Hamish Fulton (revisited)

It has occurred to me that when I did a previous blog post about both Richard Long and Hamish Fulton, I had not included an image from Hamish Fulton. It is similar in tone to Richard Long, but his style is to have the writing covering the image as opposed to having it below the image.

 

'Wind through the Pines', 1985, 1991

As I’ve said before, his images (although he is a fairly competent photographer) are often a by-product of the walk and it is the journey that he takes and details, that is paramount (it is about what the experience gives you as opposed to a physical product such as the image).

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/fulton-wind-through-the-pines-p77621 accessed 09/04/2013

Martin Parr

The images of Tony Ray-Jones’s were a major influence on Martin Parr’s documentary images. In terms of photographic approach and style, they are very similar, although Martin Parr’s images are often framed in such a way that you only given a small portion of a much bigger picture.

If you compare Tony Ray’s image ‘Southend, 1967’ to Martin Parr’s image ‘New Brighton, Merseyside, England, 1983-86’, you can see that the people are well composed (in the frame) and look fairly comfortable where they are lying, whereas the people in Martin Parr’s image are uncomfortable, awkward and are in most cases, cut out of the frame.

Southend, 1967

 

New Brighton, Merseyside, England, 1983-86

The same idea applies to Tony Ray’s image ‘Glyndebourne, 1967’ and Martin Parr’s image ‘Honiston Pass, Lake District, England, 1994’. In both of these images, we see tourists taking a leisurely break on their journey. But the situation is made odder due to the fact that they are surrounded by animals but don’t appear to be paying attention to them.

Glyndebourne, 1967

 

Honiston Pass, Lake District, England, 1994

The image below is a perfect example of people wanting to seek escapism, but without the hassle of getting to a proper beach (in some cases, people go to these sort of places due to the fact that you can go in all weathers).

Japan, Miyazaki, The Artificial beach inside the Ocean Dome, 1996

The fake landscapes we create feed our desire for escapism and relaxation, but the comforts and luxuries of our lives are included.

BBC News

The Tony Ray-Jones images and the image of a packed beach above in this blog post were meant to be in the previous post, but I was unable to attach them (I referenced these images in the previous blog post)

Images sourced from: Martin Parr by Sandra S. Phillips

Tony Ray-Jones

‘My aim is to communicate something of the spirit and the mentality of the English, their habits and their way of life, the ironies that exist in the way they do things, partly through tradition and partly through the nature of their environment and mentality. I have tried to present some of these daily anachronisms in an honest and descriptive manner, the visual aspect being directed by the content. For me there is something very special and rather humorous about the “English way of life”’.

                     - Tony Ray-Jones (Quote from ‘A Day Off: an English Journal’. Original sourced from ‘Creative Camera’ October 1968).

Eccentric is the best way to describe the figures in Tony Ray-Jones’s images of the English at leisure. If we take the image above as an example, we have two rather middle class couple (possibly bordering on upper class) enjoying an alcoholic beverage in what appears to be a lay-by. This situation is made odder by the fact that the field behind them is full of farmyard animals. It is this sense of eccentricity that runs through his images which are both funny and compelling at the same time, the fact that the English will seek a place of relaxation in often strange ways.

As mentioned before, we seek relaxation in strange ways. The men below are relaxing on the grass, from the image it is hard to tell whether the sun is out or not, but the fact that they are in shirts and ties says that (in my opinion) they are office workers who have briefly left the office to soak up potentially a small amount of sun.
 

A (sort of) peculiar thing happens when the sun comes out in Britain; a lot of people will head to the beach or sit in the park (often during work hours) to soak up the sun (because it is deemed in Britain that the sun coming out or a ‘Nice Day’ is rarer than hen’s teeth). Often, stories come out in the summer saying that the economy suffers during really hot days because productivity goes down.

(Unfortunately, Blogger isn’t letting me upload images for some reason, so the images are in order, ‘Glyndebourne, 1967', 'Southend, 1967' and an image of a packed beach from BBC News)

 

 

 

Notes and Images from: 'A Day Off: an English journal by Tony Ray-Jones (with 120 photographs)'

Image of a packed beach from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4219172.stm

 

The Language of Landscapes

‘Landscapes are the world itself and may also be metaphors of the world. A tree can be both a tree and The Tree, a path both a path and The Path. A tree in the Garden of Eden represents the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge. It becomes the archetype of Tree. When a path represents the Path of Enlightenment of Buddhism or the Stations of the Cross of Christianity it is no longer a mere path, but The Path ’

                                    - Anne Whiston Spirn (The Language of Landscapes)

 

Landscapes are stories and all have the elements of language. Languages have shape, structure, formation, material and function, Landscapes have these characteristics as well as but often need to be read closer to understand them.

We seek to write our own existence onto these landscapes, but we are not the only ones. The landscape is constantly evolving, changing, creating new stories. In some ways, those who seek to carve their own existence on a landscape are a mere blip on the radar of time.

Landscapes are not merely read, but they can be seen, smelled, heard and touched, (to begin reading the landscape, you have to somewhat become one with it). The stones crunch underfoot, the wind whistles through the long grass and the creaking of trees swaying in the wind. All of these are elements of a story happening in the landscape; these devices inspired many of the early Romantics such as William Wordsworth as they sought to convey the grandeur of the landscape.

The language of landscapes is vast and confusing and we only read small sections at a time (often from very different viewpoints). So that what we end up with is often a false description of the landscape as a whole.

 

 

 

Notes from: The Language of Landscape, Anne Whiston Spirn

John Blakemore

“To be alone in the landscape was a release, a return to the pleasures and pursuits of my childhood which had been lost to me”

        - John Blakemore (quote from’ ‘Photographs 1955-2010: John Blakemore’)

John Blakemore often retreats into a landscape when a tumultuous event has happened in his life. His first landscape work ‘Wounds of Trees’, was his first landscape work in which he developed his sense of using photography as a metaphor for communicating his feelings (the landscape work ‘Metamorphosis’ and ‘All Flows’ continue exploring the landscape as a metaphor showing it as a form of energy, both as a constructive and destructive force).

from Wounds of Trees

In 1981, John Blakemore stopped working in the landscape as he felt that the land he was depicted in his photography was pristine and untouched, whereas the reality was that the land everywhere was being threatened, corrupted and despoiled by human interference.

 

from Englands Glory

 

 

 

 

Notes and images from: Photographs 1955-2010: John Blakemore

Literary Review

For this module, I had a question which was, ‘Why do we seek Escapism? And do we really?’ (I initially struggled to form this question at first as I have found this module very challenging). The book that I have placed first in my literature list, ‘A Dream of England: Landscape, Photography and the Tourists Imagination’, I found useful as it broke down the idea of tourism and defined them into various groups. It also explained the difference between these groups and how there method of escapism varies between them.

The second and third books in the list; ‘Escapism’ and ‘Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Life’ are on something of a level pegging. They both talk about Escapism, the first book talks about why people do it and the second talks about how people choose to do it. The conclusion that I have come to from both of these books are that this sense of escapism that we seek is not physical, but psychological (that’s partly my opinion as well).

The fourth and fifth books in the list are: ‘An Object Cannot Compete with an Experience’ and ‘Wanderlust: A History of Walking’ and they are again, both very similar in subject matter. They both talk about walking in the landscape and walking as an experience which counters the idea of tourism which is seeking escaping for the sake of it. Whereas these two books talk about walking as a physical and physiological experience and this is something which is to be enjoyed.

(I should also point out that a number of quotes from various people in the books that I have researched have also been useful. However, at this moment in time, I am a bit undecided as to which quotes which will work best with my presentation and I will look at narrowing down my choices at a later date).

Literary Survey

·        Taylor, J, 1994, ‘A Dream of England: Landscape, Photography and the Tourists Imagination’, Manchester University Press, Manchester

·        Tuan, Yi-Fu, 1998, ‘Escapism’, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

·        Cohen, S et al, 1992, ‘Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Life’, (2^nd Edition), Routledge, London

·        Fulton, H, 1999, ‘An Object Cannot Compete with an Experience’, University of East Anglia Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

·        Solnit, R, 2001, ‘Wanderlust: A History of Walking’, Verso, London

·        Fuchs, R.H, et al, 1986, ‘Richard Long’, Thames and Hudson, New York; London; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

·        Godwin, F et al, 1985, ‘Land’, Heinemann, London

·        Godwin, F et al, 1986, ‘The Secret Forest of Dean’, Redcliffe Press and Arnolfini Gallery in collaboration with the Forestry Commission, Bristol

·        Black, J, 1992, ‘The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century’, Sutton, Stroud

·        Wordsworth, J et al, 1987, ‘William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism’, Rutgers University Press co-published with the Wordsworth Trust, New Brunswick; London

·        Brant, B, 1984, ‘Literary Britain’, Victoria and Albert Museum in association with Hurtwood Press, London

·        Wells, L, 2000,’Photography: A Critical Introduction’, (2^nd Edition), Routledge, London

·        Stillman, A. G (edit), 2007, ‘Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs’, Little, Brown and Company, New York; Boston; London