Exercise 2.3 Typologies
As i understand it typology is the grouping of classification of items within a certain type. I read it also could be the study of symbols but for photography its the grouping of images containing similar content or the photographer specifically imaging similar subjects. I suspect it might be a good idea if I was to do this for every pair of shoes / boots my other half has and carry the collection of images with me each time we went shopping. However I can't complain as she has been excellent in allowing me to progress my photographic interests which I'm sure is much more expensive.
Sometimes if you see much of the same thing the human brain can become somewhat disinterested, its looking for differences. If you watched too many horror films would you become less scared by them; if you saw too many comedies would your acceptance of slapstick wane and a requirement for more cerebral comedy develop? Looking back at my synopsis of the images produced by Donovan Wylie of the Maze I found myself becoming more intrigued. The article in the guardian below describes Wylie's images as clinical. yes, they were very sterile but I found myself absorbed by them, it made me feel as if I was there and I could feel the despair of someone who was. However I did not feel as if these were a collection of images in the traditional way, more so a journey exploring the surroundings of somewhere unpleasant
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/feb/08/new-topographics-photographs-american-landscapes
Interestingly Lewis Baltz in hs video clip says he feels art is something that you should think about rather than something that is just something interesting to look at; perhaps this is similar to the view of Roland Barthes and his thoughts around an image requiring Punctum rather than just the Studium.
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tateshots-lewis-baltz
"...art needs a viewer else without it, it doesn't exist."
Stephen Shore created a series of images of American and Canadian landscapes in the 70's whilst "on the road" choosing to take them in colour
The images of o buildings, store fronts, even signs. I'd argue that they are specifically or of the typology of landscape, but perhaps urban landscape. In my earlier module People and Place there was an assignment called "A Sense of Place". Its difficult to know whether the images capture the sense of place at each location or simply what Shore wanted to show it as. The images in the main are bereft of people, most are perhaps a bit stark However it seems to have captured elements of the location, a street corner, a building, a sign post, a car park sometimes the inside of a motel room.
However I feel that these are not images he has quickly taken, but that he has developed intimacy with these locations, some of this comes across in these images. At first thought the starkness recedes and a feeling of intimacy comes across.
Nicolas Nixon used large format 8 x 10 on the basis it allowed him to capture a thicker slice of time opposed to a smaller camera capturing thinner slices of time.
Nixon's subject included many types such as school children and ill people in nursing homes
Whilst these are portraits they are not so much posed as captured, more observational but with the subjects knowledge their images were being taken. like Shaw's images above there is a repetition to them but also sufficiently different for the viewer to find interest in each.
Andreas Gursky, a German photographer, has produced sets of images of buildings, storage yards from specific viewpoints that makes the viewer initially question what they are seeing. The distance appears to make the viewer immune to what they are seeing, clearly man made but so distance emotion seems to have deserted the images, not so much sterile but busy. There is enough here to interest the eye and for it to search and explore and wonder but I as the view feel a sense of detachment.
For those that may not recall Gursky's name I've displayed an image below that many will be familiar with:
I believe this image of the Rhine was displayed in a gallery at the size of 2 by 3.5 meters and draw some interesting responses from the public. I do find an interest in this image with the texture of grass, path, water, and sky (does this have a texture?) and of course the symmetry with the thin slice of grass across the river and that of the grey path. I almost feel the texture and movement of water or wind across the top of it in contrast to the other elements within the image. I wonder what i would feel had i viewed this up close and the size originally printed
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