Neoteric Photography aims to explore photography in an age where the image is everywhere. The image has become prolific yet easily forgotten. Hoping to find something to hold onto, something that will survive longer that it takes for pixels to appear upon a screen.
Beautiful sunshine, the smell of a sunny day and freshwater, the feel of water on my skin. The warm sun touched my skin. The trees gently rustling in the breeze, the joy of watching young men swim! Joy and laughter
What does it make you think of?
As above, reminds me of Jarnac in France when we spent a day sitting by the river. I paddled and collected stones, the water was crystal clear. I lay on the grass in the warm sun and ate an ice lolly.
What connection can you find with the image?
Summer holidays, photographing people outside in the sun, photographing the body and finding beauty
How could this be a starting point to your own work?
Thinking about how to photograph the body, something conceptual perhaps text/image - pieces of me
Richard Billingham was an art student who took photographs of his parents (Ray and Liz) originally as studies for paintings. 'A tutor on Billingham’s art degree course at Sunderland University came across the photographs in a plastic bag and Billingham ended up displaying them in all their flash-lit squalor: toothless and shirtless Ray cradling pop bottles of home brew; Liz, with her lavishly tattooed slabs of arms and vast floral print frocks, lost in her jigsaw puzzles or TV dinners. Taken together – “Ray’s a Laugh” is what Billingham called them – they seemed to provide a tragicomic through-the-keyhole of degraded post-Thatcherite Britain.' (Adams, 2019) These photographs ended up in the 1997 Saatchi Sensation show. Billingham's parents both died prematurely and in 2019 Billingham made a film about his parents and childhood - please see the trailer below
Billingham came from an impoverished and difficult background and managed to 'get himself onto a pre-degree art course and then to university, all while stacking shelves at a supermarket to pay his way.' (Fullerton, 2016) Much of Billingham's subsequent work is about his family and the urban landscape he grew up in. The two images below are of his Father using mixed media.
Billingham did not intend to become a photographer and he was offered a chance to a book of his photos and Billingham stated; 'I had this opportunity to publish about 50 of them in a book, I wasn’t sure about doing it because I didn’t want to be classed as a photographer – I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. I wanted to be an artist. I talked to a friend from Sunderland, and he said ‘you might as well do the book. Francis Bacon was a furniture designer before he became an artist… if you do the book of photographs, well, photography is closer to painting than furniture design’. (Macdonald, 2007). Billingham still makes films, photographs, and teaches.
I have looked at the work of Billingham here as from his work there is a sense of the time that these were taken and this is the same time as I was growing up, Billingham was born in 1970, I was born in 1974 and so the backdrop of the photos are familiar to me although my childhood was not like this, it was chaotic in a different way and through photography, I found a kind of salvation behind the camera. These images were important to my photography education when they came out 30 or so years ago, they showed something to me about photography and how it could be used to tell a personal story, I did not need fancy equipment, just me and my camera. A true inspiration.
References
Adams, T., 2019. Richard Billingham: ‘Statistically, I should be in prison, dead or homeless’. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/23/richard-billingham-ray-and-liz-interview> [Accessed 22 October 2021].
Fullerton, E., 2016. Down and Out and Back Again: Richard Billingham’s Photographic Past Takes on New Life – ARTnews.com. [online] Artnews.com. Available at: <https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/down-and-out-and-back-again-richard-billinghams-photographic-past-takes-on-new-life-7421/> [Accessed 22 October 2021].
Macdonald, G., 2007. Richard Billingham | Photoworks. [online] Photoworks. Available at: <https://photoworks.org.uk/richard-billingham/> [Accessed 22 October 2021].
I will be creating a short film 5-7 minutes long using still images, text and music to celebrate the life of my Father. I will be using photographs that I already have that I and my family have taken. I will use Movie Maker and I will write the text and use copyright-free music from the Free Music Archive. I will add the completed film to my website by the beginning of December.
I was going to begin this by saying that I had lost my Father, however, I would like to think my Father is always with me and I can never lose him. At the beginning of the Pandemic as we were locked down his last words to me as he hugged me was 'everything is going to change now'. My Father died of Covid complicated by his underlying conditions on April 10th 2020. This project is in remembrance of my Father, for my Father and celebrating his life.
I have created this Milanote board with my ideas and initial research - you can look at this full size through this link or below
For this project, I wanted to express the faith and strength of Joan of Arc and the fire that turned her into a martyr. I feel that this image does do that and is successful. I think though it does need to the text otherwise you would not necessarily associate the image with Joan of Arc. I like this version as I felt the black and white worked well with the flames bright touching Jesus on the cross. However, the colour version gives a different feel and depending on where it was hanging or posted I think would depend on the version to e used. Technically I was pleased with the result - this was a simple project but the image was effective and is of high quality and could be printed for gallery output.
