Interview/Review

John Blakemore in New York (http://klompching.com)

Thu, 8 Nov 2012 18:44:03 +0000

Exhibition: Romantic Camera Scottish Photography & the Modern World

Sat, 7 Jan 2012 05:21:28 +0000

The recently refurbished Scottish National Portrait Gallery now has a gallery devoted to photography where they can show some of their vast collection of work. The current exhibition “explores questions of identity, specifically the close relationship between romanticism and photography in Scotland. Over 60 works are included, ranging from iconic images by Adamson and Hill to new acquisitions being shown for the first time.” It is organized into sections entitled Unfolding, Commerce & Art, War, Romantic City and Renewal; it continues till 3 June 2012.

The Hill and Adamson photographs date from as early as 1843 and include a half finished Scott’s monument as well as one of Hill nursing a hangover. They are justly famous not only for being from the dawn of photography but for their entrancing qualities. They are too well known to need further comment from me. Another photograph from around that time (1850) is of Melrose Abbey by John Muir Wood, presenting a study in flat shapes with shadow playing as big a role as detail.

There are photographs by James Valentine as well as George Washington Wilson who had independent large businesses supplying an increasing market in the 19th century. Some historians have been quite snooty about their work so it is good to have a chance to see it. No lost masterpieces but interesting to see all the same. There is a lengthy show of hand coloured lantern slides from two series (From Oban to Skye, The Outer Hebrides) by George Washington Wilson and Norman MacLeod; made around 1896. Well worth seeing with the ones of St Kilda giving an insight into a vanished way of life. They are projected digitally so the experience is perhaps not so authentic but more practical; do have a close look at the screen and savour those pixels.

Alexander Hutchison’s St. Kilda (1890) has a somewhat disturbing effect. The people of the island have obviously dressed up for the occasion and are presented in a group sitting outdoors with women at the front all looking serious and somewhat devout. The heads of the women are framed by the white bands of their headscarves drawing our eye to them. In sharp contrast there is, at the back high up and top centre, a well dressed “gentleman” looking full of confidence and perhaps proprietorial; this, probably unintentional, comment is very striking.

Amongst the highlights of this show are a couple of photogravure prints by James Craig Annan who learnt the method as a teenager from its inventor (perhaps more accurately the person who perfected the process). He was very talented in this as well as a photographer, working in the pictorial tradition, and was very influential in his day. The Dark Mountains (1890) is a very moody work with three figures walking into the picture frame on top of a mountain (thought to be Ben Vorlich). The Etching Printer (William Strang, 1902) was made in the family works and catches the intense gaze of a craftsman inspecting a plate. Annan uses pure black areas with the outmost skill allowing detail only where relevant; I don’t see him being a fan of HDR! He switched to using a hand held camera at a fairly early stage, saying the the negatives were of “quite sufficient sharpness”, what a refreshing attitude. The prints are fairly small, around 6×4 inches, drawing us in.

The exhibition also includes three films. Eriskay: A Poem of Remote Lives (1934) by Werner Kissling is the first ever to feature Gaelic (though is is somewhat in the background except for the singing). Kissling was an aristocrat who had a strong interest in ethnography and this film is one result of his work. Somewhat shaky in places and not so tightly controlled it does none the less give us some insight into the lives of people from long ago. The second film is The Singing Streets (1951) made by three teachers from Norton Park School. It shows children of Edinburgh (mostly girls) singing and playing with great skill. Not a fly on the wall approach by any means but I enjoyed it very much. The citizens of Edinburgh will smile ruefully at the brief glimpse of tramlines and a tram. The third film, made on 16mm, is of Kinloch Rannoch (1970) made by Joseph Beuys. This scans along at varying speed with no particular aim and no action. I did watch it long enough to see an abandoned decrepit car but really the idea is just too obvious. Taking time to look at the environment is certainly to be encouraged but I’d rather look at it directly and let things unfold that way, much more rewarding.

Returning to photographs I was very pleased to see Greyfriars Kirkyard (1905) by Alvin Langdon Coburn whose work I have been looking at for a while but only in reproductions. He made a series of photographs in Edinburgh intending them to accompany an edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Edinburgh Picturesque Notes. In the end publication had to wait till 1954. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I found a copy a while ago, one of my better purchases; the photograph from the exhibition makes a superb cover image for the book. Incidentally, Coburn’s autobiography is a great read and has many photographs well worth studying. A great corrective to modern tendencies from the “wow look at the detail on that” crowd.

The documentary tradition is represented with several photographs. Castlemilk Lads (1963) by Oscar Marzaroli is described as an iconic picture of working class community dislocation, which seems a fair claim. Roger Mayne’s The Gorbals, Glasgow (1958) is described as having “spontaneity & exuberance” which is certainly the case. We are also informed that this “enthralled middle-class contemporaries”, maybe this is the reason that I have always viewed such work with unease and suspicion. We are also treated to one photograph each from Bill Brandt and Paul Strand as well as copies of Tìr a’ Mhurain (English and French editions).

Amongst the joys of the exhibition are several platinum prints. The portrait of George Mackay Brown by Prandip Malde (1986) is mesmerising. Silver gelatine prints are of course well represented. Thomas Joshua Cooper’s An Indication Piece. Isle of Staffa, Hebrides 1987 is a very original take on this well known subject. From a distance one could easily think that it is an image of a mountain, the basalt columns (top view) becoming clear only closer up.

Much of the contemporary work is in the conceptual/didactic arena. This approach is not to my taste; obvious points laced with games of cross reference do not, for me, justify these gargantuan products. For example Landscape 7/004 by Michael Reich (2007) greets us face on as we enter the exhibition. It is an example of the deadpan approach (and at around 10×6 feet it is impossible to miss). We are told that this work is “a conscious recomposition of traditional romantic views” and “Reish’s landscape reminds us that romantic representation has always been the work of imaginative transformation” (just in case you thought it was reportage). He removes all signs of human habitation using the “latest modelling software” (so maybe that’s my problem, I’m still on Phtoshop CS3). I looked at this picture, made in Glencoe and very green, for quite some time but was left entirely unmoved. Perhaps the real problem is that I am allergic to work that has critical theory as its raison d’être; presumably critics like it because it gives them something to talk about.

However let me end on a much more positive note. Richard Learoyd’s Agnes at Table (2006) is made directly onto cibachrome. It is around 4×4 feet and is stunning, but no bigger than necessary; we can enjoy the image from a distance and find other things in it closer up (OK including one strange white circular white mark on the subject’s right eye but this is of little significance). There is very little depth of field which helps to draw attention on the pin sharp eyes that sparkle.

To sum up, an exhibition not to be missed. It packs a lot into the space but it is possible to go round it without a feeling of saturation (no pun intended). In any case entry is free so going back is no problem, at least not if you are within easy reach. As mentioned at the start, the gallery in which it is presented is now a permanent photography gallery; I am looking forward to what else will be on offer.

John Blakemore Glasgow and Edinburgh Book Launch

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:00:56 +0100

A couple of exciting events were held last weekend, organized by Neil McIlwraith (who runs the excellent Beyond Words online photography bookshop) and Malcolm Dickson (Street Level in Glasgow). John Blakemore spoke very eloquently about his work and the process of producing his wonderful retrospective book published by Dewi Lewis. I recorded the talk at Edinburgh and it is presented here with John Blakemore’s permission (the overall length is about 1 hour and 14 minutes including some questions). Please note that as the file is quite large it might take a little longer than usual before you see the player controls under the picture above (it is an mp3 file so should play with any of the standard browsers). If you are using Safari you might need to hit the reload button to see the player for some peculiar reason. In listening to the talk you might like to look at the images from the book that were shown on the slides. Apart from the first and last one, which are not in the book, they were as follows (per slide):

• Tripoli (p. 18).
• Hillfields, Coventry (p. 21).
• Hillfields, Coventry (pp. 20 & 22).
• John Gulson School, Hillfields (p. 27) & Chimney Sweep’s wife, Hillfields (p. 29).
• In the Mosque, Hillfields (p. 37) & John Gulson School, Hillfields (p. 30).
• In the high rise flats: Carol, Cliff, and Matthew (p. 40).
• High rise flats, Hillfields (p. 41).
• from West Side Story (pp. 43 & 42).
• from West Side Story (p. 44).
• from West Side Story (p. 47).
• three colour images from opening unnumbered pages (7th, 8th and 9th images).
• from Spirit of Place (p.51).
• from Wounds of Trees (pp. 52 & 57).
• from Wounds of Trees (pp. 55 & 56).
• from LILA, sequence 1 (p. 73) & from LILA, sequence 2 (p. 78).
• from Wind Series 2 (p. 117).
• from Metamorphoses (p. 59).
• from All Flows (pp. 62 & 63).
• from Leaf Series (p. 93).
• from Apple Time (p. 101, first and third images) & from The Neglected Garden (p. 100).
• from Thistle Series (p. 107).
• from Thistle Series (p. 108, left image & p. 109).
• from Tulipa - Kitchen Series (pp. 145 & 146).
• from Tulipa - Celebrations (pp. 149 & 151).
• from Tulipa - Disections (pp. 154 & 155).
• from Tulipa - Disections (p. 156).
• from Chimerical Landscapes (pp. 165 & 167).
• Amergen: The Garden in Winter (p. 169).
• from The Garden: Fragments of a History (p. 171) & from Tulipa - The Generations (p. 174).
• from Tulipa - The Studio Table (pp. 153 & 181).
• Tulipomania II (p. 182) & Tulipa - After Jan van Os.
• from Blackbird Series (p. 196) & from The Taxonomy of the Curved (p. 195).
• from The Taxonomy of the Curved (p. 194) & from Blackbird Series (p. 199).
• from The Small Window (p. 205, top).
• from The Book of Schmaltz (pp. 208 & 212).
• from Interior Light No 3 (p. 239) & from Seeing Light, chasing rainbows (p. 235).
• from The Luminous Garden (p. 220, bottom) & from End of Roll (p. 245).
• colour image from closing unnumbered pages (4th from end).
• two colour images from closing unnumbered pages (last two).

Quite a feast, all of these and many more are in the book; signed copies are available from Beyond Words at the time of writing. To finish, here are some pictures taken at the two events (the last one shows Neil McIlwraith).

John Blakemore Book Launch and Exhibition

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:50:03 +0100

The opening of John Blakemore’s retrospective show at Hoopers Gallery was on Thursday 15 September 2011. This was also the first opportunity to buy the book. As expected there was a very large crowd; I was pleased to have got there early so that I had a chance to enjoy the pictures. Both the exhibition and the book are superb. I took a few photographs before the crowds arrived and some towards the end of the evening. The first three show John Blakemore, John Camino-James (who is co-editor of the book) and Dewi Lewis (publisher).

Hiroshi Sugimoto Exhibition

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 07:33:32 +0100

There is a fascinating exhibition at the Edinburgh Gallery of Modern Art (as part of the Edinburgh Festival), till Sunday 25 September. In effect this is two exhibitions in one as is suggested by the title Lightning Fields and Photogenic Drawings. The Lightening Fields are images made by discharging static electricity directly onto negatives, controlled by using a conducting rod. I am not usually a fan of large prints but these ones (around 5x6 feet) fully justify their size. There are two rooms of these with the images in the first room showing a large discharge spine with smaller and smaller branches leading off. The ones in the second room have effects that are either more spread out (like strange small animals) or consist of very delicate feather or fur like striations with accents of frond like marks. The photographs are suggestive of a variety of natural phenomena, offering many subtleties. It is interesting that a master of tonality (see his sea pictures) has produced such wonderful work which consists essentially of pure black and pure white.

The Photogenic Drawings are prints made by Sugimoto from enlarged versions of original Fox Talbot negatives, dating from the late 1830s to the early 1840s. The prints are around 2.5x3.5 feet and are toned in various ways (from cyan to red); Sugimoto refers to them as gelatin silver. This is not just a sterile exercise in photographic archaeology, the results are mesmerising. They range from very sharp contacts of ferns and other plants to the Rembrandt like (Fox Talbot’s description) soft effects for portraits and architectural studies. They all offer a variety of experience as one approaches them from a distance, something that looks like a silhouette at first turns out to have more detail. By contrast the portraits convey expression very well from a certain distance while close up there is no detail. In these days of digital bland perfection these are a very convincing case for the opposite (but then I must admit that in general I try to emulate the photographers of old and avoid excessive detail even on 10x8). The prints display a wonderful variety of texture as well, due to the paper negatives used; well worth close study. Again there are two rooms of these but take care to look also at the two pictures outside the exhibition rooms (the first one is in the alcove to your right as you go up the stairs to the entrance and the second one in the alcove on the opposite side as you leave the main exhibition).

To sum up, this is a thought provoking and highly enjoyable exhibition. On my second visit I payed some attention to comments made by others to their friends or partners, all of them expressing a sense of wonder. If you can find it, there is a superb book by Sugimoto called Nature of Light published by Izu Photo Museum (which he designed). The gallery had some copies but at quite a mark up. I was lucky enough to get a copy from Neil McIlwraith owner of the excellent Beyond Words.