Week Eleven – Consolidating Practice

Writing on the subject of curation in Creativehub’s new book How to Show Your Work, the authors state that “Hollywood story consultant Bobette Buster used the term ‘the story behind the story’ which refers to the hidden, deeper narrative that’s holding everything together. This is a great metaphor on how to approach curation” (2020:50). I agree. The story behind my story is a personal one – my intrigue about the incongruities of human behaviour in the face of climate change and the role played by my family in coal free mining in the Forest of Dean. This has been with me throughout my Research Project, sometimes in the background, but often in the foreground of my thinking, and hence my creative approach especially with my landscapes. Berger wrote that “landscapes are no longer geographic but also biographical and personal” (1976:13). I concur. But I am no ‘insider’, just simply one generation of ‘Forester’ removed, yet with a strong sense of familial biographic intrigue and obligation to explore today what my ancestors did yesterday. To contextualise this, Andrews wrote that “Those for whom land is the fabric of their lives, for whom it is livelihood and home environment, do not see land as landscape. They relate to the land as ‘insiders'” (1999: 20). I feel privileged to have built relationships with the free miners which allows me to explore their land.

This week I had my one-on-one tutorial with Paul, running through my proposed Work-in-Progress submission of 17 images. The process for editing down my submission from a longish list of potential images, was, unusually for me, not that difficult on this occasion. But our tutorial discussion was about ‘killing off the babies’, removing images and re-sequencing the order to give a stronger visual flow whilst not compromising any of the narrative. Initially my very ordered mind had decided that I wanted a set of landscapes to set the scene for my Research Project, as I had had a couple of days of productive shoots in the Forest of Dean back in January and felt that the selected images neatly demonstrated the continuing theme of ‘ugliness within beauty’. I’d then settled on four individual free miner portraits, selected as a result of the crit feedback at Falmouth last month. I’d felt that the contrasting portrait styles and tones work cohesively, reflecting the personalities of each subject. I then moved onto a couple of group portraits – these ones worked best for me in both compositional and tonal terms, emphasising trust, teamwork and camaraderie. Then I included a couple of closely-shot images of the kit used by the miners – a couple of helmets on the floor of the store hut, and the battery pack for the helmet lamp being gripped by a miner around his waist (which neatly showed the grim and implied industry of his labours, without being too literal). And finally I’d settled on a short series of images, the first of a miner entering his gale, then four images at and around the coalface (emphasising the claustrophobia and difficult working conditions), and finishing with an image of ‘lumpy’ (as it is known by the free miners) – to you and me, a large piece of freshly mined coal. And then Paul and I had a discussion about the visual experience. He encouraged me to take my 17 prints, take out three he’d felt (and I agree) were less strong or didn’t say anything different, lay them out (again) on my floor, and take a fresh look at the sequencing. He challenged me to think about the benefits of interspersing the images rather than clumping them together in sections. This really did wake me up to curation, resulting (after quite a bit of experimentation, including bookending with strong opening and closing images) into my submission. The flow remains coherent as a short photographic essay but it is now visually more arresting (arguably making the viewer spend more time on each image?), and better delivers on my intent.

So, here is my submitted Critical Review of Practice:

This review critically describes my intent and the technical, aesthetical, conceptual and professional development of my practice in the context of my Research Project, an examination of contemporary coal free mining in the Forest of Dean (known as the ‘Forest’, located in England between the Rivers Severn and Wye, on the southern border with Wales). Free mining dates back to the thirteenth century and uniquely remains a legal right for the local community. Today’s miners see their activities as maintaining this heritage and culture, imbued in their ‘DNA’. My maternal great-grandfather was a free miner and this family history has been the catalyst for my research. Commenting on the role of research, David Hurn, local resident to the Forest, says “it is important to become a mini-expert on the topic….and not all research is cerebral; it includes visual research and research by experience” (2008:86). My online research and extensive walks in the Forest over the past fifteen months have, in this module, resulted in images where progress has been made.

I am looking at a number of interwoven issues: local culture, tradition, trust, companionship, eccentricity, and existential behaviours surrounding climate change. My intent is to examine these issues, many of which have contradictory elements which don’t sit comfortably alongside each other. I’m examining the juxtaposition of mining and global warming; the mine buildings in this ancient and largely unspoilt forest; and studying the local mining community as it continues its centuries-old tradition whilst feeling detached from the ‘metropolitan elite’. 

My body of work is landscapes (my predominant practice), portraits, subterranean images and cropped images of the industrial tools of coal mining. With careful editing, sequencing, and modest use of written narrative (discussed later), I want to create a photo essay of these mildly eccentric people preserving their heritage in this beautiful environment. 

I believe Sontag is correct in her assertion that “the painter constructs but the photographer discloses” (1977:92). I interpret disclosure as presenting the facts as I see them. My landscape work is not ‘constructed’ in the sense of using props or removing physical objects for my own aesthetic. I prefer to present the evidence as I see it: the conflict of industry over unspoilt nature, industrialisation and mechanical detritus in bucolic surroundings, ugliness within beauty. It’s incongruous. And that to me is both very intriguing and challenging to photograph. It’s what Andrews would call a complex experience, as he feels photography will always fall short of what the artist (painter) will capture: “[Photographs] convey rather precise information within their frame and moment in time, but until one has seen the motif itself, extended in depth and breadth, one will not feel its attraction” (1999:199). Herein lies one of my challenges: delivering photographic work that can be as good as the actual experience I feel when seeing these mine workings deep in the Forest.

My landscapes are not what Smith & Leffley would call “bringing together discrete elements to create a final picture” (2016:113), rather, they are factual evidence whilst having elements of Hauser’s trace. Jeff Wall is largely the staged tableau farmer producing almost cinematographic images, whereas I am more the literal hunter photographer, with ideas based on research of what I want to photograph but with no sense of manufacturing, stage-managing or artificially creating an image to serve a purpose. Alexander writes, “Expunged from the picturesque vision is evidence of the intricacies of the relationship between the land and the social, political or economic conflicts of interest of those who use it” (2015:64). I’m interested in these incongruous conflicts and contradictions in landscapes, and the permanence of the physical scarring, such as Monument Gale: 

“Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history” wrote Sontag. By implication my ancestors played their part in the ‘scarring’ of the Forest even if they didn’t give it a second thought, as they were mining like their forefathers did, to put food on the table. Today the free miners could be described as being a slightly eccentric sub-culture. Sub-cultures are often examined photographically. In this module I have researched (on tutor advice) the surfing sub-culture and looked at Joni Sternbach’s approach and aesthetic route. The environment affords her time and space to use large-format, which is impractical for me. However I have learnt two things: her ability in the portraits to gracefully slow down her subjects and present their pride and confidence in what is a normally dynamic, fast-moving activity; and the need to invest time in building relationships with the subject-matter, getting close to the sub-culture and building trust, so that portraiture becomes easier to execute as the subjects become more relaxed.

In this module I’ve predominantly shot portraiture, a practice I have hitherto had little experience in. With experimentation comes critical self-examination. As Grundberg wrote, “Images exist not to be believed, but to be interrogated” (1999:273), so in this spirit I have been interrogating my portraits, assessing the differing styles, and asking myself if I’m delivering on my intent. 

The recent crit sessions have left me excited that, with the correct editing and sequencing, I can utilise different styles for individual portraits. This is important for me as I want a flexible visual approach and it also helps me avoid overly literal and uniform results. Bull, writing on Batchen and the opposing aspects of nature and culture, says “Photography’s identity comes from its inherent differences” (2010:13). I agree.

I want my portraits to depict the no-nonsense, unglamorous grittiness of the miners and their work. I don’t always achieve this, and a good example is this image: 

Mike’s just spent two hours mining, he’s dirty, tired, and ready for his lunch. However it’s tricky shooting down onto someone and the result is disproportional (large torso, small legs). Whilst I have captured some important perspective of place (the woods, rails and mine entrance) and a sense of hard manual labour, ideally I should have taken this once he had climbed up the steps and reached level ground. 

I feel I’ve made progress with my group images in this module:

Barthes asks us “Why photograph this object, this moment, rather than some other?” (1980:6). It’s a question I constantly ask myself. My response to this image is that, although it had mixed feedback at the crits, I like it both compositionally and tonally. Having one subject with his back turned to the camera underpins the camaraderie of the miners, chatting and drinking tea before descending underground, and there’s also the subtlety of his implied gaze towards his fellow men. 

My technical approach to subterranean work has very much been trial and error. Shooting in a mine is not for the faint-hearted, and I’ve had to address some personal claustrophobic demons, get into a ‘zone’ (in athletics-speak), and get on with the job in hand. As Robert Adams says in Forty Photographers on Process and Practice, “Flannery O’Connor only lived to be thirty-nine years old, but her advice was unambiguous: Be properly scared and go on doing what you have to do” (2019:16). My raised heart rate and nervousness has helped my underground work as I’ve felt remarkably energised. I have to think on my hands and knees – there simply isn’t the space to experiment with different compositional styles – and work with a flash and the beams of light shining from the helmet lamps: 

I’m capturing the essence of life at the coal face, but not in a literal way – the damp and dirt, the claustrophobia (emphasised by the low-slung wooden supporting beams), and the sheer hard work. The mining photography of Earl Dotter (US) and David Goldblatt (South Africa) from the 1960’s and 70’s is especially helpful to me for practitioner contextualisation.

I rarely do this but last time I was at the coalface I shot a short video. I’m pleased with it as it captures the essence of the place. I’m considering the use of video content for my FMP exhibition, perhaps in the manner of Mohamed Bourouissa’s work which impressed me at Rencontres Arles last year.Apart from contemporary Forest photographer David Cross, no-one else has covered coal free mining as a specific subject-matter, nor examined the contradictions and juxtapositions that I’ve referred to. However there are many photographers who have tackled the subject of coal mining, below ground, at the surface, and more broadly within the community (especially post-pit closures) – my non-exhaustive research list includes Ian Beesley, Daniel Berehulak, Julian Germain, Mike Goldwater, Ken Hermann, Stacy Kranitz and Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, whose work between them covers many decades. I have no particular favourite, as each photographer presents something for me to consider both aesthetically and compositionally, which I refer to when planning my shoots. 

From a book perspective, I have been particularly influenced by Lisa Barnard’s The Canary and The Hammer, Stéphane Lavoué’s Kingdom, and Zed Nelson’s Gun Nation. Barnard uses a wide range of photographic styles woven into written narratives which leads the viewer through the story of man’s exploitation of the earth’s minerals. How apposite. Lavoué examines the very remote community of northern Vermont, mainly using medium format colour portraiture in damp and misty conditions, creating an almost ethereal mood, with a closing essay explaining the popularity of this place for Vietnam draft-dodgers. Gun Nation opens with an academic essay which sets the scene and context for the issues that Nelson then questions photographically, the words anchoring the story to the reader. There’s a common theme in all three books – a written narrative that holds the visual body of work together so that there is one holistic experience for the viewer. It can still leave questions unanswered, but it does lay the framework for comprehensive critical examination. For me it is the photo essay at its most complete, and this is the direction I intend my project to go in.

Is my work successful? To answer this difficult question one has to contextualise it: in what environment is the work being consumed? Is it a book, zine or exhibition? And what is the audience? My primary target market is the Foresters, anyone interested the Forest, in mining, in local history or perhaps all of these. I have limited experience of creating books and exhibiting, but I am seriously considering both for my FMP. In a 2014 Guardian newspaper article, The Art of Curation, Hans Ulrich Obrist wrote “The curator sets it up so that it becomes an extraordinary experience and not just illustrations or spatialised books”. As a viewer I understand the extraordinary experience one can have at an exhibition. But my work has a narrow primary audience in the Forest where gallery options are very limited. I would like to create something extraordinary, but there is an aesthetic beauty to me of a white wall of framed images, as that’s very safe and very me. I’m reminded of Cotton’s comments about Wolfgang Tillmans’ approach to exhibiting: “He mixes scale, processes and genres, and shapes the relationships between, and experience of, his photographs” (2014:149). This is a call for me to be more creative and ambitious. I could make billboard prints and attach them to mine buildings as Roger Tiley did with his original Miner’s Strike work which he attached to several old collieries across South Wales in 2015. If venue space is an issue, I might consider having a hanging screen slideshow of images, as I saw at the Helen Levitt exhibition in Arles last summer. 

Development-wise, I’m constantly reviewing my work, making my compositional, technical and tonal style more coherent, and thinking about my narrative and the visual options for the consumption of my work. The challenge is to hone this down as I imminently move towards my FMP, so I am reminded of the words of one-time Forest resident John Berger, who wrote “What distinguishes the memorable photograph from the banal snapshot is the degree to which the photograph explains the message, the degree to which the photograph makes the photographer’s decision transparent and comprehensible” (2013:18).

Word count: 1997 (max 2000)

References:

WAPLINGTON, Stuart & CHUDLEY, Zachary. 2020. How to Show Your Work. London: Printspace Studios.

BERGER, John. 1976. A Fortunate Man. London: Writer’s and Reader’s Publishing Cooperative.

ANDREWS, Malcolm. 1999. Landscape and Western Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

HURN, David. 2008. On being a Photographer – in conversation with Bill Jay. Anacortes, WA: LensWork Publishing.

SONTAG, Susan. 1977. On Photography. London: Penguin Classics.

SMITH, Peter & LEFFLEY, Carolyn. 2016. Rethinking Photography. London: Routledge.

ALEXANDER, J.A.P. 2015. Perspectives on Place. London: Bloomsbury. 

GRUNDBERG, Andy. 1999. Crisis of the Real. New York City: Aperture.

BULL, Stephen. 2010. Photography. London: Routledge.

BARTHES, Roland. 1980. Camera Lucida. London: Vintage Books.

WOLF, Sasha (editor). 2019. Photowork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice. New York City: Aperture.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/23/hans-ulrich-obrist-art-curator [accessed 26/03/20].

COTTON, Charlotte. 2014. The Photograph as Contemporary Art. London: Thames & Hudson.

BERGER, John. 2013. Understanding a Photograph. London: Penguin Modern Classics.

APPENDIX

Statement on my Research Project and the Coronavirus Pandemic

All my images submitted for this module were shot in January and February 2020, when I made three visits to the Forest of Dean (a 300-mile round trip from my home). This was before the government’s travel restrictions were imposed. I have therefore not had to adapt anything for PHO702, but, depending on the length of these restrictions, the situation may have a serious impact on my FMP, as further work can only be shot in the Forest. Currently I am using this time at home to carefully plan further shoots in the Forest when they eventually become allowable.