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History and Theories of Photography, essay draft for question one; what do you think William Fox Henry Talbot meant by the phrase ‘evidence of a novel kind’? In your discussion make use of writings from the reading list as well as further research.

 William Henry Fox Talbot’s phrase ‘evidence of a novel kind’ comes from his book ‘The Pencil of Nature’ which was published in 1844. The phrase is taken from plate 3 ‘Articles of China’ and is used to describe Talbot’s theories about the future uses of photography. He predicted that photographic documentation would serve many purposes within society. Born on the 11th February 1800 in Dorset, Talbot was the inventor of the negative to positive printing process, allowing multiple copies of photographs to be created. The details of the process used are in the 1969 reissue of ‘The Pencil of Nature’ in the introduction, written by Beaumont Newhall. He discusses in detail how Talbot began his creation. In short Talbot couldn’t draw, which caused him to wonder if there was a way of capturing the image projected by a camera obscura. Calling his camera the pencil of nature, he invented an internal combustion machine which captured images onto light sensitive paper. Fondly referred to, by him, as ‘Sun Pictures’ (Talbot, 1844) he published them as a book, which was unlike anything ever seen before. Talbot’s work was the first of its kind, a book of photographs had never been available to the public before and some of the readers found it hard to believe that they weren’t looking at drawings. He was a ‘pioneer of photography’ (BBC history, no date). Within his book are photographs of architecture, art, fruit, people, documents and objects - all of these things produced in a way that could not be replicated perfectly without the photographic method.

 Talbot realised that taking a photograph of a cabinet full of china items would be a more efficient way of documenting them than providing a written description of each object. Talbot’s photographs were described by Vered Maimon as ‘an undecided and reserved view with regard to the future.’ (2008: 314) which I think means that, he didn’t believe that Talbot realised the full extent of his discovery. While others had been preserving moments of time themselves, no one had been able to create a process that allowed multiple copies. For instance Joseph Nicéphore Niépce invented heliography, the first photographic technique that captured an image onto a metal plate. Niepce created the ‘earliest known surviving photograph made in a camera.’ (Harry Ransom centre, no date) in 1826 - 1827. With Niepce’s help, this led to Daguerre creating the daguerreotype using a similar technique. None of these photographic processes used Talbot’s develop, stop and fix technique which he had been experimenting with since 1833, as these photographs were exposed only onto one metal plate not a reusable paper sheet. Declaring his work in 1839 as the 'art of photographic drawing' (BBC history, no date) Talbot released ‘Pencil of Nature’ in 6 fascicles, with a total of 24 photographs. Each of his prints stood as different ‘proofs’ that his work wasn’t crafted by hand, but by light chemically reacting with surfaces. Capturing an object in this way gave an access to detail that was incredible for the time, resulting in many mixed views and opinions from its viewers. Not everyone believed the invention could exist. Talbot’s ‘black magic’ (Schaaf, 1992, p47) took some persuasion to be believed, and by using selected photographic examples to ‘demonstrate wide range of its applicability’ (Schaaf, 1992, p47) Talbot showed the photographer’s new found advantage was remarkable over an artists, as different skills and techniques could obtain so much more detail. Unlike now where computer software can imitate every detail, within Talbot’s time photographs were compared to paintings and drawings. Talbot suggests that evidence is a powerful thing, as ‘the more advantage in having their pictures given instead of their descriptions’ (Talbot, 1844) there is further evidence for the police to identify a stolen belonging or for a crime scene to be analysed. The truth wouldn’t be denied as easily. Once this information was revealed the concept of capturing detail would change forever. For example photographs could be compared against one another, as many thought at the time a photograph couldn’t lie. ‘Photography is about the frame you put around an image’ (Fixing the shadows, 2007) and without context and cropping, a single image could tell many different things. Not only as evidence for crimes or legal purposes, photography could be used for black mail and to reveal discreet information to the public. Journalists and newspapers would thrive from this invention, revealing events in the world never before imagined.

 It worried Talbot when Daguerre revealed his new image process, as Talbot wanted to be the first photographic inventor. By comparing himself to Daguerre, Talbot disputed whether his work would be ‘evidence of a novel kind’ as the quest to be the inventor of photography seemed to be a very competitive one.  Talbot knew of Daguerre’s work and the public were already accustomed to viewing Daguerreotypes, yet Talbot’s was re-printable and more accessible. Talbot wrote in a letter to the editor of the Literary Gazette in 1849 admitting he had been ‘Placed in an unusual dilemma’ (Schaaf, 1992, p45) between the releases of his work and Daguerre’s. Luckily for him no one in Britain knew of the French invention and he managed to establish an ‘independent priority of his photographic drawing’ (Schaaf, 1992, p47). His views of the possibilities created because of his invention were novel, and possibly he thought if others knew of Daguerre’s work first he wouldn’t have become as well known. Talbot ‘scrambled to stake a claim to priority’ (Malcom, 2004) and was successful at capturing the attention of many people. With new methods and ideas changing the techniques, his novel creation would be inspirational for decades to come. As a result of his work many other photographic processes were invented.

 Talbot established his priority as the inventor of photography by taking photographs of different things, such as art, architecture, fruit, and glass. For example the 3rd image within his book titled ‘Articles of China’ has the text ‘it would certainly be evidence of a novel kind’ (Talbot, 1844). Talbot is referring to the fact if the objects were to be stolen the photograph would be solid proof of their ownership, and it would be far less time consuming to study the photograph than ‘it would take him to make a written inventory’ (Talbot, 1844). I find it interesting that he has already began thinking about the multiple processes and uses his invention would have, and little did he know how correct he would be. Larry J.Schaff, a photo-historian, described Talbot’s ideas in a film as ‘reproducing images for the masses’ (Fixing the shadows, 2007) which in my opinion ideally describes Talbot’s way of thinking. Talbot admits that in criminal cases there would still be ‘speculation of those who poses legal acumen’ (Talbot, 1844) but at this current point in time photographs couldn’t lie, they could not be manipulated like they are today.

 Regarding Talbot’s theory towards manipulation, he believed the camera makes ‘a picture of whatever it sees’ (Pencil of nature, 1844). Talbot believed that using a camera was the same as seeing. The paper as the retina, and the glass as the eye. His argument would seem agreeable to some degree, as the camera would photograph exactly what was in front of it. Yet a photograph could never capture the personal view someone has, or how different elements stand out more to individual people.  Photography was seen ‘as the mechanical perfection of a representational and aesthetic task’ (Good, J. No date) and photography was unable to capture that individuality. A good example from Talbot’s work would be photograph 10; the haystack. To everyone else this was a simple photograph of an everyday scene, yet the haystack had never been shown like this before. There was now access to real detail. Many trained painters could never obtain every part perfectly even with hours of work, yet now within moments a photographer could capture everything. On one hand this photograph gives more to the viewer than you can predict, things a person wouldn’t notice instantly, yet a personal view of this haystack may differ to the way it is taken. Talbot’s text with the photograph is straight to the point discussing how ‘no artist would take the trouble to copy faithfully’ (Talbot 1844) indicating his thoughts towards time consumption between artists and photographers are true. He has predicted many difficulties photographers would have in the future. This haystack was now seen in a different way, capturing every detail a person probably wouldn’t want to spend the time doing so. Yet it still doesn’t capture any individuality of the persons view when taking the photograph. What Talbot is forgetting is that a haystack is used in context in a painting, for example, to show its harvest time and not as a single image. Can a photograph reveal too much? We discover things we shouldn’t as the ‘Photographic medium doesn’t care what’s important and what’s not’ (Fixing the Shadows, 2007). A photograph has the capability of revealing so much without any context, and once an image is captured it is there forever. Talbot clearly believes that painting a detailed image is now a waste of time.

 One of Talbot’s photographs which interests me the most is plate 14; The Ladder. It is a photograph of a ladder being held up against a barn by three boys. Photographs of people were hard to obtain because of the length of the camera exposure, and this photograph would have had to have been staged. The ‘patience of the sitter’ (Talbot, 1844) was vital when creating these photographs, and depending on the weather conditions they could be standing a very long time. He chose an everyday object, such as a ladder, as Talbot had an ambition to show everyday life within his photographs. This average scene of three boys with a ladder up against a barn, was something the public could relate to when seeing these photographs for the first time. His ‘Evidence of a Novel kind’ (Talbot, 1844) was showing the extra ordinary within the ordinary, everyone has seen something similar to this before, yet never in such a way. Photography experienced a ‘massive boom’ (Hacking, 2013, p10) in the 1850’s and this was probably due to the publication of these photographs. Many people wanted to try photography themselves, as Talbot’s photographs were so inspirational. This caused people to document their belongings and lives for themselves. Talbots way of thinking had inspired many generations to come. There was such interest in the restaging of the original photographs from his book ‘Pencil of Nature’, that to mark its 150th anniversary, in the 1950’s, a film was made to document it, which can be found in the Huntley films archive. The black and white silent movie was humorous to watch, as so many people gathered around Lacock Abbey. They were taking photographs of their own of the recreation of the photograph. Including the chairman of Kodak! Comparing Talbot’s photographs with some of the best photographers in the world, I’m of the opinion they aren’t the best. Yet their importance means so much more as the context is incomparable.

While Talbot was inspirational, not everyone agreed with his views. Vered Maimon suggests that the ‘Pencil of Nature’ isn’t ‘embedded in the idea of authentic copy or index, as it has been suggested in recent theories’ (Maimon, 2008). He felt that Talbot’s work can’t be authentic because of the staged reality in order to capture some of the photographs. Talbot ‘has a desire for truth’ (Maimon, 2008) which is only related to a specific style. His opinions are correct yet he is thinking in a ‘specific form of romantic historicism’ (Maimon, 2008). In other words his ideas only relate to specific functions. He hasn’t thought of commercial uses, advertising or art, he has mainly thought of law, possession, and reality. These concepts of his are novel for the time, but are they relevant now? His work is documenting parts of his life as a middle class white man living in England, which aren’t relatable to everyone else in the world. For example, one still life contained a pineapple, which only the privileged could afford. Was Talbot showing off his social status? I disagree, as Talbot’s work was about showing the world what he could do. His ideas and methods were novel, yet the photographs themselves aren’t so much. The ‘popularization of photography…led to a shift in attitudes towards the medium’ (Hacking, 2013) in the late 1850’s photography slowly began to recognize itself as an art form. People were taking photography down different paths and styles, leading towards pictorialism, which after Talbot was a huge change, as he also hadn’t predicted any of this.

In our society some photographs and pieces of artwork have become great and interesting because of their context, others simply because of what they are in the world and nothing else. For instance Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is seen by thousands every day; is each of those people seeing it to appreciate the beautiful art work, or simply because of what it is and its fame? To some, Talbot’s work would be nothing more than, for example, a photograph of an old abbey, yet to others it represented so much more than that. Plate one; Part of Queen’s college Oxford shows the ‘most evident marks of the injuries of time and weather’ (Talbot, 1844), this expresses the cameras ability being so much greater than any quality of drawing or painting seen before. The warn marks of the stone are capable of being photographed to that exact extent of what they are, thus Talbot proving the ‘novel’ evidence that the camera is a remarkable invention. These small markings and details we are used to seeing every day would have been incredible to see replicated at the time, making it novel and good proof for Talbot to use. Seen by everyone they are recognisable yet instantly making the audience aware they are more than just a painting or a drawing.

‘Evidence of a novel kind’ (Talbot, 1844) could represent thoughts and ideas, as well as so many possibilities for the future. Talbot’s use of multiple examples seen in every day Victorian life justifies his argument that they could have so many uses in the future. Documentation is now easier, legal issues now have physical proof, family life can be captured, and the development of cultures and communication can be shared. Talbot’s invention is novel, more than novel, by changing the way the world worked. In my opinion his photographs now aren’t what’s important, it was his futuristic views that changed everything within society. The end of the introduction of ‘The Pencil of Nature’ states that the book is left to the ‘indulgence of the Gentle Reader’ (Talbot, 1844). My indulgence is to imagine what effect these photographs would have had on the public. To imagine a place where this was unknown, and every photograph was real and believable. No editing or manipulation, this world would be alien to imagine. It is novel to think of the changes made within our world, and it is novel to imagine the thoughts, reactions and feelings towards these photographs. The photographs will never loose meaning, as long as they never lose their context.  (2546 words)

 Bibliography

BBC - History - William Henry Fox Talbot. 2015. BBC - History - William Henry Fox Talbot. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fox_talbot_william_henry.shtml. [Accessed 07 November 2015].

Batchen, Geoffrey, ‘William Henry Fox Talbot. ‘Latticed Window (With the Camera Obscura, August 1835’ in Sophie Howarth ed., Singular Images. Essays on Remarkable Photographs, Tate, 2005.

Booth, A. (1965). William Henry Fox Talbot; Father of modern photography. London: Cox and Wayman LTD. 53-64.

Fixing the Shadows (2007) The Genius of Photography, (Television programme). BBC 4, October 25th.

Good, Justin.. (no date). Why photographs are not more realistic than paintings.Available: https://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/users/dmeyerdinkgrafe/archive/good.html. Last accessed 20th Dec 2015.

Hacking, Juliet, ed, Photography: the Whole Story, Thames & Hudson, 2013.

H.J.P, Arnold. (1977). William Henry Fox Talbot; Pioneer of photography and a man of science. Essex: Anchor Press LTD. 175-216.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce: The First Photograph. 2015. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce: The First Photograph. Harry Ransom centre, University of Texas in Austin. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/firstphotograph/niepce/. [Accessed 07 November 2015].

Malcom, D. (2004) William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) and the Invention of Photography. The metropolitan museum of art. Available from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tlbt/hd_tlbt.htm (accessed 29th October 2015).

Nelson, K.E. (1996) A Thumbnail History of the Daguerreotype. The Daguerreian society. Available from http://daguerre.org/resource/history/history.html (Accessed on 4th of November 2015).

Shaaf, L.J. (1992) Out of the shadows; Herschel, Talbot and the invention of photography. London. Yale University press. The dawn of photography; Herschel and Talbot in the spring of 1839. 45-73.

Talbot, W.H.F. (1844) The Pencil of Nature. Project Gutenburg. Available from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33447/33447-h/33447-h.html (Accessed on 19th October 2015).

Vered Maimon (2008) Displaced ‘Origins’: William Fox Henry Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature, History of Photography, 32:4, 314-325, DOI: 10.1080/03087290802315793

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) and the Invention of Photography | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2015. William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) and the Invention of Photography | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tlbt/hd_tlbt.htm. [Accessed 08 November 2015].

Wolf, H.. (2013). Innovation and discovery; Nature as drawing's mistress. In: Brusius, M. William Henry Fox Talbot; Beyond photography. New Haven: Yale centre for British art. 119-142.

There are various ways to look at a photograph: you can run the pages of a magazine and your eye jumps continuously from a picture to another, for example, or you can wander through the rooms of a museum and suddenly set your eyes on something that has captured your attention. In both cases the images are still and it is your body that chooses to stop in order to admire them; in a sense, you join the stillness of the picture, little by little the details emerge and in that moment your mind “starts to move”.

The relationship between stillness and movement is one of the most interesting and discussed aspects of photography. Moreover, this subject, creates an immediate link with other forms of art, such as cinema, sculpture, painting, each of which has tried, in their own way, to seek a compromise between stillness and movement. These two words are antonyms, but from an artistic point of view they can be just two sides of the same coin.

Among the countless manners to create an image, we can divide photographers in two types: the “hunters” and the “farmers”. The first ones scout around for something amazing to happens and, guided by fate, they patiently wait the precise moment when a perfect scenery appears in front of their eyes; the second ones, on the other hand, are makers of the perfect scenery, they prepare meticulously their subject paying attention to every single detail. To be more clear, the “hunters” can be interpreted as those who work outside (street photographers, wild-life photographers…), while the “farmers” can be considered those who work in the studio (fashion photographers, advertising photographers…). Obviously the difference is not so radical, I have made a classification to better understand the process behind the pictures I am going to talk about.

The first photograph I take in to consideration was taken in 1964 by Harold Eugene Edgerton; it is called “Shooting the apple” and it belongs to a series of pictures used as a scientific study. Edgerton was an artist, inventor and professor of electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; he designed a high-speed camera, known as Rapatronic Camera, which became his most famous work. This machine can record fractions of time, such as 10 nanosecond, that human eye cannot perceive (this particular photo, for example, was shot with a shutter speed of 1/3 microsecond) and a particular photographic technique of multi-flash. The image shows a red and yellow apple pierces by a sort of a metal pedestal, the background is turquoise-blue and almost flat; the calmness of this still-life is broken by the presence of a 30 caliber bullet which has just transfix the fruit. The sides of the apple are shattered in a quite symmetrical way, while the front of the fruit is intact, untouched. The scientist used this image during a lecture, entitled "How to Make Applesauce” at MIT to show that the explosion of a bullet at the entry is as powerful as the exit. The speed of a bullet is so fast that arresting its path seems impossible, but this picture proves the opposite; it became an icon in both science and photographic art and Edgerton became known as “the man who was able to freeze the time”. I like to consider him as the perfect link between the “hunters” and the “farmers”, which I mentioned before. Behind his works there is an immense preparation and deep detailed studies of both the subject and the machine, nevertheless he couldn’t be absolutely sure about the outcome. It is this hint of mystery and unknown that makes Harold Edgerton’s photographs so beautiful and spellbinding. Among his amazing and innovative pictures, some notable ones are: “Milk-drop coronet”, he cycloid curve of a wheel, the motion of a diver who flips backwards, the movements of a tennis player and a golfer, the flight of a hummingbird. All these photographic studies about speed and movement show us how this pioneer of both photography and science was fascinated by what the human being cannot see and his interest in slowing the world in order to change this condition.

This approach to photography could be seen as the peak of the studies about movement that Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne Jules Marey did approximately a century before. In the second half of the nineteenth century these two photography avant-garde started thinking about a way to represent an action with the help of a camera to replace the, by now “outmoded” and inaccurate, drawing; a horse running was the first subject of Muybridge. His aim was to understand the position of the animal’s four legs during a race. He placed twenty-four cameras on the ground and the horse triggered a mechanism which allowed the cameras to shoot. Marey, on the other hand, chose to record the movement of the human body and the flight of birds in one single photograph, using a kind of photographic riffle, he personally invented, which, shooting continuously, broke the entire action in a series of pictures that were put all together at a later time. Both Muybridge and Marey works have a fundamental historical importance not only from a scientific point of view, but they are also the physical representation of how fast and important the development of photography was. As a matter of fact their studies led to the birth of cinema just few years later.

There is a strong connection between cinema and photography, in fact a movie is basically composed by a long series of photographs taken in a very little fraction of time; however, there are also many differences between the two. We are used to consider photography as the representation of stillness and cinema the representation of movement. This idea might stems from the fact that the original purpose of cinema was exactly about that: make an image move. In this way it would have been possible to record facts and events not only through static images, but also through real video, making a document as close as possible to reality. The history of cinema begin with the famous Louis and Auguste Lumière, who, in 1895, projected a “movie” (a short movie of a running train) for the very first time, inside a room of the Grand Café in Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. The two brothers invented a rudimentary cine-camera, the “Cinématographe”, a single machine which was both camera and projector. As well as for photography, after its invention, the development of cinema increased rapidly. At the same time the question about the relationship between the two new subjects started to pervade the mind of the artists. Is the gap between cinema and photography so wide and radical? In 1963, the visionary pop-art artist Andy Warhol created a film, called “Sleep” lasting for six hours of a man (the poet John Giorno) sleeping in his own bed. The movie was not really about the sleeping man; Warhol was interest in the role that time plays in cinema and, as a consequence, he tried to explore the subject from a different point of view by mixing together the stillness of photography and the movement of the video. I like to interpret this work of art as a still movie, but also as a moving photograph. “What finally broke that first bond between photographers and film-makers was the arrive of sound in 1929”, wrote David Campany in his book “Photography and cinema” (D. Campany 2008) and perhaps he made the point. The presence of sound in movies is the biggest difference that cinema has with photography and it is unequivocally a point greatly in its favour. Of course it is not a competition about which one is a better mean of communication; as for the cinema, photography covers aspects that are peculiar.

In his essay “Fire and Ice” (1984), Peter Wollen described film as incessant motion and transience and photography as something frozen and motionless. Personally, I am not completely agree with this sentence. Photography requires the motion of our mind and our imagination: looking at a picture you can still give your personal interpretation to it, while as for movies you are forced to see the story through the director eyes. Furthermore, while a video possesses a specific duration of time, a photograph does not. This statement recalls me the discourse about the role of time that I mentioned before. When we talk about stillness and movement we take in to consideration the time too, inevitably.

Our lives are a continuous flow of events and moments, the aim of photography is to grasp a little fraction of this flow making it timeless. The most notable photographer who looked at this topic was Henri Cartier Bresson, who is considered the father of photojournalism and his works of street photography are acclaimed worldwide. In 1952, he published a book which became his masterpiece: “The decisive moment”, the “bible” of photographers. Here he theorized a specific method to take pictures taking his own work as example; he took in to consideration all the aspect of photography: the colours (or the tones for black and white), the technique, the composition, how to put images in sequence…. The photographer was convinced that the camera is an extension of the eye and it simply registers the decision made by the person. As a consequence we have to pay attention to every single detail at the moment we are taking the picture. The second image I am going to talk about was taken by Cartier-Bresson in Paris in 1932 and it is called “Derriere la Gare Saint-Lazare” (behind Saint-Lazare station); it was elected “The Photo of the Century” by Time magazine (Alex Selwyn-Holmes, 2009). The black and white picture is divided horizontally in three levels: the background with the station and the roof of some buildings, in the middle there is a high railing with some signs and a man, in the foreground there is a man jumping from a ladder in a waterhole, the figure is blurred while everything around him is on focus. Every single detail is still and the only presence of movement is given us by the action of the mysterious man in the foreground, this represent a perfect example of the dialogue between stillness and movement. The meeting point of the two aspects is the shoe’s heel that is about to touch the water; it is a suspended moment and we can also guess what is going to happen. What is brilliant about this photograph is the perfect balance between the rhythm of the lines and the relationship of the shapes which make the scene a fascinating example of suspended moment. In this period the photographer was young, an amateur in search of his own path. However, this image totally represents the idea of decisive moment that Henri Cartier-Bresson will theorize twenty years later.

As a form of art, photography has many aspects in common with painting and sculpture. A photograph can be considered as an “alternative painting” or an “alternative sculpture”, we look at them and perceive them in the same way.  As a matter of fact, studying photography (or some of its aspects such as the relation between stillness and movement), we cannot ignore the connection with the other forms of art. Looking at the history of art, is possible to find a long tradition of artists trying to hold the movement in a single picture or a static sculpture: Masaccio depicted Bible stories entirely in one scene by reproducing the characters many times in different places, the Impressionists used the tache (smudge) technique to make the elements of their paintings more alive, Umberto Boccioni in 1913 created his most famous sculpture “Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio” which, through the distortion of body parts and muscles, represents the synthesis of the movements of a man running. In spite of this, the most striking attempt to hook up the movement and the stillness was made in 1913 by Marcel Duchamp, a french conceptual artists account for the invention of the Ready-made technique. His work of art, “Bicycle wheel”, is a sculpture composed by a wooden stool on which a bicycle wheel stands upside-down. It is consider as the emblem of the conceptual revolution of the twentieth century avant-garde art. The sculpture is a complete paradox: neither the stool or the wheel are employed for their original purpose, but together symbolised the ideal interpenetration of stillness and movement. This is not a photographic example, nevertheless I like to consider a sculpture as a three-dimensional image and a picture as a two-dimensional sculpture with its own kind of plasticity.

Urban Landscape is a type of photography that is usually associated with a cliché natural landscape. However, I was aiming to expand the contradiction of this genre and consider documenting collective memories that then depict certain symbolism, that work as a mirror for the society that reflects and responds with their own life experience to the photograph that they observe. My target was to expand upon certain motifs and themes such as dehumanisation, abandoned, decayed, repetitive patterns; themes of quantity.

The medium of Photography is often repressed, still and lifeless, in contrary to the text, where one word can shift from description to reflection. Photography breaks down the continuity of time it is the subject of the arrested part that cannot lead to the present or future. The apparatus that I shoot with helps me to decode the languages of semiotics that are observed in the recognisable patterns of our everyday life.

Thus, before starting my journey of exploration I have started browsing Urban Landscape genre in the library. Starting looking from Eugene Atget Photographs de Paris, fascinating representation of the bourgeois society, photographs of the deserted Paris, almost as the scenes of the crimes - to Andreas Gursky, who concentrates on repetitive patterns of the consumerist culture of capitalism. Andreas Gursky has been my long time inspiration. His laid back photographs are highly contextual. His style of shooting form the aisle view, places the observer above the situation almost as the Big Brother, allowing us to see patterns of life, the never ending tape of mankind on natures premises, detecting the defaults of human ideologies. Alongside with my browsing research of photo books, History and Theory seminars helped me to understand the concept behind the images. Critical Theory is essential part of my reading list; it helped to see the world in different perspective. Walter Benjamin’s essay of ‘‘The work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction’’ where he stayed that: ‘’It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography’’. Mechanical reproduction erases the aura of the images creating the world of simulacra. I wanted to concentrate on symbolism in my images, highlighting used manmade object that tell the story of the particular social group within that environment, aiming to photograph the quantity of our social realism.

Continuing researching the abandoned warehouses and the unseen London, I came across the website called the Derelict London, that navigates alienated locations around London. Further one, I came across The Alperton Car Breakers and 777 Commercial Road, the last sail makers loft in the East End - two locations that I was particularly exited to visit. While searching for the derelict places in urban explores forum worldwide I came across the freelance photographer Daniel Marbaix that photographed abandoned locations worldwide with wide angled lens, after emailing him, he gave me useful tips on trespass and shooting techniques, such as shooting with HDR mode and then using dodge and burn tool to exhilarate certain details.

Although, I have visited the Rut Blees Luxemburg, London Dust exhibition in Museum of London, images of London City and its unpolished reality. She concentrated on documenting the fallout of the financial crisis in 2008. I personally find her work quite allegorical and interesting in colour pallet and toning. She elevated gold colour as a motif through the semiotics to highlight the contrast in social groups. My further research evolved artists such as Edward Burtysnky and particularly his book ‘OIL’ that depicts extreme expressions of the Chinese industrialization. As well as that I have looked at American photographer Lewis Baltz and his lifeless grid format photographs that influenced me to photograph pictures of deconstruction, ruin and rubbish, lost properties. So I have selected my previous Russian contact sheet of ruined industrial buildings, open space, dead landscape of misery. Before sequencing my images I came across photo books of Nick Waplington Patriarch’s Wardrobe and Joel Meyerowitz book Aftermath: 2011 that I echoed to as I could relate to the topic, not only appearance wise but contextually as well.

Primarily restricted topic as Urban Landscape ended up as beneficial experience of my photographic skills and interests. Aiming to photograph themes of dehumanisation in our capitalist society through the use of punctum (Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida). This project allowed me to observe the world in different dimension. My aim was not to represent the pleasant image for the eye, however to depict the social realist world that we leave in, nevertheless erasing the humankind and leaving the objects behind as the inscription.

Bibliography

Muteness, freeze-frames can be considered as still photography, but they are only effective as part of a movie. Instantaneous photography was not available at the beginning of photography. William Henry Fox Talbot does not write of stillness in ‘The Pencil of Nature’ as the still quality of photography was only recognised with the introduction of the moving image and cinematography.

People and Water. Daguerre’s ‘Boulevard du Temple’ 1838 shows buildings which cannot move, people which can, but also people that have moved and so can no longer be seen and so we cannot be sure when looking at a photograph, whether we are looking at the subject or the way the camera has rendered the subject as both come hand in hand. Photography can be used to capture things which painting cannot, the camera can represent a splash, whereas painting can actually be a splash. Although this seems only relevant to photographing water, photography is a medium which without water, wouldn’t exist, even without wet photography and dark rooms, dry photography still needs a certain amount of water to function.

The institutions of the mass media have great cultural and political power. They are able to shape opinion and form social norms, they dominate media ideology. 

http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/Feb2007.html

https://archive.org/details/PhotographyAndPhilosophyEssaysOnThePencilOfNature2008ScottWaldenVariousAuthors

Mass media magazines are historically one of the primary contexts for photography. Much of the most significant photographic work made for magazines and newspapers was and is destined to be thrown away, but these images can also be recycled and re-shown in books, exhibitions and websites - it just means that they are not longer original and this is especially true of documentary photography, photojournalism and fashion photography.

Histories of photography often focus on photographers with artistic ambitions and not those who work solely for the printed page. These almost abandoned images can be seen accompanying writing, but the design, sequencing and layout are what shape the reading of the photograph.