In the last post, I showed my oral presentation for module PHO703 »Surfaces and Strategies«. In this post, I present three of the images of the corresponding portfolio. The complete portfolio can be viewed here.
Tag: Falmouth Flexible
Looking closer at source material and a first approach
After having sorted the source material from the city archive and reading in the only book about the city district »St. Stephan« (Gromes 1989), I started putting it all together. I also went out in the district to take some photos, more to get a »sense of place« than to produce material.
I tried different approaches on how to deal with the material, from working only with the old images to rephotography. I really like to look at the work of artists working only with found material like Katrien de Blauwer (De Blauwer 2020) or Pablo Lerma (Lachowskyj 2020). At the same time, I have the feeling that I am not quite ready to work with archive material only. I want to continue this way (and have an idea for a future project), but maybe I have to approach it step by step …
In the middle of the image are the first results: I combine black and white imagery with new pictures of the same location. Because I do not have information about cameras, lenses and camera position used in the past, I have to estimate how the images were made.
I started to transform/ distort the old photos to match them with the new one as close as possible. The starting point was a typical rectangular picture, but I expanded the base because the form of the distorted archive images should be seen in its entirety. For me, the images have something of these old 1920/30ies photomontages. What I like is the resulting graphic form of the distorted image.
A side effect of blending the images is that they never match precisely on all points. In the beginning, this annoyed me, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It could be seen as a metaphor for history, which is never absolutely precise. There are always factors like own opinion, interpretation, social context, which influence the historiography. Also, it forces the viewer to take a closer look to find out what part of the image is historical and what is contemporary.
For the planned publication, an old building permit and its folder from my private archive served as an inspiration. The plan is to produce it at home, and with this, the format will be DIN A5 (210×148 mm, landscape). The publication starts either with a map or an aerial photo of the city district. Then the pages with descriptional text and images follow. For the descriptional texts, I want to use onion skin paper as used in the past for copies of official documents. The advantage of this paper is that the images below will shine through. The book ends with an architectural drawing, showing the houses that were built in 1948 here.
List of Figures:
Figure 1: Marcel RAUSCHKOLB. 2020. Groenhoffstrasse, St. Stephan.
Figure 2: Marcel RAUSCHKOLB. 2020. Moodboard and material.
Figure 3: Marcel RAUSCHKOLB. 2020. St. Stephan’s post office at 14 Donaustrasse. [Digital montage].
Figure 4: Marcel Rauschkolb. 2020. The first belltower from 1948 and the new church from 1953. [Digital montage].
Figure 5: RAUSCHKOLB, Marcel. 2020. »The Paprika Village» Book Dummy [Film]. Griesheim. Available at: https://vimeo.com/440016217 [accessed 30 Jul 2020].
Resources:
GROMES, Gustl. 1989. St. Stephan von A bis Z. Griesheim: V. Bassenauer Gmbh.
‘Sankt Stephans-Siedlung’. 2019. Wikipedia. Available at: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sankt_Stephans-Siedlung&oldid=193145931 [accessed 19 Jul 2020].
DE BLAUWER, Katrien. 2020. ‘Home | Katriendeblauwer’. [online]. Available at: https://www.katriendeblauwer.com/ [accessed 30 Jul 2020].
LACHOWSKYJ, Cat. 2020. ‘Greenfield. The Archive – Photographs Collected by Pablo Lerma | Essay by Cat Lachowskyj | LensCulture’. Lensculture [online]. Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/pablo-lerma-greenfield-the-archive [accessed 30 Jul 2020].
A »Pilebrary«
»Pilebrary« – a funny word, created by one of my tutors at Falmouth University. Our task was to create a pile of useful/interesting/inspiring books. Why? To get (again) a sense of the physical and tactile quality of different books – how they are made, what paper was used, in which way is it bound. Also a good way to go through the bookshelf and see whats there …
I have chosen twelve books to build the tile. For three, I will describe the reason why they were selected:
Rene Burri’s »Die Deutschen« (Burri and Enzensberger 1986) was my first photobook. I had the chance to meet Burri some years ago in Frankfurt, a wonderful person and (in my eyes) still an inspiration.
Nick Knight is a photographer I am following for years. Even though he’s been in the business for a long time, I have the feeling he never stands still, always finds a new subject or a way to photograph something familiar in a different way (Knight and Cotton 2009).
Great help for anybody interested in making books is the book on the pile’s top »Bookbinding: The Complete Guide to Folding, Sewing & Binding« (Morlok and Waszelewski 2017).
References (from top to bottom):
MORLOK, Franziska and Miriam WASZELEWSKI. 2017. Vom Blatt zum Blättern: Falzen, Heften, Binden für Gestalter. 2. ergänzte Auflage. Mainz: Verlag Hermann Schmidt.
GNAUDSCHUN, Göran, Göran GNAUDSCHUN, BAUTZNER69 and HAUS AM LÜTZOWPLATZ (eds.). 2014. Alexanderplatz. neue Ausg. Ausstellung, Salzburg, 2014, Salzburg: Fotohofedition.
SOTH, Alec, Patricia HAMPL and Anne TUCKER. 2017. Sleeping by the Mississippi. London: Mack.
GHIRRI, Luigi and James LINGWOOD. 2018. Luigi Ghirri: The Map and the Territory. London: MACK.
HIDO, Todd and REFLEX MODERN ART GALLERY. 2015. Khrystyna’s World.
WEBER, Donald, Larry FROLICK and Teun van der HEIJDEN. 2018. War Sand. First edition. Edited by Paul Carlucci. Canada: Polygon.
EVANS, Walker and Gilles MORA. 1989. Walker Evans: Havana 1933. 1st American ed. New York: Pantheon Books.
CORBIJN, Anton. 2002. Star Trak. München: Schirmer/Mosel.
HORNSTRA, Rob and Arnold van BRUGGEN. 2013. The Sochi Project: An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucasus. First edition. New York, N.Y: Aperture Foundation.
BURRI, René and Gerrit CONFURIUS. 1986. Ein amerikanischer Traum: Photographien aus der Welt der NASA u.d. Pentagon. Nördlingen: Greno.
BURRI, René and Hans Magnus ENZENSBERGER. 1986. Die Deutschen: Photographien, 1957-1964. München: Schirmer/Mosel.
KNIGHT, Nick and Charlotte COTTON (eds.). 2009. Nick Knight. New York, NY: Collins Design.
Thoughts on Collaboration and Participation
I have to agree with Ariella Azoulay when she writes that »our work is based on the assumption that collaboration always lies at the basis of the event of photography« (Ariella Azoulay 2016: 189).
In most of my work, I depend on other people’s agreement to cooperate. As an example of participation, I would claim my last project about the sculptor Christoph Kappesser. He trusted me and gave me access to his workspace and a part of his life. This does not belong to images only, but also to the texts, which are based on what he told me.
The project ended with a joint exhibition of his sculptures and my pictures – we went from participation to collaboration.
Collaboration, in another sense, was to work with a curator for the project »14. Stock«. Because of the vast amount of pictures I had, I decided to collaborate with Alexandra Lechner, german photographer and curator from Frankfurt. For me, it was beneficial to have someone with a »neutral view« at my side. The final series and the exhibition layout were developed in a dialogue between photographer and curator. Later in this project, Katrin Pitz, a writer, joined me and wrote ten short stories inspired by my images – collaboration goes on.
These are only two examples from my practice, but I think they confirm Azoulay’s statement.
I will end with a detail Elizabeth Edwards mentioned: People with whom you work in a project decide »(consciously or not) just how much access the visitors could have« and that collaboration is, from the participants perspective also »a way of controlling and maintaining ownership of that knowledge« (Edwards, Geismar and Morton, 2013: 176). An interesting fact that should be kept in mind when working on a photo essay about other people.
Resources:
ARIELLA AZOULAY. 2016. ‘Photography Consists of Collaboration: Susan Meiselas, Wendy Ewald, and Ariella Azoulay’. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 31(1 91), 187–201.
Edwards, E., Geismar, H. and Morton, C. 2013. ‘Photographic Collaboration in Anthropology, Past and Present’. Photoworks 21, 174–183.
Kaylynn Deveney and »The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings«
The bad news first: This book is out of print, and that’s very sad. I first came across it through a tip from my tutor Michelle Sank, when I told her about my plan to photograph a sculptor and his studio.
This post deals with Kaylynn’s intent, her visual choices, and how this informed my practice. For it, I refer to an interview Kaylynn gave in 2009 (two years after the book was published) to Susannah Conway.
Kaylynn has a background in photojournalism and started with a strong interest in »photography, that addressed social trends, issues and problems«. In photography, she saw »a tool for attracting issues of real gravity« (‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’ 2009). This statement sounds very ambitious, but she is realistic enough to admit, that she doesn’t expect that her photographs would change »the world or one person’s life« (‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’ 2009). What is possible, and I agree with her is that »disseminating information to readers and initiating conversation was quite important if we strove to evoke positive change« (‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’ 2009).
Later she states, that the kind of conversations she wants to evoke expanded over time and now she sees »value in all types of stories« (‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’ 2009). For me, the next point I can agree with.
She denies objectivity in documentary photography; for her, it is an »illusory goal« (‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’ 2009). The objectivity in photography was and is often discussed, and I don’t understand why it isn’t accepted that photography is subjective.
Kaylynn describes her work as »subjective documentary«, a term that reminds me of Walker Evans »lyric documentary« (‘(1964) Walker Evans – “Lyric Documentary”. | Éditions Ismael’ n.d.). A story she does is »one that includes and factors in the bias, incompleteness and emotional telling that are characteristics of every story told.« (‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’ 2009)
What impressed me of Albert Hastings story (or Bert, as she calls him) is the calm atmosphere. Also, the sequencing of the images and the use of still lives to show Bert’s life. In the introduction to her book (in the interview quoted by Susannah), she states »I believe photographs of our possessions and domestic patterns can be portraits, just like photographs of our faces.« (‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’ 2009) This is an approach I like and a good inspiration for my the edit of my portfolio. In Kaylynn’s case, she decided to work in this way. In my project, it is half my decision, half of it is due to the circumstances (illness of the protagonist, Covid 19 quarantine). But I am not sad about this fact, and think, too, that a good selection of stills of someone’s home, office, studio can tell a story about a person.
In some images, it seems as if Bert forgot the camera, or isn’t aware of it. You see only his back. It could be said that this is voyeuristic, but I don’t think so. Together with the other pictures, I have the impression that they have a trusting relationship.
The use of handwritten texts from Bert in her book is, in my opinion, a great way to show the conversational element of her work with him.
In the interview, she is asked about the technique she used for Day-to-Day Life. I found it interesting that she photographed with an elementary set: Camera, one lens and a tripod. I used the same combination in my project and think that it is often the right decision to leave a lot of equipment at home and try to compose your image with only one lens. It is merely less technical ballast and less distracting.
References:
‘~ My Creative Life: KayLynn Deveney ~’. 2009. SusannahConway.com [online]. Available at: https://www.susannahconway.com/2009/07/my-creative-life-kaylynn-deveney/ [accessed 13 Apr 2020].
‘(1964) Walker Evans – “Lyric Documentary”. | Éditions Ismael’. n.d. [online]. Available at: https://editions-ismael.com/en/1964-walker-evans-lyric-documentary-2/ [accessed 24 Jan 2020].
‘The Day to Day Life of Albert Hastings’. 2020. KayLynn Deveney Photographer [online]. Available at: https://kaylynndeveney.com/the-day-to-day-life-of-albert-hastings [accessed 29 Mar 2020].
Marcels CRJ 
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