The Photograph as Contemporary Art: chapter 6

Moments in History

The chapter looks at how photography bears witness to the ways of life and events of the world.

In war photography, in particular, the emphasis has been on arriving after the decisive moment.  An example is Sophie Ristelhueber, who has photographed the after effects of conflicts from Lebanon to Azerbaijan. ONce again, one has to query the significance of the imagery and the message that the photographer has tried to get over to her audience. Do images of war relics on a battlefield carry any special significance?

Paul Seawright was commissioned by Imperial War Museum to take images of the Afghanistan conflict. His image Valley is almost a copy of one of Fenton's images of Crimea War.

Deadpan photography is used often when artists photograph the human side of conflicts - the human side of the consequent disruption. Example is Fazal Sheikh's work in refugee camps. Uses black and white photography with extensive narrative to record the abuses against refugees.

Moving on from war, Cotton describes work of those who have access to disadvantaged communities, such as the work of Broomberg and Chanarin in penal systems. Deirdre O'Callaghan stayed in men's hostel in London for some time before photographing the residents and talking to them about their life histories.

Dinu Li cleverly photographed the personal effects of Chinese immigrants, not being able to photograph the individuals themselves.

Social documentary photography has taken many forms. An interesting variant is Paul Graham's work American Night in which the majority of the images are bleached out photographs of black Americans.

Martin Parr has used some unusual formats. Cotton uses his Common Sense to demonstrate the style. In this set, Parr takes multiple images of everyday items in beach resorts.

By complete contrast to this, Delahaye has commenced a long term project History, for which he takes panoramic images. Effective.

A sub genre of documentary photography is to show a reality that is distinct from the generally held preconceptions. Example is Mannikko's work looking at Finnish rural culture, based around Oulu.

Similar with Ballen's work in South Africa. He stages his subjects, more in the style of monochromatic art.

Mikhailov has photographed Ukraine in several guises as engineer photographer, photojournalist, and in contemporary art. In Case History one can legitimately ask whether the photography is voyeuristic rather than empathetic, although one cannot really tell when one stops and the other starts.