Pictorial works - subject headings

This is a little tip for you.  The standard subject heading used by libraries for books of pictures is "pictorial works."  This seems logical enough; however, few people would use this as a search term when looking for photography, and would therefore miss out on some books.

If you are looking for books with photographs of Britain, try searching for "pictorial works" AND Britain (as well as the more intuitive photography AND Britain).  It is important to do this, as the catalogue record for books of photographs sometimes do not refer to 'photographs' or 'photography' at all but do use the term "pictorial works"!

As an example, compare the results for these two searches (I have used the subject field in advanced search for these examples):

petroleum AND photography

petroleum AND pictorial works

The first 'obvious' query retrieves two results; but the second less obvious query retrieves two additional results.

You could argue that this is just poor cataloguing; and you might be right.  Certainly, Edward Burtynsky's monumental book, Oil, ought to include additional subject headings, including ones related to photography.  (You can see a fuller record on COPAC here). However, the broader point is that in order to search catalogues effectively, it helps to understand the language that they use to describe resources - particularly in the subject fields.  

After all, it is not only 'pictorial works' which is a non-intuitive term, but also 'petroleum.'  Search for oil AND photography or oil AND pictorial works and your results are even more unsatisfactory.

What should replace Daylight?

The magazine ‘Daylight’ looks like it has ceased publication, and so there is an opportunity for us to put our subscription money (£46.57) into another publication.

What to buy?

The possible choices, as I see it, are Blind Spot ($65), or Blow (Euros 45) (both nominated for a Lucie Award this year), and Kilamanjaro (£30) or Colors ($75).  The latter two have been requested by academic in the staff in the past and I think I am veering towards Kilamanjaro.

Eyemazing is also a possibility.   However, having published for a decade, it now seems unclear whether this magazine is going to continue.  I can find no subscription information online, and the old website now links to the Thames and Hudson page for the new retrospective book.  The cost is also likely to be about double what Daylight cost, as the figure I have seen quoted is £85.

If you would like to express a preference, please email me asap.

Brief descriptions of the contenders, as I see it, are below:

Blind Spot
Blind Spot is a semi-annual art journal that publishes unseen work by living photographers. In Blind Spot, images are given primacy and published collaboratively rather than curatorially, unaccompanied by introductory, biographical or explanatory text. Blind Spot is not about photography, our content is photography.  Nominated this year for a Lucie award
http://www.blindspot.com/about/

Blow
Currently blocked by the University servers. This is an A3 magazine, published quarterly in Ireland. Nominated this year for a Lucie award.
http://www.blowphotomagazine.com/

Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro Magazine is a vibrant printed space, dedicated to visual culture and editorial experimentation.  Reviewed postively in Vogue, Esquire, Creative Review, etc
http://kilimag.com/about/

COLORS
COLORS was originally conceived as a nomadic magazine that would wander the world. After being founded in New York, it moved to Rome, then Paris, before moving to Fabrica, Benetton's Communication Research Center in Treviso, northern Italy in 1997.
http://www.colorsmagazine.com/about/

Eyemazing

Winner of the Lucie award in 2008, and runner up in 2011, Eyemazing is, "a unique moving gallery dedicated to international contemporary photography."

http://eyemazing-magazine.blogspot.co.uk/
 

A comprehensive list of photography magazines that I know

(the highlighted ones are the ones we subscribe to)

8 Magazine - ceased

Ag -ceased?

Aperture

Blind Spot - $65

Blow - 45 euros

British Journal of Photography

Burn

CPhoto - $86, 2 vols. per year  

Camera Austria

Chinese Photography

Ciel Variable Archives

Colors Magazine -$75

Daylight Magazine - ceased

Der Greif

dienacht

Eikon

Etudes Photographiques,

European Photography* [available online via Library Search]

Exit - 100 euros, 4 issues

Eyemazing

F

Fantom

FLIP [London Independent Photography]
Foam

Fotograf

Fotografija

GUP magazine

HotShoe

IANN

Imago

Katalog 

Kilamanjaro

Klack

Kwartalnik Fotografia

Next Level

Nueva Luz

Ohio Photomagazin

OjodePez

Photographie

Photonews

Photoworks

Portfolio - ceased

Prefix Photo 

Private

Source

Zoom

Changes to magazines in the last few years

Portfolio Magazine ceased publication in 2010 (after twenty two years)

8 Magazine ceased publication in 2011 (after ten years)

British Journal of Photography became monthly in 2010

FOAM Magazine added to the collection in 2012

Photoworks moved from bi-annual publication to annual in 2012

Photography theory - which are the most borrowed texts?

I recently ran a report to see which of the photography theory books are most frequently borrowed from the library.  The following list shows the top twenty for the previous two years.  Camera lucida came top.

See all the books (in A-Z order) on Library Search here.


Family snaps : the meaning of domestic photography
Jo Spence; Patricia Holland
London : Virago 1991

Photography theory
James Elkins
London : Routledge 2007

The art of interruption : realism, photography, and the everyday
John Roberts (John Charles)
Manchester; New York : Manchester Universtiy Press 1998

Light matters : writings on photography
Vicki Goldberg
New York : Aperture 2005

The photograph as contemporary art
Charlotte Cotton
London : Thames & Hudson c2004

Why photography matters as art as never before
Michael Fried
New Haven : Yale University Press 2008

Spectral evidence : the photography of trauma
Ulrich Baer
Cambridge, Mass. ; London : MIT 2002

The spoken image : photography and language
Clive Scott
London : Reaktion 1999

Over exposed : essays on contemporary photography
Carol Squiers
New York : New Press 1999

Photography and cinema
David Campany
London : Reaktion 2008

Stillness and time : photography and the moving image
David Green; Joanna Lowry
Brighton : Photoworks / Photoforum 2006

Photography : the key concepts
David Bate
Oxford : Berg 2009

The cinematic
David Campany
London : Whitechapel ; Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press 2007

On photography
Susan Sontag 1933-2004
London : Penguin 2002

Art and photography
David Campany
London : Phaidon 2003

Photography : a critical introduction
Liz Wells 1948-
4th ed. London : Routledge 2009

The burden of representation : essays on photographies and histories
John Tagg
Minneapolis, Minn. : University of Minnesota Press 1993

The photography reader
Liz Wells
London : Routledge 2003

Thinking photography
Victor Burgin
London : Macmillan 1982

Camera lucida : reflections on photography
Roland Barthes
London : Vintage 1993, 1981

Some suggestions for guided independent study week...

If you are new to the university and looking for inspiration as to how to spend the next week, here are a few suggestions drawn from Safari Books Online - accessible via Library Search.

Don't be be fooled by the name of this resource, it also includes videos!

Get to grip with a Mac - video

Need to get to grips with the Mac OS fast?  Try this thorough video.

Learn Your Mac: Mac Video Training

Adobe Creative Suite - videos

New to Adobe Creative Suite?  Learn by video with these great videos.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Learn by Video

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Learn by Video Core Training in Visual Communication

Camera guides

Have you spent a small fortune on your DSLR?  Or are you borrowing some superior kit?  Get the best out of it with these guides.  Search Safari Books for other models.

Nikon® D700 Digital Field Guide

Mastering the Nikon D700

David Busch’s Nikon® D700 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

Browse the library

Take Steve Simon's advice in The Passionate Photographer: Ten Steps Toward Becoming Great - also available on Safari Books Online.

Whenever I’m looking for ideas and inspiration, I love going to my library, grabbing a book, and finding inspiration between the covers. Nothing to plug in or charge, the sweet aroma of ink on paper, it’s an intimate experience that lets me get inside the head of the photographer who created it.

The story of LIFE magazine...

...is another programme I have found on BOB. Photographer Rankin profiles, "the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century" here (or embedded below).

Incidentally, Life is now available online courtesy of Google Books. You will find every issue from 1936, when the magazine was first issued, until 1972. It's fantastic!



This recording is to be used only for non-commercial educational purposes under the terms of an ERA Licence. For terms of use and to find and record more programmes please visit BoB National.

Photographies - new issue

The latest issue of Photographies is available online now.  When trying to access the journal outside of the university, select 'Sign in,' then 'Sign in via shibboleth,' and then 'University of Westminster.'

The following articles are included:

Globalisation and the Art Photography of Joel Sternfeld
Antigoni Memou

A Meditation on Poetry and Photography
Marnie McInnes

Imagining the Image: Photography, psychoanalysis and the affects of latency
Ignaz Cassar

“Venturing Out on a Ledge to Get a Certain Picture”: The “authentic” spaces of Alvin Langdon Coburn's Grand Canyon
Jordan Bear

Madonnas of Warfare, Angels of Poverty: Cutting through press photographs
Marta Zarzycka

Orientalizing the Bayadère/Fabricating Mata Hari
Romita Ray

Third Text - new issue

The new issue of Third Text is now available online from the link below.  The journal is a highly regarded academic publication, which focuses on art practices including art, photography and film.  It looks specifically at work that may be, "marginalised through racial, gender, religious and cultural differences".  For more about the journal read the aims and scope.

 Third Text - Volume 26, Issue 2

Third Text is indexed in the following databases: ARTbibliographies Modern; British Humanities Index; Thomson Reuters’ Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

Magazines and journals for photography - new subscriptions

It is really great to be able to announce that the library has recently taken out two new subscriptions in support of photography - foam and Photography and Culture.

The fantastic foam magazine is now available in the library in print.  It was an obvious choice, since I have had students approaching me in the library to ask whether we could get it, and it was well-supported by academic staff.  I am overjoyed to be able to add this to our magazine collection.

Open publication - Free publishing - More foam

Photography & Culture is available online.  It was also a clear favourite with academic staff, and as one of the few peer-reviewed academic journals that focus specifically on photography, I think it is essential for our collection.  Like other similar publications such as History of Photography and Photographies each issue contains several academic research papers, supplemented by reviews of recent books and exhibitions.

Investigating archives - links

I am talking today to the Photojournalism students about archives, which gives me a chance to reflect on the course I attended earlier in the year.  I wonder what they will think of it...

I am collating all the relevant links in the post below.

Exhibition [at Tate Modern]

Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From The War In Afghanistan [video]

Course details

Investigating the Archive; Photographic Collections of London [Birkbeck/Photographers’ gallery]

Individual archives mentioned

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/about/archive-services

http://www.flickr.com/photos/westminsteruniarchives/

http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ta/

http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/collections/photoarchiveintro/photoarchive.aspx

http://www.magnumphotos.com/

http://www.vam.ac.uk/resources/print_study_reading/index.html

http://www.therai.org.uk/the-rai-photographic-library/

http://www.apimages.com/

http://www.galeuk.com/trialsite/ [Picture Post Historical Archive trial site]

Other archives

http://www.corbisimages.com/

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/

www.gettyimages.com/archival

http://www.arts.ac.uk/kubrick-archive.htm

London Metropolitan Archives

Internet Archive

Digital Book Index [Photography Collections] [Photography periodicals]

http://www.npg.org.uk/research/archive.php

http://www.winningendeavours.org/

Online hubs

http://archiveshub.ac.uk/

http://www.aim25.ac.uk/

http://www.photographiclibraries.com/

References

Bacon, J. (2007). Archive, archive, archive!  Circa Art Magazine, no. 119, p. 50-59

Foster, J. & Sheppard, J. (2002) British archives: a guide to archive resources in the United Kingdom, 4th ed. Hampshire: Palgrave. [available in Archive Services at Regent]

McDonald, S. (2004). HultonArchive – History In Pictures. Accessed from: http://corporate.gettyimages.com/masters2/conservation/articles/HAHistory.pdf

Mereweather, C. (2006) (ed.). The archive [documents in contemporary art]. London: Whitechapel.

Phillips, C. (1982). The judgement seat of photography. October, 22: 27-63. [online]. Accessed from: JSTOR < http://www.jstor.org/stable/778362 >. [Accessed 29 March 2011].

Picture Post Historical Archive [online] [product description]. Available from: http://gale.cengage.co.uk/product-highlights/history/picture-post-historical-archive.aspx [Accessed 05/05/2011].

Phillips, S. S. (2003). ‘A history of evidence’ in Sultan, L. & Mandel, M. (2003). Evidence. New York: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers.

Sekula, A. (2002). ‘Reading an archive; photography between labour and capital’ (pp. 443-452 in Wells, L. (ed. ) (2002). The photography reader. Routledge.

Sekula, AL. (1986).  The body and the archive.  October, vol. 39, p. 3-64.

Zylinska, Joanna(2010) 'On Bad Archives, Unruly Snappers and Liquid Photographs', Photographies, 3:2, 139 — 153 [Special Issue: Photography, Archive and Memory]

Norfolk's 'slow photography' draws on archive

Simon Norfolk talks about his current exhibition at Tate, 'Burke + Norfolk - Photographs from the War in Afghanistan,' on the BBC World Service here.

The exhibition draws on the archive of the nineteenth-century Irish photographer, John Burke, linking the late 19th century anglo/afghan war with the current conflict. For Norfolk this shows the "circularity of imperial history". He talks in this interview about how the photographic process of the time accentuated the racial difference of the Afghans and Europeans.

There are several examples of Norfolk's books in the library collection at Harrow; and the most recent, 'Burke + Norfolk,' is on order.

The exhibition continues at Tate Modern to the 10th July.



Additional resources

Tate Channel: Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From The War In Afghanistan [17 minute video]

http://www.simonnorfolk.com/burkenorfolk/ [introduction, photographs, conversation]

Haven't we been here before? Art and design The Guardian [Ian Jack]

Afghanistan: There is a small corner that is forever England Mail Online [Simon Norfolk]

Picture libraries - AP and Magnum

As part of the archives course I am attending, I was invited recently to the photo library of Associated Press. This is situated in an old gin factory in Camden Town. AP 'went digital' in 1995, but the negatives (or ‘negs’) before this date, are stored in a cold room. They sit alongside a massive card index, a small section of which you can see in the picture. There is something you get from flicking through these drawers that is not replicated in a computerised system – a sense of the human behind the cataloguing.

You can search the AP Images database to see the sort of material that is currently uploaded, as well as selected pictures from the archive (e.g. the photographs of AP photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt).

The photographers, though, are not the focus of the agency, unlike at Magnum – which is a cooperative, owned by the photographers. The current exhibition, The Magnum Mark, at the Magnum Print Room, shows the photographic print as collectors' items.

Some of the prints are displayed in hinged frames, so that you can see the ‘magnum mark’ on the back – and in the examples here, a succession of marks – part of the provenance, which confers value (or a specific sort of value) on the print. The care taken in the darkroom is evident in the ‘print maps’ – here shown through the work of Magnum printer, Pablo Inirio.

Two very different visions of the photographer are presented at AP and Magnum respectively: the photographer as hack and the photographer as auteur. 

Related links

AP Images

Corbis Corp

Getty Images

'Getty Images, Inc' n.d., Datamonitor/Life Science Analytics Company Profiles, EBSCOhost, viewed 4 February 2011

Magnum

Carrot or potato – but which is better?

The rhizome includes the best and the worst: potato and couchgrass, or the weed.

Deleuze and Guattari (1987 [1980])

On the 22nd January, Sas Mays – Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Critical Theory – led a seminar on critical approaches to the Archive. This was based at the Photographers’ Gallery offices and part of the Investigating the Archive course I am attending.

The carrot, an umbelliferous plant, with a hierarchical root system (with a primary root, from which secondary roots form, which in turn branch to form tertiary roots) was contrasted to the tuberous potato, in order to explore metaphors for seeing the world, or of organising knowledge, or of organising the Archive. In so doing, we were exploring the ideas expressed by Deleuze and Guattari in their stream-of-consciousness-like work A thousand plateaus.

The taproot, like the carrot – but more often the tree – is typically used as a metaphor for knowledge – for example by the thirteenth century writer, Ramon Llul [Arbor_scientiae]. In some senses, it suggests a closed form of thinking, since it privileges structure and hierarchy, which are implicit within the Archive. Rhizomatic (potato-like) thought, in contrast, “stresses multiplicity, complexity, multi-dimensionality and chaos” (Rhizome, 2004).

In Foucault’s analysis, if knowledge is power, then the organisation of knowledge is the organisation of power; and the Archive stands in symbolic relationship to existing power structures – reflecting, representing, and perpetuating them. Photography, too, is implicated. The anthropometric work of Alphonse Bertillon (e.g. tableau synoptique des traits physonomiques) can be cited in this context and so too can Jacob Riis, but there are many other examples.

But, if these readings of the Archive don’t seem to fit with the anti-authoritarian urgency of the Weiner Library (for example), it is perhaps well to remember that while philosophers always reflect on reality, reality does not always reflect on philosophers. Deleuze and Guattari are an entertaining read because they flirt with the non-linear, and pose with the chaotic, but are ultimately neither; their reasoning against reason is reflexive.

Further reading

Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix (1987 [1980]) ‘Introduction: Rhizome’, in A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia, trans. Massumi, Brian. University of Minnesota Press.

Rhizome (2004), in The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies, Sage UK, London, United Kingdom, viewed 30 January 2011, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/sageukcult/rhizome.

Investigating archives - The Wiener Library

“If we don’t save our history, it will perish” say the Wiener Library [Institute of Contemporary History] on their website.

The library was started by Alfred Wiener, who having fled Nazi Germany in 1933 set up the Jewish Central Information Office in Amsterdam; then fleeing Amsterdam in 1939, he moved the institution to Manchester Square in London. His purpose: to expose the true nature of Nazism to the world.

The library continues this work to this day. Its collection includes well over 10,000 images, a small proportion of which have been digitised and can be previewed online; there are also books, pamphlets, eye-witness accounts and other documents.

It has for fifty years remained in a building on Devonshire Street, but its lease has now expired and it will be moving shortly to Russell Square.  It will then be next door to the newly formed Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, with which it will work.

V&A Prints and Drawings Study Room

On Saturday, I went down to the area of London which is apparently now known as 'Albertopolis' - to explore the V&A Prints and Drawings Study Room.

This was part of my 'Investigating the archive' course.

Here again were prints by Julia Margaret Cameron.  Alongside, was work by Fox Talbot, John Watson, Roger Fenton, Eugene Atget and Gustav Le Gray. 

The prints were more carefully looked after here than in the Rothschild archive: we learnt that the V&A use three sizes of archival box - imperial, semi-imperial and royal.

It was more accesssible too: anyone can get access to the Prints Room and ask for these prints to be brought out for their pleasure.

As well as photography pioneers, a whole range of other photographers are represented.  There are also resource boxes with a range of work to illustrate the history of photography. 

You can search the collections online.

Crimp (1993) suggests, "if photography was in invented in 1839, it was only discovered in the 1960s and 1970s."  However, I think the curators at the V&A might disagree: the first exhibition here (the first in any museum) was in 1858; they have a photograph of it.

References

Crimp, D. (1993).  On the museum's ruins.  Boston: MIT Press.

Photographic collections of London

I’m not a hoarder, nor a collector – not even of books; I don’t have a personal archive: I am not a typical librarian at all in fact.

However, I have become interested in archives of late and have enrolled on a course – Investigating the archive: photographic collections of London.

The first of our visits was to the Rothschild Archive - housed in an impressive building, close by the Bank of England.

It is not particularly accessible – two referees are needed to gain access to the reading rooms - and it is not specifically photographic: the Rothschilds are a banking dynasty, so the archive is as often as not accessed by economic historians.

However, the archive includes a photograph album once owned by Charlotte de Rothschild, which includes prints by Julia Margaret Cameron and has the largest collection of autochromes in the country – over 700 plates taken by Lionel de Rothschild . There are also photographs relating to the running of the company: portraits of staff, and some great pictures of people at work in the gold refinery.

Many archives – personal and business – have photographic materials, including incidentally the archives of The University of Westminster (see their flickr stream).

In some of the reading in preparation of the visit, some rather unflattering conjectures on the nature of collecting were discussed. But, as well as collecting being possibly a “masturbatory pursuit of solitary pleasures,” it is also “one way in which we hope to understand the world around us, and reconcile our places within it.” (Pearce, 1995: 8; 25).

Further reading

Ford, C. (2002) ‘Hannah, Charlotte ...and Julia’ in Rothschild archive review of the year; April 2001 – March 2002. The Rothschild Archive Trust. Available at http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/articles/ar2002.pdf [accessed 14/01/2011]

Pearce, S. M. (1995). Collecting processes: an investigation into collecting in the European tradition. London: Routledge

'The colours of another world' [pdf] Available at http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/articles/AR2006Autochromes.pdf [accessed 14/01/2011]

Photography festivals - roundup

The Telegraph website has helpfully provided a round-up of international photography festivals.

Further reading

Trenkler, K. International Photography Festivals. European Photography v. 29 no. 84 (Winter 2008/2009) p. 76-7

Old Periodicals Online

An advert in this 1910 The British Journal Photographic Almanac declares the Regent Street Polytechnic - a former incarnation of the University of Westminster - as having, "The first, largest and most successful school of photography in the world."  You will find it here.



This e-copy resides on the Internet Archive. 

Thanks to Jo Barker for sending me the link to the photography periodicals section of The Digital Book Index.  There are also links to early copies of Photograms of the year (copies of which are also in the library), which are gems! (see here for example). And there are other sections to explore: the Photography Collections page looks particularly interesting.

The "objectness" of art books

According to an article in The Telegraph in November, Steidl have opened a new bookshop in Soho – well not a bookshop, rather a “forum for books.” This is called Q Book but as the website only has a picture of empty shelves, I am not sure whether it has opened yet, so I will need to investigate and report back.

The Telegraph article is well worth a look, as it discusses the recent trend for art books – and specifically photographic art books – to be released in expensive limited editions (see the winner of the Lucie’s for example).

Iwona Blazwick, the director of the Whitechapel Gallery, is quoted as saying:

The pleasure for me is that if you can't afford to buy a work of art, you can afford to buy a book as a work of art. There is an interest in the "objectness" of art books.

As well as Q Book, three other bookshops in London get a mention – Marcus Campbell, Claire de Rouen, and another newly opened one at Somerset House – Rizolli.

References

Beyfuss, Druisilla (2010). 'Speaking volumes; Limited-edition art and photography books are increasingly treasured as works of art in themselves'. The Daily Telegraph, 13 November, 11, 12, 14. Available from Factiva [Online Database] [Accessed 18/12/2010].

See also

Steidl special editions [PDF]

Related posts

Useful libraries and bookshops in London

Heart of darkness - the back of beyond

We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs forever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, “followed the sea” with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of darkness (1902)

This powerful section of Heart of darkness was alluded to by Frank Watson in his conversation with Dr Eugenie Shinkle on the 10th of November at London Gallery West. This event was to discuss Frank Watson’s current exhibition entitled The Back of Beyond at the Harrow gallery, bringing together work from three projects: The Hush House: Cold War Sites in England; Soundings from the Estuary and Isles of Grain.

Ideas of history, time – and crucially – events that never happened or have not yet happened and their relationship to the landscape were discussed.

The military encampments are ‘monuments to things that never happened’ and ‘symbols of the American military colonisation of the English landscape.’

There is a passage in Heart of darkness on the Romans, Frank told us;  and reading this later was fascinating in the context of reading some of the photographs in the exhibition: 

They were conquerors, and for that you only want brute force – nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.

‘Was this a political project?’ he was asked.

‘Yes’ was the straightforward answer – ‘driven by ideological concerns’ and the fears of the cold war, manifest, for example, in the films of the era – Dr Strangelove, The Ipcress Files, and even the James Bond films. The demonstrations at Greenham Common were also cited (and cited too in the essay accompanying the book The Hush House).

However, a move from overtly political to more allegorical and ambiguous work was noted.  It was also suggested that the fears of the nuclear showdown that were prominent during the Cold War have largely been replaced by fears of environmental Armageddon.  This is reflected in the ongoing project Soundings from the Estuary.

Ideas of impermanence and a sense of the tenuousness of the relationship between building and landscape were also discussed. Robert Adams’ photographs of Colorado, and the work of other ‘New Topographics’ photographers were mentioned in this context.

David Campany, in the audience, suggested that ‘photographs were representations of a landscape quite unlike being in that landscape’ and that they were ‘a way of renegotiating one’s relationship with [the landscape]'

One might also argue that they are a way of renegotiating one's relationship to the past.  The landscape of the Thames estuary is one that is familiar to Watson from childhood and although resistant to the idea of the project having an autobiographical spur, he did, I think, concede the possibility. Ideas of the uncanny or un-homely were discussed in this context. The repetitive visits to these places were a way of revisiting the past – a way of quelling a sense of unease or paradoxically of amplifying it...

In the end, though, Watson’s concern was with the future and if I have understood correctly, the potentiality of the landscape. Not that this is necessarily an optimistic stance, but one that could be ominous.  Here we go back, one final time, to Heart of darkness. With deep irony, Conrad puts the following words into the mouth of Marlow:

The conquest of the earth...is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; and an unselfish belief in the idea – something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice too...”

The exhibition is on until the 10th January 2011.

Further reading

Adams, R. (2009), Summer nights, walking : along the Colorado front range, 1976-1982, New York : Aperture ; New Haven, CT : Yale University Art Gallery.

Apocalypse now redux (2009), Directed by Francis Ford Coppola [DVD].  Great Britain: Buena Vista Home Entertainment [a contemporary interpretation of Heart of darkness].

Barthes, R. (1982), Camera lucida : reflections on photography, London : Cape.

Campany, D. (2003).  'Safety in Numbness. Some Remarks on Problems of 'Late Photography'', in: Campany, D. (ed.), The Cinematic, Cambridge/Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2007, p. 185-194.

Conrad, J. (1902), Heart of darkness, Harmondsworth : Penguin.

Isles of grain (2009), Frank Watson and Dave Lawrence [DVD], Great Britain.

New topographics, 2009, Göttingen : Steidl.

Watson, F. (2004), Frank Watson : the hush house : Cold War sites in England, London : Hush House Publishers.

Websites

Soundings from the Estuary
The Hush House

Additional

Frank Watson was interviewed by Malcolm Hopkins on Resonance FM on 16th December.  A podcast of the interview can be found here.

Robbie Cooper's Immersion

I nearly blogged about Robbie Cooper's Immersion, when I saw some of the work featured in a Sunday Times article back in April, which coincided with an exhibition at the National Media Museum.  I didn't - partly because I wasn't sure of the status of the clips I found on YouTube.

However, his work came to mind when talking to PhD student at a recent training event in the library, so I thought I would share the following with you.  The concept is simple - film young people playing computer games.

It has lost none of its power to shock in the intervening six months, but don't be too upset - as the comments on YouTube suggest, we all look a bit weird when we are concentrating...




If you are going to be fazed by watching people masturbate, you should avoid the follow up piece - people watching porn, embedded below.