Light letdown

Looking down Grainger Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

The light was a letdown this weekend. It was bright enough to do some photography but a little sunshine would have been nice. As it was, i didn't take as many images as i thought, so another trip up north may be called for later in the year.

Carrying on from the work shot at the end of February, more images were taken down by the Quayside and at the very atmospheric All Saints Church that i came across while strolling around earlier in the year. I concentrated on photographing the worn antique gravestones with the 6x6 Bronica SQAi - the textures on the headstones were fantastic. One very worn and battered headstone i photographed dated all the way back to 1796.

I've decided that next time I'm up in Newcastle, I'll be using just a single small camera - possibly my Nikon F3HP. I had too much gear with me this time - my Billingham's weight was particularly noticeable on the climb up the hill to get to the city centre. It keeps me fit i suppose :-)

Access art

Engaging with the public - art on the streets of Norwich

The final line in the previous post asked the question -is it time for photography exhibitions to hit the streets too? The way photography is exhibited has always been something I've tried to understand for years, but I always come back to the fact that galleries lack on one fundamental ingredient - accessibility.

Photography is one of the easiest art forms to do - most people have, at some point in their life, taken a photograph. It is just so easy to do whether you use a pro digital SLR or a throwaway 35mm film camera. Kodak even calculated, a few years ago now, the number of photographs taken on average by a person during their lifetime. For me, this familiarity with photography is not exploited by the galleries. A potential audience, far larger than normal gallery attendance, is waiting out there to engage with and discuss images by all of the master photographers and others. I'm sure Robert Dosineau's, Henri Cartier-Bresson's or Steve McCurry's work would go down a storm with the ordinary viewing public, many of whom probably haven't heard of any of these photographers.

Back in 1996, i had the privilege of working at a photography gallery for two weeks as part of a work experience. The work involved putting together an exhibition for the photographer Clement Cooper who was exhibiting his superb DEEP project. Cooper's work was especially relevant because it focused on issues of race, an important issue then and now. The gallery put together a beautiful display of images, they got good viewing numbers and the images were well received but i always wondered what the reaction would have been if they had been displayed outside of the gallery environment. I did notice a number of people walk towards the gallery door, hesitate and then walk away. The reason was summed up by a friend who waited outside for me one lunchtime. 'Why didn't you come in and have a look?' i asked. 'I didn't like to - i might not understand it' he replied. The perceived intimidating atmosphere of art galleries doesn't help one bit and i think that it actively stops people from looking in. I believe that this 'atmosphere' of art exclusivity is a contributing factor to the closure of many galleries. People want to look but dare not enter in case some fine art 'luvvie' makes them look stupid.

The sad fact is most of the general public have probably never been to see a photography exhibition. Photographic galleries are usually only visited by a certain section of interested individuals who love art or photography. Imagine the cross section of ordinary people that you could reach with an exhibition in a city centre, busy tourist location or shopping mall. Potentially thousands rather than just hundreds could see the images.... and that's what we want... right????

Outside art

Elephant art on the streets on Norwich, Norfolk, UK

Over the summer, I've come across a couple of public art exhibitions that have really impressed me. Both exhibitions were held on the streets of two UK cities and the public response to them has been fantastic....and fascinating to watch.

The image above was taken in Norwich back in July. The elephant was one of 53 positioned at various locations in the centre of the city for a period of just over two months. The elephants have now been removed and will be auctioned on the 23rd of this month for The Born Free Foundation and CLIC Sargent charities.

The second public art exhibition was in York where some of the world's most famous paintings have been displayed on the streets. The Grand Tour in York is described as a 'celebration of great art and the great buildings of York brought together in the historic capital of the North'. Although these exhibits were weatherproof copies of originals, the size, colour and power of these paintings attracted great number of passers by to stop and view these masterpieces. It really was art engaging with a mass audience.

Here are two brilliant summer exhibitions that have benefited from being out there in the real world. Who knows... maybe someone will have been inspired by these works to become an artist themselves. Time for photography exhibitions to hit the streets too?

Lost in thought

Tourists at Sandringham, Norfolk, UK

Avoiding attention is essential when taking photographs like this one. Everyone had their own pose, some of them were obviously lost in thought and i didn't want to loose that. I quickly put the Bronica SQAi camera onto my lap, took the prism off, as though i was cleaning it, and focused the camera using the focusing screen only. I pressed the shutter button and bingo.... the photograph taken and no-one any the wiser that they were in it.

Wonder years

This photograph dates from my early years as an enthusiastic amateur photographer. I came across it during a negative filing session which made me think back to my pre college photography. The photograph was taken in Chester in 1991, where a remarkable disabled man was using his feet to draw a picture. The wonderful little girl was just enthralled by the whole scene, she just stood and watched with an intense fascination as this fantastic artist finished his drawing. It's amazing to think that this little girl will be in her early twenties now!

I've suddenly realised that my early photographic work is starting to knock on a bit. My first really good photographs started to arrive in 1991, when my camera shooting, film choice and darkroom skills were steady enough to produce good results. I was just 19 years old when i took this photograph and yet 17 years have gone by since i took this image. How time flies..... it makes me wonder how I'll feel about my work when it's forty or fifty years old.

Profile: Henri Cartier-Bresson

By the Marne River, 1938 - Image by Henri Cartier-Bresson

After a break last month, the blog’s photographer profile series comes back with one of photography’s most important characters. This photographer has been influential in the taking of images and the thought processes/philosophy behind the camera. We are, of course, looking at the one and only - Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born on August 22nd 1908 at Chantheloup, Seine & Marne in France. He was born in a wealthy Norman family who had major interests in the textile business. Henri's education was quite extensive with him painting at Cambridge for one year and studying with the cubist Andre Lhote. He travelled extensively, going around Europe, The United States and Africa. During this period of his life, Cartier-Bresson was a painter. ‘Before I met Robert Capa and David (Chim) Seymour, I didn't know any photographers’ he once explained ‘ I was living with writers and painters more than photographers’. This varied artistic background provides the explaination why Cartier-Bresson was so influential in photography. He wasn’t just interested in photography but had many other outlets for his creativity. It is rather ironic then, that Henri Cartier-Bresson's name will be forever connected to photography, a medium that he took up with an artistic curiosity and a surrealist attitude.

By the time that Cartier-Bresson had met David 'Chim' Seymour and Robert Capa, he had had work exhibited in Mexico and Madrid. The early 1930’s marked the birth of photo-journalism. The politics of the day were varied, and often extreme. The birth of the popular front in France also coincided with that of photo journalism. The left bank cafes of Paris during the 1930's were arenas for passionate debates on political doctrine. Cartier-Bresson has stated that when Capa, Chim and himself talked in the Café du Dome it was NEVER about photography… always about politics. Magazines had started to pick up on the political changes going on in France and elsewhere in Europe. These magazines were important instruments for persuading the masses about political issues and making social comment on how people lived. Photography was used to educate and the photo-journalism was the perfect method to spread the message. It was an exciting period for photography that was to be interrupted by the breakout of war in 1939. Henri Cartier-Bresson was drafted into the French army in 1939 and served as a corporal in the army’s film and photo unit until he was captured in 1940. He was sent to Germany, ending up as part of the slave labour force working in a factory. During his time as a prisoner of war, he attempted escape three times, only being successful on the third attempt in 1943. Getting back to Paris, Henri joined the resistance where he formed a covert photographic unit to document the German occupation. To avoid the attention of the Gestapo, Cartier-Bresson would pose as an absent minded painter who only had time for his painting.

After the liberation of Paris, Henri was able to work on a number of projects including photographing General De Gaulle’ parade through Paris and a film called ‘Le Retour’, a documentary film about the liberation of the concentration camps. It was during this time that his famous ‘ unmasking of a collaborator’ was taken. Later Cartier-Bresson would disclose that he wanted to return to painting after the war but had felt that he needed to witness and record the events in the world with something quicker than a brush. Like Robert Capa and the other photographers who were to help form Magnum, Cartier-Bresson had been immensely frustrated by the lack of control over his work. In 1947 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David ‘Chim’ Seymour and George Rodger started the Magnum agency; each of them assigning a part of the world that they would cover. Ironically, Henri had been in the USA just a year earlier,coming across to finish a posthumous exhibition started when the New York museum of modern art believed he was missing, presumed dead. The early post war years saw Henri Cartier-Bresson travel through China, India and the Asia. After extensively travelling he returned to work in Europe during the early 1950’s. A trip to the Soviet Union was organised in 1954, although Henri was limited in what he could take due to the nature of the regime there. For the next twenty years, Cartier-Bresson continued to travel, taking images in Japan, India and Cuba but in 1966 he made the decision to leave the Magnum photo agency. He did agree, however, that the agency should still distribute his work to the press Film. A number of exhibitions and commisions followed, including a couple of films for the CBS in the United States.

All throughout his career, Henri Cartier-Bresson remained as much a philosopher of photography as he was an actual photographer. His decisive moment philosophy has become an important part of photographic theory - simply put the decisive moment is an exact timed moment when the photograph will work at its best. "Photography is not like painting," Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever." In 1973, Henri decided to concentrate on his drawing and painting but he continued to take images throughout the rest of his life. He died in 2004 at the age of 95. His legacy is one of the most powerful of all the pioneering photographers. His images still retain a fresh and dynamic look all these years later and his photographic philosophy is still followed and practiced by many photographers... myself included. Henri Cartier-Bresson remains popular all these years later and he currently has several books of images and writing in print. For me though, his most revealing thoughts about photography hit directly on why i make photographs. Two reflect my thoughts about photography and being a photographer perfectly.

'We photographers deal in things that are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth to bring them back.We cannot develop and print a memory'.

'As far as i am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's originality. It is a way of life'.

All Images by Henri Cartier-Bresson

• Top left - Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1972 - Image by Martine Franck/Magnum
• Middle right - Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1958
• Middle left - An informer is reconised by a woman she has denounced: Dessau, Germany, 1945
• Bottom right - Behind the Saint-Lazare station, Paris, 1932
  

Weblinks

• Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation
• Magnumphoto.com/Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Henri Cartier-Bresson portraits
• Afterimage gallery/ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Books

• Henri Cartier-Bresson: Landscape/Townscape
• Henri Cartier Bresson - The Decisive Moment e-book

Cowboys and Indians

Street performers in York entertain the crowds

The shot above was taken today in the centre of York. The diversity of entertainment on the city's streets is superb. The band were all dressed in their colourful costumes and played wonderfully atmospheric music to a big audience. It was a pleasure to just stop and watch them for ten minutes. It made me wonder whether we need some crumby TV show on British television to prove that Britain has got talent! Go onto the streets of York (and most British cities) and you'll find it.

The Indians were great but the trip to my 'favourite' photo retailer proved (yet again) a 50% failure. They had the film developer (which contradicts what they said back in October 2007 when i asked for some) but NO 120 film archival storage sleeves. Frustrating to say the least. I found it equally amazing that one member of staff should recommend to me that i order the item online.

This isn't exactly the best way to keep a shop open on the high street; when customers can bypass the shop floor and order things online. Cut the shop staff out of the equation and what's left for them to do. No wonder they closed so many shops with the loss of 550 jobs last summer. Just keeping a few items in stock would make a whole lot of difference.

Morris major

Music for the Morris dancers - Sheringham, Norfolk

I don't often post portraits but this one works really well. It was a candid shot taken at the Lobster Potty Morris dancing festival held in Sheringham, Norfolk. Morris dancers, from all over the UK and Europe, come to display the various styles of dancing at the festival which has been on the calender as an annual event since 1994.

Sadly, i can't remember where in Britain this accordion player and his Morris dancer mates came from, but you have to admit that he certainly looks the part. There is almost a rock'n roll ethic to Morris dancing; it attracts a certain type of person who doesn't want to conform to the norm. I rather admire them. They enjoy what they do and they have a sense of purpose - to carry the traditions of Morris dancing onto the next generation. Most of all they have fun - you don't see many miserable Morris dancers. Would i have a go? Hmm.... if an offer came in at the right time and in the right place... yes i probably would. :-)

I do like the more relaxed 'documentary' approach candid photography offers. It's becoming far more acceptable as people move away from the posed look of the sat portrait; I've noticed that I'm increasingly asked to photograph people using candid portraiture when working on commissions. Capturing them 'doing what they do' seems to be becoming much more fashionable these days.