Piecenumberfour_walking the city in order to experience it

The photos below were taken in central London on a recent visit. I went out with a couple of intentions in mind: to drop into the Photographer's Gallery and the National Gallery, and also to wander around, find some parts of the city I'd not come across before, or some parts I knew and, in photographing them, see them anew. I went out with the intention of walking in the vague direction of the National Gallery, from my starting point near Holborn, and stopping every 15 minutes to take a photograph of whatever presented itself to me.



































































I used to live in London and, sometimes, miss its vastness and the ability to lose yourself in midst of all those millions. I definitely miss the opportunity just to drop into the galleries, see a seminal piece of art and then wander back out into the streets...
In the 19th century, Charles Baudelaire came up with the concept of the flâneur, the gentleman stroller who was both part of the crowds in the new social spaces and removed from it, viewing with an artist's eyes the changing society. The flâneur become a conceptual figure in later philosophies of architecture, society and urban spaces.
The idea of the flâneur fits well with the rise of 'street' photography. In Susan Sontag's words: The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'

Piecenumberthree_colour wheel

Public spaces are intimidating places. It is here we pass by strangers, in all their forms. It is here we engage in that most essential of activities: consumption! This activity became something ostentatious in the period the Impressionists were active. It was something to show off, a sign of one's wealth and one's taste.

Everyone's doing it today, and we don't all have wealth or taste.

Stockport: its wide shopping arcade redolent of the glory of Paris' late 19th century boulevards. The carousel adds colour, gives the activity of shopping the carnival feel: the world turned upside-down.
These spaces - the public spaces where we go (secretly) to look at other people and to see if we're wealthier, healthier, more stylish and modern - these spaces are contrived and unnecessary.

Or poorly lit, oppressive and decidedly unglamourous.

Piecenumbertwo_wii, wii, wii

The Impressionists were the first modernist painters. Which means they painted modernity, interpreted modernity, such as it was in the mid to late 19th century. And what was modernity? Modernity of the period has a number of definitions, but it essentially about change, about responses to change. These changes were within society and within the spaces where society defined itself: the private and the public. The city became a grand public space where men (and it was predominantly men) were able to define themselves based on new ideologies and myths, based primarily on leisure, consumption, spectacles (of the showy kind, not glasses) and money.
The Impressionists captured these public spaces, and all their complexity, eroticism and danger. The private spaces were of course more intimate and yet were no less defined: women and children had a place and a role to play in the home, just as they did (even by their exclusion) in the public spaces.
Today, we have a more fluid relationship with public/private spaces. This blog is public: no-one is restricted from viewing it, except by their not knowing it exists. It is also quite private in both my construction of it, and the audience's reception of it. Likewise, in the image here, the couple play a computer game in their front room and (despite my presence as the photographer) this is a private action. But technology has allowed this to become a public affair: the computer is connected wirelessly to the internet and the couple can challenge any other users around the world to a game of virtual tennis.
This is our new society: geography is by-passed; language, religion and race are by-passed. All you need is a bit of wealth and a bit of leisure and the whole world can play virtual games against one another without leaving their home.
The other significance of this image comes in the relationship between the sexes. Whilst it would be naive to say that men and women live in perfect equality today, there is certainly less of a division than in the period the Impressionists were painting when women were responsible to children, the home and looking nice in a corset, whilst the men could go out and explore all the darkest corners of the city without fear for his reputation. Today, men and women's leisure and consumption is more equal: as in this image of marital bliss around the Wii. Whilst this image isn't typical of all households, most homes today do not have such sharply defined spaces for the different sexes to spend their time.

Piecenumberone_Hazel Blears MP is lovely...

I had to attend the launch event of the Innovation Forum in Salford as they advertise heavily in a magazine I design. In fear of having to make small talk with men in suits, I took my camera which allowed me to not talk to anyone whilst I waited for the buffet (which was very nice, especially the chocolate pudding).
I'm still not really sure what the Innovation Forum is for, but it's a very nice new building in the middle of a not particularly nice or new part of Salford. I had never actually been into Salford before and I was beginning to wonder why I had come until I was thoroughly charmed by Hazel Blears, the local MP and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
She was the headline act at the do and was given the honour of pulling the cord to reveal the plaque commemorating the occasion. After the official photographer had taken his shots, Blears was about to leave when she saw me pointing my camera in her direction. She looked directly at me, smiled, I took the shot and thanked her, she smiled again. I was smitten and silently pledged to always vote Labour...
So why have I chosen this image as an Impressionist-inspired-art-piece? Because, along with my little anecdote above, it describes the modern obsession with image. Blears' professionalism when confronted with camera lens was like that of a Hollywood star (I haven't photographed many Hollywood stars, but...) She knew she had to present a positive image and that she couldn't afford to let the facade drop for a moment. I'm not denigrating her for that: she was pleasant and charming and did her job very well.
What I am denigrating, I suppose, is that so much time was spent on 'official photographs'. The two gentlemen you see in the image with the cameras were the official snappers and lined up a range of shots of the dignitaries who attend. Blears didn't really have to say or do very much at all except smile at the right time. The event would not have happened unless the photographers were there to record it.
Compositionally, the image is quite strong and tells the story I wanted to tell. The eye is drawn to Blears and then sees the official photographer standing behind her, lurking with his camera (he was cut off in homage to the Impressionist technique). The white ladder was used by the photographer to get a high angle on his shots but seems a little incongruous and covers the second photographer. The mayoress, her consort, the chap who came up with the idea for the building and a local councillor all stand looking at the little lady as she chatters before the grand unveiling.
I didn't use flash; the natural light coming through the large windows at the front of the building and playing off the rich pinks of the interior gave enough to shoot comfortably.
The photographs by the official snappers taken at the event will now be attached to press releases and sent out here and there, used in the Forum's promotional material, find their way onto various web-based portals, and Hazel Blears will go onto other events and smile the same smile.

misanthropy has no place on the internet

As the art-piece for Unit 4 Historical and Contextual studies, this blog features the images I have taken, inspired by the Impressionist art movement of 19th century Paris.

I will display the images I have chosen and give a brief description as to what makes them Impressionist-inspired-art-pieces, in case it isn't clear...
Part of it, as with everything we call art, is context. Impressionism was a reaction to modernism, as it was in that vibrant, changeable and dramatic period which saw France defeated in a brief war; Parisian life thrown upside-down and a new style of government brutally suppressed; and art take a whole new direction.
So, today we are seeing massive changes, hugely radical changes, to communication and social networks - our new ways of understanding the world are through the wwws and blogs and emails and bebos and downloads.
I'm not particularly fond of this, if I'm honest. I like trees and cold, wet winds rushing through heather. I'm fond of rain and ravens, tall grasses and, if I'm honest again, the wet-red gash of fresh roadkill. Noneofthis, noneofthis I can truly understand through the digital world. Nonetheless, I have to embrace this modern world (like I would embrace the old ladies I met as a child - fondly, but fearful of too tight a hold and in the vague hope I'll get given a pound at the end of it) and the blog is one of the means of mass dissemination of ideas (even if the ideas revolve around how delighful young ladies look without their clothes on, or how cute your children are).

Hence this blog, which contains the photographs I have taken for this project, not as I think the Impressionists would (I have no idea whatsoever how Renoir would react artistically to 2008 and I have no interest in contemplating it) but as my reaction to the modern world (the post-modern world?) as I know it, and the new technologies which are making all our lives so much easier, more fulfilling and less teaming with dread.