Everyday things

Irving Penn - Cigarette butts

So Jenna was mentioning that she likes to photograph unusual details, and seems to have her eyes on the ground as much as on the sky and the distant views. And why not? In doing so she's walking in good company, and Irving Penn springs to mind. He was a fine portrait photographer and did a lot of high (very high) fashion for Vogue.

He also produced a lot of anthropological pictures, and I think it's fair to say that he was transfixed the surfaces of things, and the way that a photograph can make beautiful even the most forgotten and mundane cast away items. Cigarette butts, for example, when looked at with great cate and attention, and photographed with craft, may become something beautiful.

More here:

http://alafoto.com/listing/displayimage.php?album=42&pid=6270#top_display_media

In a similar vein, Malcolm was looking at the Leith skyline from Arthur's Seat and struggling to see the photographic possibilities in it, compared to the views of the Old Town for example.

I didn't have much sensible to say at the time, but I have since been reminded of John Davies. He photographed some very mundane city landscapes, as well as rural ones. This is what he says he does: " I am not so much interested in entertaining an audience or providing vehicles for escape but in delivering a highly crafted detailed image conveying a sense of reality. A reality that shares a recognition of aspects of urban living. But importantly, making images of a landscape that attempts to question our acceptance and perception of the inevitable consequences of living in a post imperialist society and a post industrial landscape". 

He makes pictures of often quite everyday scenes that we are familiar with and that we might not consider a suitable subject for a camera, and he applies a very careful crafted photographic technique. He uses a large format camera and black and white printing to create pictures with incredible detail and visual interest, that make you look and look again at the everyday scenes around you. The pictures don't make a lot of sense on screen, they are prints or books - physical things. Have a look in the fine art section of Central Library for some of his books.

He makes huge landscape pictures of small British places, and the fascination is in the busy detail. He has some of the neutral, documentary style of the photographic movement known as New Topographics, which aimed to reduce the role of the photographer as author; but he also draws something of the grand drama of people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, and their very American taste for grand open vistas.

Bur Davies is British, and his pictures are about Britain.

http://www.johndavies.uk.com/