Exercise: Marcus Bleasdale

The exercise is to read an article published in Eight Magazine on the photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale [b. 1968]. Although not strictly instructed to do so I have made short notes on his views below.

Marcus Bleasdale

Originally a banker with a keen hobby of photography. Resigned from his post at being disillusioned on how banks ignored the human aspect of war over currency fluctuations. Two days later he was in Kosovo.

Finance was an initial problem. Views that conflict and photojournalism do not go hand in hand quoting the work of Eugene Smith.

References Joseph Conrad's book Heart of Darkness as inspiration in words of what the mind describes. Bleasdale's book One Hundred Years of Darkness follows in these footsteps through the Belgian Congo with each image taken referencing a part of the original novel.

Strong views on areas that the media ignores where genocide may have taken place, almost certainly over the mineral wealth of the country. Cites Dafur where Bleasdale visited off his own back, not able to get any commission. From this he created the work "Human Rights Watch" that earned him Best Photography Book in 2010 by POYi (pictures of the year international)

Took the work HRW and forced this onto audiences that were directly responsible for the conflict mining in the Congo, namely a Swiss Bank. Blames many organisations including the UN for failing the people of the Congo.

This has lead to success in organisations no longer trading gold with Uganda as it was also coming from the Congo. This leads to less money being available to finance war in the Congo.

Feels a strong responsibility to report the helplessness of Africa over war, famine, and disease.

Has published just three books but a raft of awards from 2004 to 2015 for his work.

Marcus Bleasdale - Human Rights Watch

Research Point: Socially Committed B&W Photographers

This the first research point is to look deeper into the following photographers making notes on whether social documentary was their prime focus.

• Chris Killip
• Nick Danziger
• Bill Brandt
• Jacob Riis
• Lewis Hine

Chris Killip

Chris Killip is from what I has exclusively published work on social documentary in B&W. There have been areas that whilst document the social times or the day, these are not necessarily for social reform. Most of the images are around the working class of England but he has also been commissioned for book covers and to photograph the Pirelli UKfactory in Burton in 1988. Here though the main subject is not tyres but the workers and families of the factory detailing their lifes.

Killip spent much of his career as a Director and Curator for the Side Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne where he spent much of his life. He moved to USA becoming a visiting lecturer and professor at Harvard University 1994-98. Killip is now retired but continues to live in the USA, he is still publishing work of images taken many years ago with a book due for publication in 2018 containing his images of the Punk scene in Newcastle during the late 1970's.

Nick Danziger

Nick Danzziger on the other hand is more varied in his work. He still covers a large element of social reform but also has widened his photo journalism net to include an award winning series on Tony Blair during the Iraq war. As for B&W this is not exclusive has many of his images online are also in colour.

His roots though do seem to be in social reform and recently has worked on the effects on women in war torn areas of the world where poverty excels. His book "The British
" [ 2001 ] is B&W was award the "Best monochrome illustrated book"  by the British Book Design & Production awards in 2002. The images here cover a contrast of the poorer and the richest in our society, almost certainly calling out the social divide. Interestingly though the first image off his website for this work is a black barrister clothed in traditional robes leaving a taxi. Is this a play on the fact that social reform is not just about ethnic background?

Nick Danziger - The British 2001

Bill Brandt

Brandt [1904-1983] was one of the most celebrated British photojournalists of the 20th century. His online archive contains three sections:

• Documentary
• Nudes
• Landscapes

His images are of exceptional quality and a only taken in B&W. Like Danziger the play on contrasting backgrounds is used to highlight social divide.

I found his work interesting on the nudes where nudes and landscapes are sometimes combined. These are not images supporting social reform but more so images of fine art.

Jacob Riis

Riis [1849 - 1914] was a Danish-American photographer documenting social reform, especially that of New York City. Many of the areas he wished to photograph were dark conditions and Riis soon became on of the early adopters of flash photography. For this and equipment available I am quite stunned by the images taken. The concept of bringing light to the darkness of a depraved NYC must have been awe inspiring, here an image taken in 1888 of the most crime ridden areas of New York. I will look more into his work.

Bandit Roost - Jacob Riis 1888

Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine [1874 - 1940] is described as an American sociologist and photographer, with his work on social reform being instrumental on changing child labour laws in the USA.

His photographic life started in 1907 taking images of the steel-making industry. In 1908 he became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, leaving his job as a teacher at the Ethical Culture School NY. He continues taking images for 10 years. This was a dangerous time as it was illegal to take such images as they were thought to threaten industry, figures for child mortality were not published, and often the violence would be dispensed by the police.

During the war Hine followed the American Red Cross in Europe, and also was commissioned to take images of the construction of the Empire State building. Here he did though make a social statement in his work detailing the precarious positions workers found themselves in.

Children in Mills - Lewis Hine

Exercise: Discussing Documentary

This exercise is to read the article ‘Discussing Documentary’ by Maartje van den Heuvel 2005 and write a short summary.

I found this an interesting and easy to read document that gave many examples of where documentary has been used and assigned to past and more recent photographers. The document also talks at length about documentary being used as an awareness mechanism for social reform. I have to question a lot of this as "social reform" seems to be a very common theme amongst many of the documents presented so far in this course. Yes it is an important fact but I am not convinced of the real intent. All artists want their work to be recognised and understood, the concept in Heuvel's document of "visual literacy" clearly enforces this. Do photographers therefore concentrate around subjects and visualisations in areas that will question the viewers morals and self-views to gain popularity? I for one admire such documentary as it humbles me and makes me feel lucky to be where I am. Although I would not categorise this as sensationalising I have to wonder why so much of the notorious documentary is associated with social reform.

Heuvel does though include other genres of documentary and addresses a very important change in how media is used and influences our lives connected using the Internet. I was interested in how the face of documentary has changed in various countries at various times to suit political gains and the development of social reform. e.g. Russia pre-Soviet Union, occupied Netherlands during WWII following Hilter's banishment of Vereinigung der Arbeiter-Fotographen etc. I also found that the references of reenactment of critical events in time were very interesting, examples such as the hijacking and murder of Israeli athletes in 1972 by Christopher Draeger. Is this really something new or is this always been a trend of documentary throughout time, even before the first photograph was ever taken, e.g. The Last Supper - Da Vinci 1495-1498.

Christopher Draeger - Black September

Exercise: Bill Brandt’s Art of the Document’ by David Campany

This exercise is to read David Campany's article on Bill Brandt to leave comments and also comment on why Black & White has become so respected in documentary.

I was not aware of Bill Brandt before reading this article, I was though reassured that he was a distinguished photographer of documentary in his earlier life. Being German and coming to England would have amused him to see our strange social culture and how we stand within it. Being from a wealthy background gave him the opportunity to exploit this - Campany cites that many of the images would have had great forethought and staging.

Nonetheless Brandt's book "The English at Home" has some brilliant contrasting images that certainly do call out the social divide and the oddities of such a social system. A divide that Campany calls out "is not ready to be received". The book at the time of publishing was not a success, but like so many works ahead of its age it gets recognised in the future.

It is right that this work is finally attributed with the word Art and is recognised  as a piece of documentary calling out the social divide of the time. I sometimes wonder if this enigma ever leaves us. Are we not now still searching for information on those at the top of the social scale, the rich, the famous, the royals, the celebrities.... this divide never leaves us it just morphs from one for to another.

In his later life Brandt turned to more "artistic" images of the body and landscapes and carried on with B&W photography. Here he captures the body of the landscape alongside the landscape of the body; the two mixing well. Strong tones and contrast are used here to great effect to draw clearer lines of distinction which would not have worked in any other way. B&W is an intrinsic part of this art form.

It is no winder that many documentary photographers prefer B&W. Although less information is presented it also draws the viewer deeper into the image, examining in detail the artefacts that are sometimes overlooked.

Exercise: Survival Programmes

Reading the article "Survival Programmes" showed some marvellous photography by the three collaborators Nicholas Battye,Chris Steele-Perkins and Paul Trevor. The images were taken in the early 1970's and republished twenty fives years later, still looking very fresh yet with some nostalgia and a marker that times have indeed improved.

The work captured poverty and social injustice in the inner cities of the UK&I. It also combined a literal narrative of comments, thoughts and views of those living in the photographs which I found intriguing. The concept on breaking free was one of those thoughts, so not so much a form of "survival" but of one escape as well perhaps.

The images are all shot in black and white, this gives the timeless age of documentary and keeps them both in the past but also in a time that could be anytime.

Being put together by a magazine I have to wonder if the editor has manipulated the message of the images. Many of them are about oppression not from each other through gangs but oppression by the state. Does this distort the real message or poverty and social injustice and use it as a political message that may have a wider audience and cause more awareness? Why did the state have to intervene? This has not been answered in the short number of images available but does demonstrate how documentary can easily be manipulated.

Survival Programmes

With that said though the images do also show survival of a more personal nature and I really, really liked the following image. It has so much going on in it, you would think that it was staged. A truly wonderful image showing a time of relief perhaps through the hardships of life.

  

Gordon Parks

Reading through some of the material in the course has led me to look closer at the American Farmers Association, a group of photographers capturing images of social injustice from 1942-1944. I chose to look closer at Gordon Parks as his work tended to also group racial injustice alongside poverty and social justice. It would have been a time in America only 70 years ago that questions the segregation by race and restricted privileges.

Parks [b. 1912 Kansas] was himself born into poverty, this would have surely driven him to search for a better way, and what better than to translate his emotions and political views into documentary. His images are largely of African Americans, many show oppression and sadness but in contrast many show life in the face of adversity and the challenges of living in an America as a black person.

The following image was taken from an archive known as Fort Scott 1950. The use of light is fantastic, and the way in which the two people seem disconnected gives a slight juxtaposition, perhaps with the woman wanting something better with her life.

Gordon Parks - Tenement Dwellers, Chicago 1950

The second image taken from the FSA series just warms me. This is one of Park's more famous images for obvious reasons, one of the lighter ones.

Gordon Parks - Woman & Dog in Window, Harlem New York 1943

I found Park's best work though was Segregation Story 1956. A brilliant collection recording in true documentary fashion what it must have been like for Black Americans during this awful time of being classified as a different human being. It is truly work like this that opens doors and opens minds increasing awareness of social injustice to a level that forces change for the good of mankind. Documentary has a lot to live up to and a tremendous role to play in our society as we strive to improve living standards and share more of what we have.

Gordon Parks - Department Store Alabama 1956 

Gordon Parks -  Segregated Drinking Fountain, Alabama 1956

Exercise: PhotoNotes

This exercise involves reading an online article written by Elizabeth McCausland, published in January 1939. We are then to write short notes and a single paragraph on why this is important to this course.

1. Written in 1939 this is a very fresh approach to Documentary.
2. Documentary has a documented history of development and rapid growth with strong impulses producing intense work.
3. Documentary is described as a "New Function" of the direct and realistic for the "profound and sober".
4. References are made 35 years prior to the article of practitioners such as Lewis Hine's child labour images, giving evidence that documentary is nothing new.
5. Two types (new and old) of practitioners that are "continents "apart"
6. The article challenges the concept of the "honesty" of photography quite rightly. 
7. McCausland repeatedly references The Farm Security Administration and capturing social injustice. This would have been very prevalent at the time of writing and I wonder if this has led to many photographers at the time shaping the modern face of documentary, giving an element of truth and form.

This article separates documentary from other genres of photography as well as establishing documentary as an art form. The concept of interpreting the unseen in an image is discussed at length; for example the social divide messages and how the photographer uses the physical to describe social injustice. It is these two points that help to progress the art of documentary and for practitioners to develop skills and recognise not only their immediate surroundings but how the image will be interpreted.