist and surely it is one of the best film experiences I've ever had. I love the fact that a very well made silent movie can be such a big success in our [ridiculously too loud] time.

Seriously recommended!

budapest and me

summer 2011

heatwave

Ólafur Arnalds - Rain

Sóley - Read your book

I swim too far, fly too high
I forgot to say goodbye
I read your book with my eye
it was fun, but still i cry
I throw it out, in your head
keep it there, while you're sad

about our photosmile

While I was reading about Bettina von Zwehl, one of my inspirations for my latest college project, I found a description that I really love in her book:

"And looking into a camera lens involves, at some level, summoning the meaning of the resulting photograph's existence throughout time and beyond our selves. At that point of exposure we not only confront the camera but also the probability of every subsequent encounter with our image: we imagine every look, we sense a possible infinity of looking at that momentary self we are about to offer.  We smile, in some ways, as a defence against this burden of knowing, to lighten the moment, to protect ourselves against time."

Chandler, D (2007) Introduction, Photoworks

Bettina von Zwehl: http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/main.html

the looking glass

If you had just one chance to take a look through the Looking Glass

To see the truth for one brief instant, would you take it?

Do you use it to look at the past or look at the future?
Would you look at yourself or look at the ones you love?
Would you share it with another or would you keep it a secret?
What if you were the Looking Glass?
What if everyone were just like you?
What if their lies were your lies?
Their loves your loves?

What then?
Would you lay aside ignorance and prejudice?
Would you stand up and fight for what you believe in?Would you pick it up or would you put it down?

The Looking Glass

lady, i'm thanking you

One of the reasons I started my photography course is to be pushed by challenges and try myself with projects I wouldn't dare and think to do otherwise.  Our latest task is to photograph people, which I want to do more eventually, but I haven't got much experience with yet.  They couldn't be self-portraits or candid shots because we had to interact with people.  I never had the nerve to ask strangers on the street to model for my camera...up until last weekend. I had to go out, approach people and observe the situation, myself and of course them. It was all about the experience and reflecting on it. I had a fantastic afternoon, however nerve wrecking is.  I will post some more photos later with my statement, when it is written at some point, that will explain the idea behind the shots. For now, before processing all, I'm posting a photo of this very kind and beautiful lady, just to say how great that there are some people out there who are willing to play. :)

Flies and other objects

Throughout the centuries, living and deceased flora and fauna, and even the human body, have always been a subject for observation.

This curious need is shown widely from 19^th century botanical drawings, the early photographs of natives of the colonised countries, to contemporary images and illustrations by scientists and artists.

My research had led me to Camille Soyague, whose images gave me direction when I was searching for a way of presenting my own collection of lifeless creatures. My fascination lies within their timelessness and stillness; their now muted lives have passed their death and they function as objects. Objects to observe, ready to be examined, displayed, collected and used for various purposes.  I find this natural and necessary transformation tragic, yet romantic and I intend to represent this with my images.

This project is about looking at these natural forms and shapes as they now are, afterlife.