For this section of the environment unit, we are again required to pastiche one of three images, and then come up with three images of our own. For the conceptual approach for our own three image we have been directed to our own representation of the 'urban space'.
I have begun rather unclear as to what approach I would like to make for an 'urban space', but my starting point very much revolves around London and particularly, London at night. I have chosen this as my starting point as I have always had a fascination with large cities, for me London in particular as it was the one I visit most frequently. As my Father was born and raised in London, and my Grandparents still reside there, I visited London most frequently as a child, always fascinated buy the city, and the treasures it held, but not just the surface, material attractions. Despite how frequently I have been to London growing up, I never really went to the tourist attractions, as my Father was raised in central London those sites held no appeal to him, so we always explored different sections of the city when I visited my Grandparents, and as a I child I loved in particular to gaze out of the car window on the journeys home, at night, as it never seems to sleep.
This notion of childish wonder began my idea of exploring London, particularly at night, but the idea had no direction, just a vague visual style, but the work of Rut Blees and her series Luxemburg was briefly shown in a lecture and her visual style was incredibly striking to me.
She shot all of her Luxemburg series at night using very long exposures in order to draw on the ambient lighting only of all the different sections of the street, lamp posts, window lights etc.
She took the entire series in Swansea, yet they are barely recognisable as a representation of that specific place. She explored both the minute details in areas, and in other entire flat blocks, but her use of lighting and the colours she drew upon transform them into something else entirely, almost like a dreamlike version, or a parallel universe of the places she visited.
This visual style where the ordinary urban space becomes this beautiful, vivid and fairy tale world was an idea I found most appealing, as it followed my starting notion of the fairy tale, the fascination, but not in the rose tinted childish manner I began with, but a more solid idea of a parallel world we take for granted.
As much as this visual style has inspired me, and the message behind it however, I still find my idea merely a notion, an attempt at 'something pretty' and nothing more unless I could define my fascination, so I turned away from London, and looked at the other cities that fascinated me.
I have visited several other cities, and again felt fascinated by them, but I found myself thinking of fictional cities more and more, the most predominant ones that came to mind was:
Fritz Lang's Metropolis
Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira
Ridley Scott's Blade Runner
I am drawn to these fantasy cities, all of which depict a future city, they all fall into the Sci-Fi genre, but as I thought about these crazy, dense and future cities, I began to realise, that in today, these cities are very much in existence, there is no difference between them when you look at them from this distance, if you view them at night the cities atmosphere can appear alive with the bright and wondrous artificial lights coming from every possible direction, they are appear quite stunning, but they are all essentially the same, and that applies to our current cities as much as these Sci-Fi cities.
London
New York
Tokyo
Upon realising this I question even more what fascinates me about these cities, they all appear rather similar, they all have a 'magic' and atmosphere to them, particularly at night, but why? If they are all so similar surely one would get dismissive after a while of them?
I began thinking of the why, I loved these fictional cities, mainly because of the story set within them, and as I love the story I begin to love the city in which it is set, and gain almost a familiarity to this city through.
Thinking back to London I began sectioning off in my mind where I had been, what do I love most, and why?
I enjoy wondering around the typical places like Oxford street and Covent Garden, but I always found exlporing the alley ways filled with record shops in Soho far more fun and intriguing.
Andre Kertesz
Today (Wednesday 17/11/11) we where given a lecture on the 'The City' by our environment tutor Steffi Klenz, looking at photographer's and their different responses to the city, starting from the earliest of city photographers.
Many of these photographers had works quite intriguing but the first I will look into for my project is Andre Kertesz, a hungarian photographer, or to be more specific photojournalist, who fled hungary immigrating to Paris and then in 1936 to the United States out of fear of the growing Nazi persecution of Jews and early signs of WWII.
This photograph, Meudon, was taken in 1928 during Kertesz' time in France.
Kertesz was a particular type of photographer, as stated at the start of Daniele Sallenave's book on Kertesz, it states:
"An idea in vogue has it that the artist must necessarily be in opposition to his language, that he has to force it, constrain it, and twist its syntax in order to mould it to his own design. However, another definition of art is perhaps not only possible but more accurate- that the real artist is someone who has been able, through patient work or with immediate insight, to discover the profound nature of the language he has chosen and its laws, and to fully exploit its forms of expression, from the most obvious to the most hidden."
Kertesz was very much a product of this second type of artist, as with this photograph Meudon, the location intrigued him, and he knew he could see something there, it was a lower class and poverty ridden area of Paris. Kertesz came to that area and that location on many occasions and waited great lengths of time, until he understood it, until he saw what he was looking for, the right moment.
Much like Kertesz' other works such as his "New York" taken in 1947, he utilises the straight edges and angles of buildings to create this image of confusion or something unnatural. This confusion and oddity applies to much of his choices in framing and the way he tiers pieces at different perspectives, for instance the train and train track does not appear any further away in perspective than the buildings themselves, as he links the edges of the housing to the train track to subconsciously join the items together in the mind of the viewer.
The oddity also extends to the man in the foreground, as it is clearly a poverty ridden and depressed area, as we can tell from the dirty buildings, the destruction and rubble in the background, and the absence of life or 'hustle and bustle' reinforces that this area has nothing. yet contrasting there is this man in the foreground, in a full suit, well kept and a top hat, we ask, who is he? why is he here? he does not fit into frame as this story of the deprived lower class area suddenly has it's most prominent inhabitant a gentleman? contrasting again to what his attire signifies he is carrying some large form of package, we do not know what this is as it is wrapped, but it is large and cumbersome, and surely a man of wealth would not burden himself with this package? If he has purchased something large and expensive surely it would be delivered?
We cannot answer these questions, but they are clearly present, and that is the essence of this photograph, and Kurtesz' style, he captures the unusual, the complex. Life is a very varied experience, and with the amount of people that inhabit a city the life of the entire city will be incredibly varied and unusual on a day to day basis, and that is what makes Kurtesz so intriguing, he sees and captures these stories, in glimpses of complexities which is a language most adept to describing the nature of a city.
Developing Ideas
As I have searched for a clearer idea of what it is about the city I wish to capture, I have slowly come to the realisation that not a lot has changed. Looking at the work of Alfred Stieglitz in the 1930's, particularly his "Looking Northwest from the Shelton" , cities have not changed much at all for a long time, they are simply a bit denser and taller in areas, so much like I noticed there is not much difference between the cities of the past, present and future. They all contain tall buildings that alone may look staggering, but with as many of them as close together as they are, they lose all value and meaning, but then the presence of more skyscrapers means the presence of more people, does that mean we lose meaning in this too?
This is an area that would end up touching on post-modernism too much and the concept of this project would have to completely change, but then I thought, what of the people?
Going back to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and the street scenes I particularly love the cross culture element, or even "pan culture".There is the Japanese geisha advertised on the skyscraper, there are future versions of the London Punk, or the coined phrase "cyber-punks", you can see Hari Krishna wandering the streets, and if you watch a few documentaries about this film, you will discover that there is also an invented 'city speak' used in this film that is a mixture of German, Spanish, Japanese and a little Hungarian, which is a result of globalisation and the cross culture element ever present in a modern world all blending together.
This was an idea I would really like to explore, that 'pan culture' that is happening alongside these huge cities.
There have always been many different cultures within cities as a result of immigration, which is still a large issue being addressed in England at the moment which has been going on for quite some time, is it good or bad?
For my project though I want to stay clear of the politics and not look at immigration as such, but more out of globalisation, I want to capture that same mad form of cross culture we see in Blade Runner, where different elements of different cultures are all slammed together like it was common place, as though they where all one culture, some would argue that this means the cultures lose their individuality, but I personally see it as a form of acceptance, the culture doesn't change much, it just sits next to another almost, like in the movie still above, the punk walking alongside the Hari Krishna's like there is no difference between them.
In trying to find this unusual cross culture element, where the out of place becomes common place, I will be shooting in Camden Stables Market, London.
The reason I am choosing this location is that, albeit something of a tourist attraction, it is an area crammed with subcultures.
I want to specifically look at the Market Stables as it used to be a hospital for stable horses, and has overtime adapted into a market area, the stalls are all mismatched and darted down what would have been large ramp ways, arches or individuals stalls for horses, and any permanent market stalls have very much adapted their merchandise around their sections and not altered them, so there is a real sense of contrast between the new CD's of fashion on display on old Victorian walls. The cultural aspect intrigues me as well, as the market stalls are predominantly fashion based, but chain companies are not allowed to set up in the market area, which has resulted in a mismatch of your tourist "I love London T-Shirts" next to traditional Indian scarf's and furniture next to extreme Gothic clothing. The area has spurred much in the way of sub culture particularly with the "Gothic" or "Cyber-Punk" groups, overtime it has become quite a tourist attraction and some of the eccentricity and sub culture move away with this, but it still maintains this eccentricity in any new developments to the area and so it is a perfect location to capture this idea of a muddled cross culture.
I went to Camden first with my DSLR, to get a feel for the area and try for some digital test shots to find the best shots to portray my cultural mismatch I want to capture.
I tried finding areas where there where strange samples of different cultures, and styles that did not seem to fit, but yet where all placed together.
Contact Sheets
I returned to Camden on two occasions, shooting hand held on ISO400 Fuji Colour film, with a Bronica SQ-B.
In truth I had many problems with motion blur, as my film was simply not fast enough to shoot handheld in Camden Markets, however it was a compromise made to help my photography go fairly unnoticed as I was able to 'shoot from the hip' around the markets, generally not disturbing the crowd.
Much of my selection was a variation between which shots that where not subject to motion blur but also which ones that seemed to frame my idea of the mismatch culture the most.
My final three shots were the following:
Looking at my idea of the cultural mismatch of a city, and the random chaos that forms them, I picked locations where the where the most oddities in architecture around the market and food court areas. With the first frame it was the contrasts, and 'cut and paste' nature I loved about it, the old Victorian street clock next a set of traffic lights, the traffic lights also being mounted on an alley wall where there are no vehicles to require them. The old stable doors on the left that had become small shops for various clothing, but retaining the intricate designs on the big stable doors.
In the second frame, I chose this location for the chandelier above all else, again it is an alleyway market in Camden, I liked the general mismatch of products on display here, the typical tourist London T-shirts opposite an Egyptian art stall, all crammed in an underpass valley, and the chandelier being the most contrasting aspect, in all it's extravagance, illuminated what would otherwise be a dank looking underpass.
The third frame was a shot taken in one of the many food courtyards, with every type of food of the world displaying their neon signs next to one another. The focus I chose for this shot was of course the Indian themed seating area, that looks more like it belongs in an elaborate garden, yet it is smacked next to countless cheap fast food stalls.
In truth I would have liked my colours far more saturated and in a higher contrast to emphasise the idea of the cultural 'wonders' the city holds, but in terms of my film choice I had to go with a faster film to enable the handheld aspect of this photography.
Andre Kertesz
Today (Wednesday 17/11/11) we where given a lecture on the 'The City' by our environment tutor Steffi Klenz, looking at photographer's and their different responses to the city, starting from the earliest of city photographers.
Many of these photographers had works quite intriguing but the first I will look into for my project is Andre Kertesz, a hungarian photographer, or to be more specific photojournalist, who fled hungary immigrating to Paris and then in 1936 to the United States out of fear of the growing Nazi persecution of Jews and early signs of WWII.
This photograph, Meudon, was taken in 1928 during Kertesz' time in France.
Kertesz was a particular type of photographer, as stated at the start of Daniele Sallenave's book on Kertesz, it states:
"An idea in vogue has it that the artist must necessarily be in opposition to his language, that he has to force it, constrain it, and twist its syntax in order to mould it to his own design. However, another definition of art is perhaps not only possible but more accurate- that the real artist is someone who has been able, through patient work or with immediate insight, to discover the profound nature of the language he has chosen and its laws, and to fully exploit its forms of expression, from the most obvious to the most hidden."
Kertesz was very much a product of this second type of artist, as with this photograph Meudon, the location intrigued him, and he knew he could see something there, it was a lower class and poverty ridden area of Paris. Kertesz came to that area and that location on many occasions and waited great lengths of time, until he understood it, until he saw what he was looking for, the right moment.
Much like Kertesz' other works such as his "New York" taken in 1947, he utilises the straight edges and angles of buildings to create this image of confusion or something unnatural. This confusion and oddity applies to much of his choices in framing and the way he tiers pieces at different perspectives, for instance the train and train track does not appear any further away in perspective than the buildings themselves, as he links the edges of the housing to the train track to subconsciously join the items together in the mind of the viewer.
The oddity also extends to the man in the foreground, as it is clearly a poverty ridden and depressed area, as we can tell from the dirty buildings, the destruction and rubble in the background, and the absence of life or 'hustle and bustle' reinforces that this area has nothing. yet contrasting there is this man in the foreground, in a full suit, well kept and a top hat, we ask, who is he? why is he here? he does not fit into frame as this story of the deprived lower class area suddenly has it's most prominent inhabitant a gentleman? contrasting again to what his attire signifies he is carrying some large form of package, we do not know what this is as it is wrapped, but it is large and cumbersome, and surely a man of wealth would not burden himself with this package? If he has purchased something large and expensive surely it would be delivered?
We cannot answer these questions, but they are clearly present, and that is the essence of this photograph, and Kurtesz' style, he captures the unusual, the complex. Life is a very varied experience, and with the amount of people that inhabit a city the life of the entire city will be incredibly varied and unusual on a day to day basis, and that is what makes Kurtesz so intriguing, he sees and captures these stories, in glimpses of complexities which is a language most adept to describing the nature of a city.
Developing Ideas
This is an area that would end up touching on post-modernism too much and the concept of this project would have to completely change, but then I thought, what of the people?
Going back to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and the street scenes I particularly love the cross culture element, or even "pan culture".There is the Japanese geisha advertised on the skyscraper, there are future versions of the London Punk, or the coined phrase "cyber-punks", you can see Hari Krishna wandering the streets, and if you watch a few documentaries about this film, you will discover that there is also an invented 'city speak' used in this film that is a mixture of German, Spanish, Japanese and a little Hungarian, which is a result of globalisation and the cross culture element ever present in a modern world all blending together.
This was an idea I would really like to explore, that 'pan culture' that is happening alongside these huge cities.There have always been many different cultures within cities as a result of immigration, which is still a large issue being addressed in England at the moment which has been going on for quite some time, is it good or bad?
For my project though I want to stay clear of the politics and not look at immigration as such, but more out of globalisation, I want to capture that same mad form of cross culture we see in Blade Runner, where different elements of different cultures are all slammed together like it was common place, as though they where all one culture, some would argue that this means the cultures lose their individuality, but I personally see it as a form of acceptance, the culture doesn't change much, it just sits next to another almost, like in the movie still above, the punk walking alongside the Hari Krishna's like there is no difference between them.
In trying to find this unusual cross culture element, where the out of place becomes common place, I will be shooting in Camden Stables Market, London.
The reason I am choosing this location is that, albeit something of a tourist attraction, it is an area crammed with subcultures.
I want to specifically look at the Market Stables as it used to be a hospital for stable horses, and has overtime adapted into a market area, the stalls are all mismatched and darted down what would have been large ramp ways, arches or individuals stalls for horses, and any permanent market stalls have very much adapted their merchandise around their sections and not altered them, so there is a real sense of contrast between the new CD's of fashion on display on old Victorian walls. The cultural aspect intrigues me as well, as the market stalls are predominantly fashion based, but chain companies are not allowed to set up in the market area, which has resulted in a mismatch of your tourist "I love London T-Shirts" next to traditional Indian scarf's and furniture next to extreme Gothic clothing. The area has spurred much in the way of sub culture particularly with the "Gothic" or "Cyber-Punk" groups, overtime it has become quite a tourist attraction and some of the eccentricity and sub culture move away with this, but it still maintains this eccentricity in any new developments to the area and so it is a perfect location to capture this idea of a muddled cross culture.
I went to Camden first with my DSLR, to get a feel for the area and try for some digital test shots to find the best shots to portray my cultural mismatch I want to capture.
I tried finding areas where there where strange samples of different cultures, and styles that did not seem to fit, but yet where all placed together.
Contact Sheets
I returned to Camden on two occasions, shooting hand held on ISO400 Fuji Colour film, with a Bronica SQ-B.
Much of my selection was a variation between which shots that where not subject to motion blur but also which ones that seemed to frame my idea of the mismatch culture the most.
My final three shots were the following:
In the second frame, I chose this location for the chandelier above all else, again it is an alleyway market in Camden, I liked the general mismatch of products on display here, the typical tourist London T-shirts opposite an Egyptian art stall, all crammed in an underpass valley, and the chandelier being the most contrasting aspect, in all it's extravagance, illuminated what would otherwise be a dank looking underpass.
The third frame was a shot taken in one of the many food courtyards, with every type of food of the world displaying their neon signs next to one another. The focus I chose for this shot was of course the Indian themed seating area, that looks more like it belongs in an elaborate garden, yet it is smacked next to countless cheap fast food stalls.
In truth I would have liked my colours far more saturated and in a higher contrast to emphasise the idea of the cultural 'wonders' the city holds, but in terms of my film choice I had to go with a faster film to enable the handheld aspect of this photography.
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