Combinations Alliances Edexcel A 2 Art Design Unit

Combinations & Alliances Edexcel A 2 Art & Design Unit 4 Theme 2012 For release to students only after 1 st February 2012

Throughout history certain combinations and alliances have created extremely powerful and occasionally dangerous liasons …. . Michelangelo & Pope Clement VII …. Van Gogh & Paul Gauguin …. Gilbert & George …. p. 4, Edexcel Unit 4, 2012 externally set assignment. But what does this have to do with Photography? To answer this question, lets look at some images where alliance or combination could be said to have played a role in their creation.

Documentary Photography Documentary photography as its name suggests usually ‘documents’ some event or set of circumstances. It can represent an alliance between those whose story is to be told, and the documentary film or image maker (the photographer).

Sex in a Cold Climate is a harrowing television documentary denouncing the Magdalene Asylums, which were operated by Catholic nuns in Ireland for over 100 years. It caused an uproar when it was televised in England in 1998 and an estimated three million people watched the program. During the program 4 women speak at length about their traumatic experiences. A help line was set up, which received hundreds of calls from women who had experienced abuse and trauma through the Magdalene Asylums and the Catholic Church. Sex in a Cold Climate, Writer & Director: Stephen Humphries, 1998. http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=p. SZ 9 i 9 Na. UU 4 (12 mins - part 1 of 4 on youtube)

British film-maker Nick Parkes is famous for his stop-motion films such as the Walace & Gromit series, Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit Parkes has also made several documentary films in the series Creature Comforts. Although these use humour, they can legitimately be considered as serious documentaries since the people interviewed are unscripted and honestly voice their opinions and stories. http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Ob-OVUo. J 1 RM (9 mins)

Documentary photography is sometimes thought of as being completely objective, dispassionately recording the facts. However, the photographer makes choices as to medium, subject, style and feelings in the way that she/he makes the images. Documentary photography is therefore subjective to some extent, and is an alliance between the protagonists (people whose story is being documented) and the story teller (the photographer). Dorothea Lange worked during the 1930’s depression for the American Farm Security Administration, documenting the life of poor farmers and their families. Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936 See: Hans-Michael Koetzle, Photo Icons, 2005, Taschen (from £ 6 on amazon) Do you think Dorothea was sympathetic to the plight of the poor farm families?

Robert Capa Documenting the 1944 American ‘D-Day’ troop Landings in Normandy during world war II (1939 -45)

Chance Combinations Many photographers have captured chance moments, such as those encapsulating emotional meetings or departures Robert Doisneau is famous for his candid street photography. Candid photography manages to capture fleeting moments and make them permanent. Robert Doisneau

Alfred Eisenstaedt, c. 1945

Henri Cartier Bresson Andre Kertesz Candid snap? Kertesz actually took photographs here on at least two occasions. Kertesz combined with planning = great shots. Acknowledged as one of the greatest photographers, Cartier Bresson had an amazing ability to be in the right place, just at the right time to capture action at its ‘decisive moment’. But then he did carry a camera everywhere he went. Cartier Bresson combined with intimate knowledge of his camera = great images.

In recent years, the authenticity of some ‘candid’ photographers work has been called into question, claimimg that some images were ‘set-up’. In the left-hand images, Robert Doisneau has clearly ‘set-up’ his camera to record the reaction and expressions of passing shoppers. Whether the people themselves were in alliance with the photographer, we may never know. Perhaps more importantly, does it matter if an image set-up or ‘staged’? The authenticity of this famous image during the Spanish civil war by Robert Capa has recently been questioned.

This iconic image was a reenactment, made by press photographer Joe Rosthenthal shortly after the actual event. This would have required an alliance between soldiers and photographer. Raising the flag at Iwo Jima, Roe Rosthenthal, 1945 The ‘re-staging’ of the event was the subject of the recent film Flags of Our Fathers, 2006, Dir. Clint Eastwood.

In Northern Europe during the 17 th century still-life paintings, a style now generally known as vanitas became popular in which a rather strange collection of objects were combined in a single composition. Few people today would detect the allegorical meaning of such paintings which were intended to remind the viewer of the briefness of life and its earthly pleasures; the skull reminds us of death, sources of pleasure such as food soon rot, flower petals fall and sand passes through an hour glass to remind us of the ephemeral nature of our lives. The message – be good and secure your place in heaven because your life and all its pleasures will soon end!

Although a single image (photograph or painting) can convey meaning, it remains a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional world. Other ‘problems’ include that both painting and photography tend to represent the world from a single ‘view-point’ and photographs generally capture a single ‘frozen’ moment in time. Some artists from around the middle of the 19 th century began to search for different ‘ways of seeing’, ways that would enable their art to break free of these constraints.

The experiments of Edweard Muybridge would ultimately lead to the development of ‘motion pictures’. Edweard Muybridge’s 1872 -78 experiments: http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=MWf. Ie. WFWBio (1 min 24 secs)

Sequential photography can often reveal more about the subject or an event than a single photograph. The combining of images can tell a more complex narrative, whether that is in motion pictures (cinema), or simply a sequential series of images as here: Duane Michaels, Chance Encounter

In painting, artists Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris developed a radical style of painting which became known as Cubism. The early phase, generally considered to run from 1908 - 12 is called Analytical Cubism. In essence, the idea behind cubism is quite simple: to simultaneously paint the subject from different viewpoints, and then to combine these views within a single artwork. Pablo Picasso, Girl with. Mandolin, 1910 Georges Braque, Glass on a Table 1909 -10

Later cubist works (classified as ‘synthetic cubism’) tended to include more colour and were often less angular, but the idea of showing the subject from different viewpoints remains essentially the same. Note how we see Dora’s face both in profile (side on), and facing the viewer. Admittedly, not everyone likes cubist art, but on a purely intellectual level we can at least appreciate that the cubist ‘way of seeing’ has the potential to tell us more about the subject that a traditional single-viewpoint image. Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar Seated, 1941

David Hockney’s ‘Joiners’ A more recent solution to the issue of the photograph representing a single viewpoint is the ‘joiner’, made famous by British artist David Hockney. The joiner, (as with cubism), can represent the subject from different viewpoints at the same time, creating an artwork which potentially tells us more than simply what the subject ‘looks’ like. David Hockney, ‘Joiners’

David Hockney, Place Furstenberg, Paris, 1985 The technique is either to take many photographs from a single position (pointing the camera in different directions) or to move around the subject and photograph from different viewpoints, as in Hockney, Mother, 1985

The final joiner is made by combining the individual photographs to make a single unified artwork. The Edexcel exam paper states that the joiner has “almost become a cliché”, indicating that as a method of combining images it should be avoided. You can ignore this …. (!) IF you can come up with a new technique or process which uses the joiner as a starting point or incorporates it in some other original way. David Hockney, Mother, 1985

Another technique which gives the photograph a temporal* quality is the combining of different moments in time (using digital Montage), as in the work of Kevin Batangan. * Temporal means that there is a time element or quality.

Combining. . . photographic techniques. A few examples: Combining flash with long exposure Combining traditional ‘wet’ photographic processes with digital technology … e. g. scanning in negatives to then digitally alter and print. High dynamic range photography combines images of the same subject at different exposures to capture detail across a wider dynamic range than with normal photography.

A few last thoughts … Photography can be ‘happy snaps’ - point the camera, press the shutter and job done – picture taken. But it can be more than this when the photographer actively thinks about the image to be made. For example, by composing the image (composition, cropping, viewpoint and focal length), by controlling the ‘look’ of the image (lighting, contrast, medium, saturation and so on), and most importantly by having some idea about what meaning or emotion they are trying to convey. Your mission in this final unit is to interpret the exam board theme (Combinations & Alliances) in a way that involves the latter description rather than the former!

Your final piece must incorporate photography in some creative way, but remember that it could incorporate sculpture, film, book, framed images, photographic record of something ephemeral etc … in fact, whatever you want. Over the last 18 months you have seen that photography is, or rather, it can be, so much more than simply ‘taking’ an image with a camera. Now is your chance to demonstrate this understanding!

Start by producing a mind-map (brainstorm) listing as many words and ideas that relate to theme as you can.