The IDEA

As I am trying to wrap my mind around this 'new normal' of COVID-19 and all the disruptions that have resulted (husband working from home, kids homeschooling, bye bye face-to-face photography).

I have been keeping and eye out for inspiration on some way I could adjust my project to represent this crazy worldwide coronavirus life and keep true to my research of kids and play...

I started seeing these social media posts- simultaneously in our own neighborhood and then everywhere on friends posts from Washington to Australia. 

At first I thought it was a fun idea.. Our town started doing one of their own.  Then I kept seeing them...

See what I mean? (check out the number of shares!)

What an interesting phenomenon of people trying to stay connected...

  

I went out and started shooting.... and the images.... well, here are some...

Right??? I can't image a better way to represent this strange life of isolation these kids are suddenly leading, and the way humans need humans.  

Can't wait to see this project unfold.  

Images  ©BrenSlade 2020

Bam. Idea

I know what to do for my project!!!!!!

ADAPT

Rethinking your projects in a rapidly changing world.

Presentation by FMP Leader Wendy McMurdo Wednesday March 25th.

ADAPT

Wendy was very helpful with resources and recommendations that may help with our COVID-19 disrupted, ever evolving projects.  

Here are the ones I found most useful to my person:


Clare Gallagher - The Second Shift.  Shoots around the home.  Anonymity is important to her so here children are slightly off camera or masked.  Focusing on the untold story of mothers coming home from work, working then in their own homes.

Fig. 1: Gallagher.

Sian Davey- began shooting her daughter, Alice, who was born with Down Syndrome.  She uses available light.  Great example of shooting in confined and limited spaces.  She represents Alice like any child, with needs the same, and family dynamics as similar and varied as any other family.

Fig. 2: Davey.

Hayley Morris Caffiero- self portraiture.  Although she does shoot in public (like with her project Weight Watchers) her self portraitures could be transferred to home locations.


Trish Morrissey is another example of shooting at home- like this image where she allowed her child to paint on her face:

Fig. 3: Morrissey.

Sian Bonnell- performative photography using still life items, often items you might find around the house. 

Fig. 4: Bonnell.

Guy Ben-ner- I am familiar with already (see previous post). Utilizing home in performative art usually featuring his own children.  

Gem Toes Crichton who has both the experience of previously being stuck in her home as her kidney was removed during part of her Falmouth MA and then now as she is in a residency during this COVID-19.  She has a developed a great way to keep people connected in making cyanotype prints and sending them back to her.  


The key ideas of this broadcast was the recommendation of taking the central themes of my project and relocating them into some other objects or a different way to go about it.  Time to think out of the 'box' (sorry for the pun Bonnell).  





Figure 1: Clare GALLAGHER. The Second Shift. [online] Available at: https://www.claregallagher.co.uk/about [accessed March 25 2020].

Figure 2: Sian DAVEY. Looking for Alice. [online] Available at: http://www.siandavey.com/humannature [accessed 25 March 2020].

Figure 3: Trish MORRISSEY. The Failed Realist. [online] Available at: https://www.trishmorrissey.com/works_pages/work-tfr/workpg-04.html [accessed 25 March 2020].

Figure 4: Sian BONNELL. Box. [online] Available at: https://www.sianbonnell.com/box [accessed 25 March 2020].

Emergency Meeting With Jesse and Wendy

Tip 1: Don't Panic
Look around you and see what other organizations are doing- what other people are doing.

Jesse reminded us that Falmouth is not assessing our work- just the learning outcomes. And our ability to meet them.

Note to self: Pay close attention to the Learning Outcomes

This is a time to re-think things.

Think out of the box.  Use the technology available to you. 

Even though the FMP is usually a selfish time, when it's all about you and your project, thats not really appropriate at this time- but we are all in this position together. 

Use peer- to-peer meetings.


Still feeling a bit unsettled about things at this time.  Should be meeting with Wendy soon so hopefully I'll get some direction/ inspiration.  

QUARANTINE Continues- This time, COVID-19.

QUARANTINE

This time it's a bit more serious.  

COVID-19 is disrupting global life as we know it.  Falmouth Photography MA and its students are no exception.

Our family is in complete lockdown currently.  We were potentially exposed by an extended family member (recently returned from travel) who is now exhibiting pretty clear symptoms, including major respiratory issues.  

We are a pretty healthy lot, and gratefully this is not a childhood virus, so we are not too concerned about getting the virus itself, but transmitting it to someone for whom it would be a much more serious event.  We pulled our children out of school but shortly thereafter all the schools closed anyway.

What this means for my project.  With all the halt in face-to-face contact recommended I'm going to have to re-look at my current methodologies and explorations.  (I've had to cancel shoots lined up with children indefinitely).  My state currently has limited tested cases- but that is because tests are near impossible to obtain.  Idaho to-date has tested less than 200 people (5 positive).  The number of caseloads that actually exists is predicted to be much higher.  

Before lockdown I had been experimenting with RAW imagination- kids in action.  Here are some of the moments I captured:

I enjoyed exploring this new style but with this new epidemic I know it won't be possible to continue. 

With the spread of the coronavirus and the global turn of events, including staying at home, no travel, limited interactions, it looks like I'll have to re-think my project.  

Speed BUMP

OK

Just when we get rolling in a new direction of course there has to be HURDLES!  Gah.  

This hurdle came in the form of the worst kind- the STOMACH  flu.  

Image curtesy of Pixelsquid through Envato

The culprits: My kids.  But, not all-at-once-and-get-it-over.  No, one at a time, so we can enjoy this horrible journey for as long as possible (thank you incubation).   

The problem- for my project I am photographing OTHER kids (think carrier monkey).  So unfortunately I am in self-quarantine until this is over.


Meanwhile I already had THIS (see below) shoot in process.  Even though I am experimenting with RAW imagination I still love CONSTRUCTED photography as this is my specialty and passion. So I am continuing to experiment with constructed images as well.  




Tying the idea of flowing and twirling back to nature I wanted this one to have a very nautical feel.  I constructed the idea out, obtained my model, went all out with hair and makeup and set it all up.

A very tiny sneak peak of the finished product:

can't wait to do another!

See more at: www.BrenSlade.com

Tamara de Limpicka

Fig. 1: Limpicka 1929. Auto Portrait. 

An influential woman artist in her time, and today. Staged art, both sumptuous and full of finery.  


Tamara was born into wealthy Polish life that was riddled with opposition in her youth.  Her painting sometimes labeled as 'soft cubism' she determined her technique would be 'novel, clean, precise, and elegant.' She found favor with the wealthy, the royals, and Hollywood, fell out of fashion and full circle back into it before her death  (Tamara-de-lempicka.org 2017). 

What inspires me:  Her boldness.  I'm not too impressed with her continual push for her excessive social life, especially at the neglect of her daughter or family.  But looking at her rough upbringing it's hard to judge. He daughter Kizette did return to care for her in her last days so that shows all family ties weren't completely severed but her life to me seemed a bit hollow with a continual search for satisfaction.

I like find her color pallets very effective: 

"The painter builds her canvases using a full range of greys in which one colour becomes the ‘actor’, as it were, dominating the work: an emerald green, a true blue, a soft pink or bright magenta, a fiery orange or a strong red, " (Railing 2005).

In my work I also like to have just one, or two colors dominate the work.  I also like here painterly finish which referred to above as 'clean' and 'precise.'  Though not well known for it- her art does have an edge of surrealism and seems beyond her time.  

Fig. 2: Slade 2018. 

Figure 1. Tamara de LIMPICKA. 1929. Auto Portrait. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/tamara-de-lempicka-auto-portrait [accessed 16 March 2020].
Figure 2. Bren SLADE. 2018. Available at: www.brenslade.com


RAILING, Patricia. 2005. ‘Exhibitions, Museums and Galleries: “Tamara de Lempicka Art Deco Icon”’. Art Book 12(1), [online], 17–8. Available at: http://search.proquest.com/docview/880382804/.[accessed 16 March 2020].

Tamara-de-lempicka.org. 2017. [online] Available at: https://www.tamara-de-lempicka.org/biography.html [accessed 16 March 2020].

Photography and Fiction

Fig. 1: Cameron 1875. The Princess.

Julia Margaret Cameron is one of the most known and celebrated women in photography's history.  

According to St. Andrews Special collections, 

She was known for her RULE BREAKING.

She used costumes.

Her images had smudges and scratches (we would say 'texture')

I love her.  

Her images were CONSTRUCTED and IMAGINATIVE.

Fig. 2: Cameron 1875. Elaine Before the King.

She illustrated poems and brought stories to life.  

IN one image- she even scratched a fantasy like MOON into the corner (Staged Photography 2011).

We also have Hippolyte Bayard

and his self portrait pretending to be a drowned man:

Fig. 3: Bayard. 1840. Self Portrait of a Drowned Man

This time the fiction comes from the images ambiguity and the caption on the back.  But again the image is both CONSTRUCTED and STAGED. 

I am also inspired by photographer of MANY decades, Duane Michals who created narrative through sequencing of images.  

Fig. 4: Michals 1989. Grandpa Goes to Heaven.

Some of his images sequence full circle, the last image and first being the same, as in his collection "Things Are Queer." 

Then we have Mac Adams, the photographer in the 1970's, who narrows the sequence often to two images, the beginning (or middle some would argue) and the END. Leaving what Adam's called a 'narrative void' for the viewers to subject upon (Staged Photography 2011).  "What happened in the middle." 

Fig. 5: Adams. Mystery of Two Triangles. 

These photographers celebrated both fantasy and the cliche.  

In 1976 Cindy Sherman 'stages' self portraits like she is the captured star in the middle of some dramatic film.  She definitely explores the mechanics of 'staged' photography as well as portraiture and the female identity (Manchester 2001).

MORE Conceptual and COMPOSITE photography:

Jeff Wall in 1993 completes this masterpiece- the effects of a gust of wind all in one image:

Fig. 6: Wall 1993

It took him more than a year to shoot and composite- and the actual composition was based on a Japanese print.  

German Photographer Thomas Demand started in sculpture and creates life like cardboard replicas that explore the idea that our reality itself is a construction- no more or less real than the paper leaves he glues to a cardboard wall and captures in flat lighting.  His images are only simulacrums (Staged Photography 2001) but that is his point- isn't every photography, in fact, every real scene as well? 

"A photograph is a blank page.  

On it, each of us is entitled to write our own story." - Anonymous 2011

HOW THIS IFORMS MY PRACTICE

As of late I have been feeling the push away from my conceptual composites.   But after finding these historical contexts I feel there is a place for my own passion as well. 

I like to take reality and open up imaginary spaces.  With themes of a childhood that never really existed.  I celebrate the cliche and that reality is not that 'real' anyway- reality is internally processed by each human consumer in just the same way that a photograph is.  

I use the technology that is available to me- Just as Julia Margaret used the technology available to her. 

I like to explore the themes of youth and fictionalize or romanticize the fantasy of childhood- in a way that connects more to adults visualizing and romanticizing childhood than actual childhood itself.  

The Myths of Childhood- (hey that's pretty good- maybe that will be my new working title...)

Figures 1-2. Julia Margaret CAMERON. 1875. Available at: https://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/pioneering-photographs-alfred-lord-tennysons-idylls-of-the-king-photographically-illustrated-by-julia-margaret-cameron-1875/ [accessed 11 March 2020]. 

Figure 3. Hippolyte BAYARd. 1840. Self Portrait of a Drowned Man. Available at: https://monovisions.com/hippolyte-bayard-biography-19th-century-inventor-of-photography/ [accessed 11 March 2020]. 

Figure 4. Duane MICHALS, Grandpa Goes to Heaven, 1989, Carnegie Museum of Art, The Henry L. Hillman Fund. Available at: https://storyboard.cmoa.org/2014/10/duane-michals-telling-the-story-of-the-storyteller/ [accessed 11 March 2020]. 

Figure 5. Mac ADAMS. Mystery of Two Triangles.  Available at: https://digital-films-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=53589 [accessed 11 March 2020].

Figure 6. Jeff WALL. 1993. A Sudden Gust of Wind. Available at: https://publicdelivery.org/jeff-wall-gust-of-wind/ [accessed 11 March 2020]

MANCHESTER, Elizabeth. 2001. Cindy Sherman Untitled 1976. Tate. [online] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sherman-untitled-p78499 [accessed 11 March 2020].

Staged Photography. [electronic resource] (2011). Films Media Group (Photo). Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=cat03146a&AN=BYUID.4585408&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 11 March 2020).

St. Andrews Special Collections. 2019. Pioneering Photographs: Alfred, Lord Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King,' Photographically illustrated by Julia Margaret. [online]  Available at: https://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/pioneering-photographs-alfred-lord-tennysons-idylls-of-the-king-photographically-illustrated-by-julia-margaret-cameron-1875/ [accessed 11 March 2020]

The Imagination and Human Behavior

Fig. 1: Slade 2020

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky in the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology distinguishes two basic types of creative behavior among human acts.  The first is called 'reproductive' and "essentially it consists of a person’s reproducing or repeating previously developed and mastered behavioral patterns or resurrecting traces of earlier impressions" (Vygotsky 2004)

Recalling your childhood home, or re-living emotions from a past relationship all would be considered reproductive behavior.  

The second type of behavior goes beyond reproducing the stimuli of your brain's past and moves into the actual creation of new- new images, new scenarios, new possibilities.  This is the 'creative' or 'combinatorial' behavior and it is what separates us as humans from not only being able to progress insomuch as our history is reproduced, but opens the window to both creating a future as well as altering our own present.  

Imagination is not just the creation of what is not true- but is in fact:

"the basis of all creative activity, [and] an important component of absolutely all aspects of cultural life, enabling artistic, scientific, and technical creation alike" (Vygotsky 2004)

Photography is no exception.  Particularly constructed images and those not meant to be a trace of an actual or factual event.  And our 

creative combinatory activity arises in stages from more elementary or simple forms, to more complex ones.

Creation can also be therapeutic.  

In the book, The Revealing Image: Analytical Art Psychotherapy in Theory and Practice, Joy Schaverien distinguishes between three definitions of art therapy: 

1-Analytical Art Psychotherapy focuses on a relationship with a therapists, and images in equal amounts.  

2-Analytical Art Psychotherapy- where the emphasis is more on the therapist and the images are secondary.

3- Art Therapy- the sole emphasis on the creation of art, in a meditative way.  (Schaverien in Justis 2017).

Fig. 2: Slade 2020

HOW this RELATES TO ME: 

Through this process of experimentation in my photography methodology and style I recognize why I need my post processing and digital creation of my photography.  It's my own personal therapist. 

My life has stress.  Nothing unique there, it's a part of mortality.  Kids, husband, job, extended family disfunction- again I can claim no more or less than most.  But life has a way of creating waves over your person until, if left unattended, you drown.  Bleak but all too true.  

How does one stay true to self while emotionally and physically processing the world that speeds around them?  

Mindfullness

Meditation

Self Actualization

Each person has their own journey to find their 'center.'  

I recognize now how often mine comes in the form of 

ART THERAPY, as referred to in Schaverien's third definition.  

When I edit my images I succumb to a meditative state.  Imaginative creations that clear my mind and replenish my core. (I believe my husband has recognized this for some time- even if he wouldn't be able to put it in those exact words.  He recognizes how the creation of photography is fulfilling to me and makes me a better and happier person- resulting in he is very encouraging in that respect).   

SO

As I look toward this final project I hate to reject the art that is so a part of me.  Somehow I would love to explore a collection that journeys from the RAW imagination all the way to the extreme fantasmical edit.  Not sure how that would happen but I feel I will keep exploring AND creating on both sides of the spectrum for now.  

Fig. 3: Slade 2020

Figures 1-3. Bren SLADE. 2020. 

JUSTIS, Hannah T. 4239670221, "Meditative Art: A Diversion from Stress and Anxiety" (2017). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 397. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/397 [online] Available at: https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1454&context=honors [accessed 10 March 2020].

VYGOTSKY, Lev Semenovich. 2004. 'Imagination and Creativity in Childhood.' Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42:1. [online] Available at: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2007_08.dir/att-0149/LSV__1967_2004_._Imagination_and_creativity_in_childhood.pdf [accessed 10 March 2020].

Ground Zero

Wendy McMurdo encouraged me to take the next few weeks to experiment.  I have some new approaches in place to get to GROUND ZERO of imagination.

Straight to the free play of kids in their own environment.  

Fig. 1: Slade 2020. The Hunt.

As I look toward this new approach I am inspired by the portrait work of  Mary Ellen Mark.  

Mark gets right to the heart of personality in her images.

Fig. 2: Mark 1992. Clayton Moore, The Former Lone Ranger, Los Angeles [photograph]



"It's not a good idea to try to ask people to behave in ways that don't seem natural for them" (Mark 2015). The picture is not all about you as a photographer, but about the person themselves.  Mary Ellen Mark represented the distinctive but commonplace (Oxford University Press 2018). And she looked for the 'human' elements that connect to all of us.

These words of wisdom will inform my methodology when working with children, particularly in their own environment. Children are both commonplace AND distinctive, and I want to represent them as such.  If I want to capture a child's natural imagination, then the images themselves need to reflect that. All the while striving to bring out the universal elements of imagination that connect to us as humans, even if in a performative way.




Figure 1: Bren Slade. 2020. The Hunt.
Figure 2: Mary Ellen MARK 1992 From: Mary Ellen Mark 2015 On Portraiture and the Moment, Photo District News. Vol. 35 Issue 9, p42-44. 3p. 

Mark, M.E.  (1940–2015) 2018, , 2nd edn, Oxford University Press.