Exercise 1.7: Assignment preparation

Mullins, S. DSC2147, 2018-12-09.

My first assignment for my Landscape Course is called Beauty and ‘The Sublime’ or in other words picturesque and the sublime.

The brief:

“Produce a series of 6-12 photos that convey your own interpretation of beauty and / or the sublime within the context of landscape.  You may choose to support, question or subvert accepted definitions of these terms.

Your images don’t necessarily have to be made in the same place or type of location. However, they should complement one another and attempt to function as a cohesive series.”

My first thoughts are to consider what Beauty/picturesque is and how it can be represented and the then ask the same questions for the sublime.

Interpretation:

The brief does not require to offer up examples of both, but I shall (if I can) try to produce a series of photos that offer up both in some kind of juxtaposition of beauty/picturesque with the sublime.

Beauty and The Sublime:

The Sublime

Edmund Burke (1729 – 97) wrote his theories on the sublime and picturesque / beauty, a topic that came to the academic and art’s attention in the 18th century from newly translated writings from Longinus that inspired writers and painters.  Burke associates the sublime with awe, danger and pain, with places where accidents happen, where things run beyond human control, where nature is untameable.  Size can reflect the sublime when creating feeling of insignificance in the viewer, for example the mountains or the ocean.

Beauty / the picturesque

An aesthetically pleasing aspect, a feeling of safety, comfort, inspiration, desire.  Examples of subjects in landscape that would convey the picturesque would be hills, rivers and canals, fields and glades, etc.

I interpret the picturesque to represent balance and stability and the sublime as conflict and unbalance.  This is what I shall try to find and represent / convey through my chosen    subject-matter.

Ideas

My first idea is to take images of empty shops, charity shops, take-away restaurants and estate agents in the high-street and then photos of retail stores in out-of-town shopping-centres and websites to illustrate to current 21st century retail landscape.

My second idea appeals to me much more.  To take pictures of locals that are connected to tragedies such as murder, attempted murder and suicides.  This idea came about when chatting to a friend at a dinner-party, I discovered a local wood that I sometimes walk my dog was the scene of a notorious murder.  On Googling, I discovered several locations within walking distance connected with murder, attempted murder an unsolved death that may or may not have been a murder and a suicide.  My thoughts are to take pictures of the general location for example a banal picture of a suburban residential road, a new block of flats, a modern development, picturesque views in a park and woodlands.  Nothing obvious, no specific spots, etc.  but picturesque and banal, images that are subverted by the context in which they are linked.  I have emailed my Tutor for his thoughts and to find out how he would like me to submit my work.

Emails:-

To my Tutor:

Hi Garry,

As per exercise 1.7 assignment Prep.

I have been thinking of ideas for my fist assignment Beauty and the sublime, and considering some of Edmund Burke’s definitions I have a couple of ideas.

My first idea was to take photos of high-street shops and shopping centres juxtaposed against images of websites in context of the death of the high-street.

My second idea, which I like better, is taking pictures of places that are connected with tragedy.  I was recently made aware of a notorious murder that took place some 20 years ago where I sometimes walk my dog. Googling, I have discovered a number of locals both picturesque and banal that hide murders, attempted murders and suicides.  A photo of a typical suburban residential road a park and local woods, new flats on the site of a Pub, photo of a new development over the site of an old manor house.  Obviously my intention is not to photograph specific addresses or an exact spot but to subvert a typical picturesque or banal scene into something less comfortable.  I recall reading about a similar idea a year or two ago, an artist took photos of locations in Northern Ireland to recall tragic events during the troubles.

How would you like me to submit my work to you?

I am happy to make prints and post them to you, I will of course put them on line on my blog anyway.

Thanks

Shaun

512659

Reply:

Submit them with high res jpegs and a written evaluation (in word or pages so I can annotate on them).

Ideas sound spot on. Save the internet comparison for a later assignment. Address two sides of the coin of ‘sublime’ so that it shows your understanding of formal concerns in Photography  to allude to meaning. Simon Norfolk a good reference for that.

The artist you mention is Paul Seawright (who taught me at Newport) and I would also look at Joel Sternfeld ‘On this Site’.

Joel Sternfeld ‘On this Site’: https://steidl.de/Books/On-This-Site-1227384056.html

Paul Seawright, Sectarian Murders: http://www.paulseawright.com/sectarian/

I would certainly reflect on these two in your evaluation. Say what aspects of form you have used to allude to ‘The Sublime’.

A useful note taking device for a basic reading of images I recommend to students (if you’ve not already used it) is the ‘Understanding Photographs’ grid. I have enclosed one that unpicks Paul Graham’s work (on a similar theme to Seawright) and no doubt an influence on him. However, this is ‘strait’ documentary landscapes not the sublime so condor the differences in ‘rendering’.

—

Garry Clarkson, FHEA, BA (Westminster), MA (University of Wales, Newport), CELTA (Cambridge).

OCA tutor: Photography, Creative Arts, Film & Moving Image 

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