PORTRAITURE
What are photographers looking for in self?
Quest to take photography outdoors – walk on the wild side.
Diane Arbus -“ use camera to strip away what people know about you to reveal what people can’t know about you”. Tried to be good.
Do photographers prey on disadvantaged people? Typical was images of farmers in 1930s.
Arbus was curious of people’s individuality. Quiet spoken. Took interest in subjects. Work of someone who wanted to be anyone except herself. Also did uptown families. Matthaei’s chose her to do Christmas shoot in 1969. In 1971 committed suicide.
Richard Avedon became the cult portrait photography. Tony Macarro went out to get celebrities as he wanted to see them not as they wanted to be seen as.
Picasso granted Cartier Bresson an audience in late 1960s. Did not work, so brought in Tony Vacarro who got him to drop his preconceptions.
Larry Clarke took images of his own life – an insider rather than outsider like Arbus. Like a photo diary. Published as Tulsa in 1971.
Nan Goldin seeks to show normality of transvestites, the “third gender”. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency comprised 40 pieces of music and 900 slides of friends and family.
IN Japan, Araki also took diary photos. Publishes a book every month. Detailed his honeymoon in 1971 in a book called Sentimental Journey, including explicit sex and intimate encounters. When she died in 1990 he took images of her dying moments in hospital, publishing as Winter Journey. Captures past, present and future of someone.
FAMILY PORTRAITURE
Richard Billinghan turned to family for shots. Lived with alcoholic father in a tower block. Originally started because wanted to use for painting. Used Triple Print as the processing because so bad the images gave him ideas for painting. “All photographs are exploitive, all you can do is make the photographs so artistically good you overshadow that exploitive element that is inherent in the medium.” (great quote from Billingham). Turned Billingham into celebrated photographer.
Sally Mann’s Immediate Family was her family shots taken in Virginia.
Larry Sultan produced an anthology over ten years in late 70s and 80s in Valley area of LA. Sultan got grief from parents for becoming artist rather than law school or similar. Pictures from Home series.
POST MODERNISM
Artistry had turned towards post modernism while this was going on – photography followed.
Cindy Sherman turned the children’s game of dressing up as someone else into art by photographing herself. In Untitled Film Stills get publicity style shots reminiscent of old B Movies. She denied her only identity. All imaginary people. Is it Cindy Sherman, Marilyn Monroe, or Cindy Sherman as Marilyn Monroe?
In Hollywood Di Corcia got male hustlers to pose for him, paying them with money from a government grant. Paid $20 as represented the lowest rate for sex. Photographic act was substitute for sex act.
