Study Room resource: Contemporary photography

Joel Sternfeld, 'Exhausted Renegade Elephant'

Joel Sternfeld (born 1944)
'Exhausted Renegade Elephant'
Woodland, Washington
1982
C-type colour print on Kodak paper
Museum no. PH.122-1984

The Photograph

This photograph is typical of Sternfeld's photographic style. He presents the scene in a large scale, sharp focus print in unsensational, believable colour. These qualities, combined, create an image which asks the viewer to accept the veracity of the photograph. The composition of the image is such that much extraneous information is shown at the edges of the main event: the recapturing of the collapsed elephant and the human commotion around it. In doing so, he is visually understating the event, making its incongruous and humorous quality more prominent within the wide framing of the scene.

The Photographer

Joel Sternfeld has produced photographs of inhabited American landscapes since the late 1970s, using a large viewfinder camera with 8x10 inch negatives or colour transparencies. His photographs sometimes have an unsettling quality; there is often a humorous or disjunctive element within the scenes, something to remind us of the oddities of modern life. Sternfeld travels through America, sometimes on year-long projects, coming across events en route. In his series 'On This Site' (1992-3), Sternfeld photographed scenes of crimes. There is usually nothing precise in these photographs that refers to the crime, simply a written statement about the incident to accompany the photographs. However, the unsettling quality of Sternfeld's work creates a strong sense of the crime's presence.

Processes and Techniques

This is a colour photograph printed on Kodak paper. It is called a C-type print because the photograph is printed from a colour negative.

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14.

Susan Derges, 'Chladni'

Susan Derges (born 1955)
'Chladni'
1985
Photogram
Museum no. E.2814-1990

The Photograph

This is one image from a series of 8 photograms which were made by recording the vibration patterns created when eight sheets of photographic paper were vibrated by eight different sound frequencies of different pitch. Carborundum powder on the surface of the paper formed into configurations printed onto the paper by exposure to light. The light areas are where the powder has settled. The regular and creative pattern which is formed seems almost unbelievable, because of the lack of human intervention and the unpredictability of the pattern formed.

The Photographer

Since the mid1970s Susan Derges has been producing photographs, many without the use of a lens or camera (photograms), as well as video and computer generated images. Her work is often produced with minimal aesthetic intervention by Derges. Her 'Full Circle' series (1990), for example, is a set of over 40 photograms taken over a four month period showing the development of frogspawn in a circular container. The container was placed on photographic paper (this was done in the dark which meant Derges could not control the composition of the spawn) and then given a long exposure to light. The early images, when the spawn is static, show clearly defined shapes. As the tadpoles develop, their movement creates blurred shapes. The project has both the detail and level of observation of a scientific experiment as well as a strong aesthetic power.

Another of her projects, 'Sound, Water, Light, Interwoven' (1991) consists of coloured photographs showing circular patterns of jewel-like water. The shapes of the droplets are formed by sound waves being passed through them, which causes them to move and mutate across the photographic paper on which they rest in a circular motion. They are recorded by a constant light source and also a strobe light, which means that the travelling water drop is recorded in various stages of its movement. Derges' work has a strong experimental quality and she has often used the effect of sound vibration on substances such as water, mercury filings and reveals the resulting phenomena through light.

Processes & Techniques

'A photogram is a kind of photograph, although made without a camera or a lens by placing an object or objects on top of a piece of paper or film coated with light sensitive material and then exposing the paper or film to light. Where the object covers the paper, the paper remains unexposed and light in tone; where it does not cover, the paper darkens. If the object is translucent, midtones appear. After exposure, the paper is developed and fixed.' Gordon Baldwin, 'Looking at Photographs', J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991.

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14.

Nan Goldin, 'David with Butch Crying'

Nan Goldin (born 1953)
'David with Butch Crying'
Tin Pan Alley, New York City
1981
R-type colour print
Museum no. PH.662-1987

The Photograph

This photograph is very typical of Goldin's work. It is casual in pose and composition, representing friends in a social but unextraordinary setting. The image has the familiarity (in all but size) of a snapshot, but has a profundity and anxiety focussed on the tearfulness of the woman's face. This in itself is an event both shocking and familiar.

The Photographer

'I don't select people in order to photograph them, I photograph directly from my life. These pictures come out of relationships, not observation.' Nan Goldin, 'The Other Side', Cornerhouse 1993.

Nan Goldin began taking photographs in her late teens, creating a visual diary of her life and her friends. Her personal life has been the theme of most of her work through the past twenty years. The relationship between Goldin and her subjects is clear in her photographs. Her work does not glamorise or exploit her subjects, she captures them acting out daily, ordinary and extraordinary events, private as well as social. Many of her published photographs have centred on sexual identity.

Her book 'The Ballad of Sexual Dependency' (Aperture, 1986) shows the relationships and characters of both men and women. 'The Other Side' (Cornerhouse, 1993) is a compilation of photographs from the early 1970s to the 1990s of transsexual friends. Most of her photographs were taken in America and particularly in New York but she has also taken photographs in Berlin, Manila and Bangkok.

Processes and Techniques

This is an R-type photograph, so called because it is printed from a colour transparency.

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14.

(top) Lewis Baltz, 'Park City Interior'

Lewis Baltz (born 1945)
'Park City Interior' (top)
1978-9
Gelatin-silver print
Museum no. PH.299-1983
© Lewis Baltz

'Prospect Village' (bottom)
Lot 95
1978-9
Gelatin-silver print
Museum no. PH.335-1983
© Lewis Baltz

The Photograph

These photographs are from the Park City series. The two have not been linked together by Baltz, but are mounted together in this context as a reminder of his use of the series rather than the individual image to present his work. The prints are small and grey in tone.

Baltz is consciously giving an alternative type of image to the more fashionable and conventional 'art photography' format of large high contrast prints. On one level it is clear that Baltz presents a dialogue on the urbanisation and commodification of landscape and the type of print emphasises this reading of his work. There is, however, a strong sense of the textural and formal beauty of the sites.

The Photographer

Lewis Baltz has been one of the most significant American landscape photographers since the early 1970s. His major projects have all concentrated on landscapes that are under the process of urbanisation. These included The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California (1973-4), Park City (1978-9) and San Quentin Point (1982-3). Baltz's photographs, described as the 'New Topographics', represent a movement in American landscape photography away from the use of land as a form through which the photographer's subjective emotions are expressed.

Processes and Techniques

These are gelatin-silver prints, the most common form of black and white print. 'The silver salts contained in the gelatin emulsion laid on the paper are principally silver bromide or silver chloride or a combination of both.' Gordon Baldwin, 'Looking at Photographs', J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14.

Nancy Burson, 'Big Brother'

Nancy Burson (born 1948)
'Big Brother'
1983
Gelatin-silver print
Museum no. E.273-1990
© Nancy Burson

The Photograph

This photograph was produced in 1983. Burson produced a series of images of political figures. This image is a blend of the faces of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao and Khomeini and creates a recognisably human face. It comments on the similarities in behaviour and character of the men, rather than their political differences. The title 'Big Brother' presumably refers to George Orwell's novel 1984, and suggests that Burson is creating the face that personifies dictatorship.

The Photographer

Nancy Burson started her career as a painter. In 1968 she began to consider a project of producing computer generated portraits that could add the development of ageing onto the faces. Her concept was not totally possible until the late 1970s when computer scanning of images was developed. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was interested in her ideas and in 1978 MIT and Burson were making the first 'aged' portraits. This process was labour intensive and slow and it was not until 1982 that the processing speed was increased. Burson used the 'ageing' technique for her own work and also agreed that it should be used to update photographs of missing children for circulation, with which several children were found.

In the late 1980s Burson began to scan images (mainly from medical text books) of deformed children, manipulating them with the computer to create new deformities. This work offended some people because the deformities were artificial, but Burson maintained that this series was intended to address viewers' ability to be aware of real children with craniofacial conditions. These works, when shown in New York in 1993, were accompanied by a video screen in the gallery into which visitors' faces could be scanned and manipulated to represent the deformities shown in the exhibition.

Processes and Techniques

This is a gelatin-silver print. It is a digital image made up of portraits of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao and Khomeini. A photograph of each political figure is scanned by a computer onto a silicon chip containing hundreds of thousands of microscopic photoreceptors called pixels (from 'picture elements'). These individual units of brightness and colour that make up an image are stored on a floppy disk that holds about 50 images. The stored images can be combined (in this case five) and the composite image regenerated onto a photographic unit.

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14.

Martin Parr, 'New Brighton'

Martin Parr (born 1952)
'New Brighton'
1986
C-type colour photograph
Museum no. PH.112-1985
© Martin Parr

The Photograph

This photograph is from a series of images reproduced in Parr's book 'The Last Resort'  (Promenade Press, 1986), which shows the British seaside resort of New Brighton. In the mid 19th century the resort had been a popular and genteel holiday spot. Parr showed its present run-down appearance, although still swarming with people on a sunny day. In this image he has captured the tatty, crowded feel of New Brighton. The sharply focussed colour image draws attention to the dirty counter, sunburnt flesh and boarded-up window. There is a blatantly descriptive quality about this image, and his work in general.

The Photographer

Since the early 1970s Martin Parr has been taking photographs of familiar, suburban areas, offering a subtle commentary on British life. In 1974 he began a series of images in Calderdale entitled 'The Non-Conformists', presenting images of the community at work, at home and at social events. Always a descriptive and elegant photographer, he has worked on commissions in, for example, Ireland, Manchester, the Home Counties and New Brighton.

During the 1980s he has worked predominantly in colour. His work has been regularly published in magazines and there are a number of books of his work, including 'The Cost of Living' (Cornerhouse Publication, 1990), which shows middle-class activities such as shopping, dinner parties and school open days. He became a member of Magnum in 1994.

Processes and Techniques

A C-type colour photograph is printed from a colour negative rather than a colour transparency (R-type).

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14a.

(top) Nicholas Nixon, 'The Brown Sisters'

Nicholas Nixon (born 1947)
'The Brown Sisters' (top)
1987
Gelatin-silver print
Museum no. E.2721-1990

'The Brown Sisters' (bottom)
1977
Gelatin-silver print
Museum no. E.2711-1990

The Photograph

These two photographs of the Brown sisters, which include Nixon's wife Bebe, were taken ten years apart and are from his series of annual portraits of the sisters. They are both contact prints from 8x10 inch plate negatives and the print quality is subtle and undramatic, which is typical of his work. The innovative qualities of Nixon's work rest in his exploration of traditional photographic technique and choice of subject matter.

The portraits of the Brown sisters very clearly map the passage of time in human life, showing it to be neither linear nor predictable. The pictures also create a dialogue on the response of sitters to the camera. Do the women's gazes towards the camera reflect their recognition of the photographer as a member of their family, and can we tell from looking at their eyes which woman is married to the photographer?

The Photographer

Nicholas Nixon began to use an 8x10 plate camera in the mid 1970s, which was to become his standard photographic equipment. He took a series of city views which were exhibited at MoMA in 1975. He then became interested and challenged by making people the predominant subject matter of his photographs. He photographed people, usually strangers to him, mainly out of doors, considering both their public and private personalities. Nixon continued to use 8x10 negatives, from which he produced contact prints, in order to capture maximum clarity. This technique is simple and highly traditional, referring to the earliest decades of photography and also to photographers such as Walker Evans and Paul Strand. A comparison with Evans and Strand inevitable because of Nixon's choice of subject matter as well as technique but Nixon's work has a greater sense of spontaneity and sensitivity to the personalities of those he portrays than his forbears.

He also seems not to place personal values onto the status of his sitters. He has worked on specific projects such as a series of images of people in nursing homes (1983-5) and people with AIDS (mid 1980s). He does not supply captions for his images, stressing instead the images' ability to convince us of what is shown. Since the mid 1980s Nixon has taken intimate portraits of his family; the only family project which pre-dates this is his annual photographing of his wife and her three sisters which began in 1975 and still continues.

Processes and Techniques

These prints are gelatin-silver prints. 'The silver salts contained in the gelatin emulsion laid on the paper are principally silver bromide or silver chloride, or a combination of both.' Gordon Baldwin, 'Looking at Photographs', J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14a.

Helen Chadwick, 'Of Mutability'

Helen Chadwick (1953-96)
'Of Mutability'
1986
Photocopy, made with a blue pigment
Museum no. E.1756-1992

The Photograph

This photocopy is a small part of Chadwick's large installation. This piece is taken from the collage of photocopies, which would be shown on the floor of a gallery. Her body is shown curled in ecstatic poses, the nature of the feelings her body represents are enhanced by the animals and fruits which spill out around the figures.

Chadwick had begun to use a photocopier after being frustrated by having to use an assistant in order to photograph her own body. The photocopier was also a very direct process of image making. This section shows a fish, with its mouth opened wide. Chadwick had to use dead animals in this work in order that she could position them on the copier. That way, she could capture them in lively, dancing poses. She used the colour blue for the work to suggest other physical spaces such as the sea, as well as to create a strong, sensual mood.

The Photographer

Helen Chadwick experimented with many techniques in her artistic projects. She used photographs, and also photocopies, computer generated images, microscopes, light projections and boxes as well as 3-D forms. Her work was motivated both by a strong conceptual framework and a creative exploration of the particular medium she worked in. She often represented her own body in her work. Sometimes the use of her body in her work was explicitly autobiographical (such as Ego Geographica Sum, 1983-5) but it was also used as the raw material to represent abstract notions and emotions.

Processes & Techniques

This is a photocopy, made with a blue pigment.

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14a.

Richard Prince, 'Untitled'

Richard Prince (born 1949)
'Untitled'
1983
C-type colour photograph
Museum no. E.334-1994
Courtesy Barbara Gladstone

The Photograph

This image is a cropped and enlarged image of a cosmetics advert taken by Prince in 1983. The image is blurred and grainy due to the image structure of the original magazine advert and its enlargement in the photograph. Prince may also have taken the photograph slightly out of focus. The vibrant colours of the image the unnatural colour of the woman's hand remind us of the artificiality of the advert and adverts in general. Prince has cropped the image so that not only is there no written advertising but also the make-up compact and reflected eye seem grotesque and undesirable out of their original context. Prince's artistic input into this work is his selection and recontextualising of it from a mass produced magazine into the more rarified arena of fine art. He calls into question many traditional assumptions about the nature of art: Is Prince's (re)photograph the 'original' art object, does he glorify or criticise commercial photography, where is the invention in his work and who is the author?

The Photographer

In 1975 Richard Prince began to use photographs in his art work. He collected magazine advertising photographs and created collages, combining them with text. He made a shift in techique in 1977 when he began re-photographing advertising photographs. The image might be re-cropped and enlarged, out of focus, in colour or black and white. These are relatively subtle technical transformations but raise many questions relating to the status and intention of the work.

The re-photographing questions authorship; can we accept Prince as the author of the images even though they are essentially direct appropriations of ready-made images? Do we read the images as adverts, as fine art, a combination of the two or a critique of both? How much emphasis should we place on Prince's choice of images; did he have an emotional response to them; do they reveal aspects of the artist's identity? Image appropriation was particularly dominant in the work of young artists in the late 1970s and 1980s. Artists such as Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine and Sarah Charlesworth, in different ways, deconstructed existing imagery often drawn from commercial graphics to create new discourses for and questionings of fine art practice. It is interesting to note that photography, more than any other medium, was used to exemplify the new art theories in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Processes and Techniques

A C-type colour photograph is printed from a colour negative rather than a colour transparency (R-type).

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 14a.