Part 2 Landscape as a Journey - Exercise 2.2: Explore a Road

Exercise 2.2: Explore a Road

Part 1 

This is a short series of photographs about a road near where I live. The road I've chosen is the road that joins the road where I live to Ruardean, the next village. Strangely this road doesn't have a name, Its a country road. The objective is to try to think about something about this road that is familiar to you in a different way.

Thinking ahead to the film I've selected I've created a number of images that I've processed in way I see as representative of the film The Road. I've achieved this by under exposing a full stop, converting to mono and then toning the image. Whilst this is a road I'm very familiar with and know its bends and dips / climbs very well my processing has been to give a slight dangerous and unknown edge to the road; to make it look a bit intimidating whether driving along it or walking it.

This is a very interesting approach and I've quite enjoyed making this set of images; especially being able to include a slight sinister element within the images. It will be interesting how others see these images.

Part 2

I'm asked to watch one of the films mentioned in in my course notes (or it could also be any other ‘road movie’ of my choice. Write a short review (around 500 words), focusing on how the road features within the film’s narrative.

 I've chosen "The Road" which is based on the book of the same name by the American author Cormac McCarthy. I've chosen this because its a DVD I have in my collection and a film I've watched at least 3  times previously and have enjoyed the story it tells. The book interestingly won McCarthy a Pullitzer prize for fiction in 2007.

As an overview of the film it’s about a father and young son making a journey on foot from their home toward the coast. However some apocalyptic event has already happened and the landscape the travel is a wasteland. This type of story exists in many films including the Mad Max series, The Book of Eli, I am Legend, and 28 Days Later/ 28 Weeks Later. This theme is also explored in the very popular game series Fallout. Whilst a road is not specifically followed for the whole journey for many parts of the film the main characters of the film are seen journeying along a road. During the film the story leading up to their journey is loosely explained though the reason for apocalyptic event is not explained.

The journey in prior to the apocalyptic event would, I think, be a fairly easy journey for the two travellers using either their own vehicle of public transport. Certainly taking provisions with them from their home for the journey and / or obtaining them along the way or at their destination would be a given. Instead the journey is portrayed as very difficult in terms of avoiding other scavenging people sometimes operating in gangs, and themselves having to scavenge for food a drink. A particular point in the film is made of the boy drinking a cola drink. He was born after the apocalyptic event but had never tasted a fizzy drink before, something he would most certainly have done had this event not occurred. 

It’s quite a harrowing film but the essence for me is that shows how easily things we can take for granted could easily change in the future and how hard it is just to survive in such conditions. Of course given the name of the book / film there are many scenes showing the father and son travelling along the road and other people, good, bad and indifferent they come into contact with. 

The film had a gritty feel and you could very easily empathise with main characters and feel their pain of what they encountered along the journey; you really wanted to complete their journey unharmed. It also shows the depths of depravity that some people will sink to in order to survive. I don't want to reveal any more about this film other than to say I found it rewarding, harrowing, emotional and perhaps scary of you think of it as potential future and its one that's believable without too much imagination. I've now watched this about 4 times and it still gives me the same feelings, a sense of despair and possible hope, but mostly despair. The book gets mixed reviews but it could one I would choose to read if I get chance

A road for all of us is a method from getting from one location to another and its taken for granted that we will achieve our goal with no or little disruption. If travelling by car its also an effortless journey.

The story shows how much more aware the travellers' have to be and how dangerous it is for a number of reasons. Given the previous exercise this aligns in that we need to take note and be aware of things that we might normally take for granted or simply not notice.

Looking at Nadav Kander's images from her set " In Yangtze - The Long River" there is a remoteness to the images she has captured. In some there are people, or signs of people but they are made to feel, in my interpretation, as if they don't belong, even in the ones where a hint at humour is seen. "Man" appears to pale in comparison to the scenes they are captured in. This theme in the film The Road also comes through, man is seen to be struggling in a hostile environment. Whilst the struggle is not so apparent in Kander's images, they do not portray man as being in harmony, and the feeling desolation and corruption where present is man made; likely that is also the case in the film The Road.

In our life's journey the same could apply and for a multitude of reasons some things we notice and pay attention to and some we don't. Its certainly an adventure and also one in which we encounter struggles, decisions and difficulties.

This review has helped me formulate some ideas for how I choose to approach Assignment 2

The Mississippi - An Interview with Alec Soth

The Mississippi - An Interview with Alec Soth

Seesaw, the online photography magazine published an interview with Alec Soth. I've detailed the link below for anyone else to read and enjoy:

http://seesawmagazine.com/soth_pages/soth_interview.html

I've detailed below my thoughts around the interview based on the exchange between hom and the interview and the very interesting points he made or at least thoughts that struck a chord with me

Like many successful photographers, a career photography was not Soth's first choice. Interestingly Soth claims photography is not really capable of having a story even though it may have narrative. As interviewer points often the narrative in a photograph is ambiguity and this is something my Landscape tutor has also pointed out to me. Perhaps this way that story in the photograph is different for each viewer and for a variety of reasons. Could this be like picking up a story book but there are big gaps or empty pages so you make some of the story up?

However Soth's work in his first book "Sleeping by the Mississippi" his work is described as fragments of a dream with no clear connectivity or viewing order. Soth through self experienced story claims that many great photographs are not necessarily created by great photographers but by luck, being in the right place at the right time, or perhaps the right place and the right time to capture the right moment. However I think he claims the more difficult element is putting together the images so that they become a collection and are stronger as a collection than their individual worth. 

This is quite an interesting point, whilst i have produced "sets" of images as part of my earlier modules I suspect these sets of images are in fact  images linked by a specific theme but remaining very rigid to the original brief and I've developed my intention sufficiently.

Soth's reasons for selecting the MidWest as the location for his images is because he feels an affinity with the area. This is important perhaps when trying to but a piece of yourself into the images, they take on a new level and the images have an emotional attachment for you.

Its an interesting concept that each image have a loose connection with the previous and the next image, however loose or vague that may be.

Looking through the images shown in the magazine I see there is a story of some kind waiting to be discovered or elaborated within what he has captured.

Looking through these images you can see how Soth really does like to create a story within his images. Whilst i do find the images very static there is a lot in the image to entertain my mind; there is something to discover, something to contemplate, something to imagine.

Earlier in the interview he speaks about his work being like poetry, the images having a repeatable rhythm. he also talks about photography being almost investigative, discovering something.

I find this interview, particularly Soth's way of describing his work, his vision etc very interesting. His images in this set also align with some feedback from my tutor for Assignment.....include or create some ambiguity within the images. Soth would say create a story, make a set that has a rhythm but don't make it too obvious to obvious. 

What I take mostly from this article is to be observant and use what is there to enable a story to be started, to have a flow within the images. It will be interesting to see how I can do this and how close I come to what reaching what I aspire to.

Part 2 Landscape as a Journey Exercise 2.1 "Territorial Photography"

Exercise 2.1 "Territorial Photography"

For other students looking for this essay I found it here in the OCA Student forum:

http://www.oca-student.com/resource-type/course-resource/landscape-and-power

Joel Snyder's essay entitled "Territorial Photography" introduces photography and advances in printing during the mid to late 19th century as being "precise, accurate and faithful!" to the scene captured by the camera. I see this as being opposed to methods of capturing landscapes such as drawing and painting where perhaps the artist may have been seen to have a greater opportunity of artist interpretation, particular the common theme of pictorialism" during this period. The key difference discussed was photography was mechanically and therefore more trusted to be a reflection of reality.

One of the challenges for photographers of this period was according to Snyder two fold:

1. "how to make a picture resolutely photographic yet";

2. "beautiful and stunning and attractive"

Carleton Watkins merged "technical virtuosity", for its time, with both the "picturesque and sublime modes of landscape depiction.

Watkins took up photography by chance when working in a store close to the studio of Robert Vance and due to a vacancy took over the running of the studio

Carleton Watkins - Magenta Flume

In the image I've selected depicts what appears to be a roller coaster styled log flume for moving logs quickly and efficiently down the hillside. Carleton's technical photographic prowess included the use of "mammoth" photographic negative plates. These were produced using his stereoscopic camera and the images when viewed in a binocular fashion brought "the images" alive.

Following from assignment 1 there is a definite touch of the sublime in this image in the capture of what looks like a formidable and practical engineering feat. The scale of the construction can be easily understood and appreciated when viewing the buildings in the bottom left of the image emphasising the sense of scale. In addition we have a landscape image far removed from pictorialism and the placement of the flume in the frame gives a great sense of perspective and depth to the scene. The construction material of the flume very evident and its impact on the nearby surroundings likely a result of the materials required for its construction. Snyder states in his essay that Watkins " managed to anaesthetize and overwhelm the apparently ugly or non-natural by plying man made designs against a ruined environment. Whilst Snyder specifically associates this with Watkin's images of mining scenes his words are very apt in relation to the image I have used to example Watkins work.

Timothy H O'Sullivan began a career in photography aged 18 at the start of the Civil war. & years later Snyder credits him with photography most of the Civil War battlefields and was regarded as one of the best field photographers in the country during this war.

Timothy H O'Sullivan - Field Where General Reynolds Fell, Gettysburg

Snyder details that O'Sullivan's images "portray a bleak inhospitable land, a god forsaken anaesthetising landscape.", denying the viewer of being able to see a positive relationship between humans and the landscape.

O Sullivan was not producing images for large audience and therefore able to produce images much diverse from mainstream. Critics have described his work as not confirming to any specific genre, perhaps as Snyder suggests embracing what is known as within the Modernism genre.  Rosalind Krauss as I have read in an earlier exercise suggested his work neither belonged in a museum or gallery but of a scientific value. Personally I would O'Sullivan's work as more landscape documentary. In the image I've used above it documents events at Gettysburg but the scene encompasses expanse of the field, appropriately titled. This image demonstrates Snyder's view that O'Sullivan's work disassociated man with the landscape, the remnants of man's disputes left as in-compassionate blots on the landscape, very much the anti-thesis of "pictorialism".

Snyder's description of how O'Sullivan "staged" the scene for the image " Sand Dunes near Carson City" and how the early impressions of landscape photography was its ability to truly reflect a scene, this still remains true but elements of the scene as in this image have been created by man to full fill the purpose of of the image required.

I've enjoyed reading Snyder's essay, though in parts I've found it difficult to fully understand. However he clearly demonstrates using 2 of the photographers I've used above, to show how some landscape photographers diversified from traditional pictorialistic landscape genres following both a technological approach with Watkins stereoscopic a camera, and a dysotopian view at times from O'Sullivan demonstrating with his images a dissociation between man and landscape.