Discussion of Exam Paper

My chosen topic is Documenting Contemporary Life.


Definition:

Document: Record (something) in written, photographic, or other form.

Aspect: a particular part or feature of something.

Contemporary: belonging to or occurring in the present.

Personal: belonging to or affecting a particular person rather than anyone else.

Issues: an important topic or problem for debate or discussion.

Concern: make (someone) anxious or worried.

I will be researching three photographers: Lewis Hine, James Ravilious and John Grierson.

Lewis Hine:
Lewis Hine was born in Wisconsin USA in 1874 (he died in 1940) when he was 18 his father died in an accident and he worked hard to support his family as well as educate himself. He studied sociology and eventually took up a teaching position in New York. Then when he was in his late twenties he was given a camera and discovered the power of photography in capturing and recording the reality of life.  His first photographic project was in helping his students documenting the arrival of immigrants at Ellis Island in the hope that they would develop a respect and regard for them. The images that Hines captured of the new arrivals showed them in a dignified and sympathetic way, it showed him the power that photography has in educating people. His interest in social issues combined with his love of photography led him to leave teaching and take up a position with the Child Labour Committee photographing the abuse of children in the factories where they worked. Hines was often in disguise to take these images. This was at a time in history of great industrial change and his documentation of the appalling conditions which children were made to work under was instrumental in the setting up of child labour laws. He also photographed ordinary people at work including during the construction of the Empire State Building as well as in mines, textile mills and factories. Hines was able to capture the workers as they skilfully and knowledgeably interacted with their machines to keep them working productively. He showed how the pride the ordinary person had in their work fuelled their spirit to provide a better life for themselves and their families.






















This photo ‘Power House Mechanic’ was taken by Hine in 1920. In it a mechanic has been carefully posed working at a Pennsylvania Power plant, he is bent forward, gripping a large wrench and is in the process of tightening the nuts on a steam turbine. This image was part of Hine’s Powerhouse images which formed part of his ‘Men at Work’ series 1920-1940: Dignity of Labor’. The image shows a physically strong man with his bare arms exposed and the muscles there taut as he strains to complete his task. There is also a determined look on the workers face as he goes about his work. The worker is positioned centrally in the image and his from is almost entirely contained within the circular shape of the large turbine. In the background the huge pipes that connect into the turbine can be seen as well as other smaller pipes and taps and cogs.

Hine has posed the model for this photo, this is known as he has also taken images of several other models in similar poses in front of the turbine. But for this particular image he has selected someone with a different body type to his other models. The worker he has chosen to model for him is quite muscular and masculine looking; this was because Hine wanted to portray the physical strength of man in the image. Then by enclosing the worker within the circular shape of the turbine he combined the man and machine together showing them working perfectly as one. It is as if the physical strength of the man is as powerful as the strength of the machine, as if the one could not work without the other. In showing the image this way Hine was trying to redress the balance in stature between workers in industry and the enormous machinery they operated. Hines had great respect for the workers and tried to capture their strength and pride in their work and about how in doing this ordinary people should be admired as through their work they were creating a better life for themselves.


Lewis Hine photographed ordinary people at work during the early 20th century. When he took the images he managed to captured his respect for the workers in them, for their skill and the pride they took in their work. Hine will therefore be a good choice of photographers for me to research to get ideas about the way he captured and presented his subjects to make the images so captivating. In my documentary about contemporary life I will also be photographing people at work so this will be directly related and I should get considerable inspiration from Hine's images.

James Ravilious

James Ravilious was born in Eastbourne, England in 1939. His parents were the well-known artists and wood engravers, Eric Ravilious and Tirzah Garwood, however he initially chose accountancy as a career path, but later abandoned this to study art, painting and drawing, at a London Art school. Then later on in life, in his thirties, he developed an interest in photography after being inspired by an exhibition by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the way he documented fleeting moments of people’s lives in his images. When Ravilious and his wife moved to live in a rural part of Devon, he met John Lane and was commissioned by him to take photographs for the Beaford Archive. The purpose of the archive was to document photographs of life, land and people in a small remote country area around Beaford. Ravilious spent the next 17 years capturing images of rural day to day routine life including country traditions, people, farming and the landscape, as well as preserving images of earlier life in the area. Over this period he created an extensive archive of over 80,000 black and white photos, which captures in detail life and the landscape in rural England in the late 20^th century.  Many of his images are taken without the subjects being aware, as they were just going about their relatively simple way of life, upholding traditional ways of working, living and entertainment that have existed for centuries in this remote rural area. Aspects of rural lifestyle were in steady decline so his work provides a unique record of this moment in time. As Ravilious was part of the community he lived in, he personally knew most of his subjects and so could capture a more intimate feeling in his images. He documented many of his photographs with titles containing the person’s name, a description of the subject, the exact location and the date it was taken. His images record a moment in the lives of the people that care for the animals and tend the land in this small community. He captures their way of life in a dignified personal way so that the viewer feels they personally know the subjects. The images are not staged and feel true to life as they capture transitory moments in the community ordinary daily routine, as well as serving as an extensive physical record of history during this time in this region.  Additionally Ravilious has an ability to capture the beauty of the landscape and his love for it, and this makes his images even more engaging and captivating. His images are available online on the Beaford Archive as well as in a number of books he published, 'Heart of the country', 'Down the Deep Lanes' and 'Corner of England: North Devon Landscapes and People'. Other work Ravilious completed before his death in 1999 was for Save Our Orchids campaign and the Mendip Project for Somerset County Council.

 


The image, 'A Feed in the Blizzard' was taken in 1978 in black and white, and shows a farmer carrying a bale of hay out from a shed where it was being stored to feed to his sheep. A small flock of sheep and one lamb are waiting patiently nearby, their backs are coated with snow and the ground is covered with snow.  The sheep therefore have no access to the grass because of the snow, which is why they are being given hay. The man is wearing a thick winter coat and a flat cap and has been out in the snow a while as his shoulders are dusted with snow. He is not that young and his face looks a little straining as he copes with the weight of the bale of hay.

Due to the meticulous records Ravilious kept we know that this image was taken at Millhams, Dolton and is of Ivor Brock, and was taken during the 'Great Blizzard ' of 1978. Ivor Brock has appeared in a number of Ravilious's images in the Beaford Archive. In the image we can see how physically demanding the work is to care for sheep in this rural community. Brock must be in his 70s and is out in a blizzard feeding the sheep, and he seems to be straining a little with either the weight of the bale of hay or the extreme cold. The shed where the hay is being stored is rather basic with corrugated metal panel sides and a home-made door of planks of wood and Brock is not dressed particularly well for the weather conditions. His hat is not suitable for keeping his head warm, he is wearing shoes, his coat is not water proof, and is tied by string as can be seen in photos taken at different angles. The image reflects the basic nature of the life at the time, the remoteness of the area and the lack of money meant that people just made do with what they had and so used traditional ways of doing things, such as home-made sheds with doors made of planks of wood. It also shows the stoicism of the people at that time, how they endured many hardships without complaint and just thought it part of their way of life.

Ravilious will be a good photographer to provide inspiration for my documentary into contemporary life, as he spend nearly 20 years photographing contemporary life in his community in the 1970s and 1980s. He managed to capture a more personal aspect in his images so that the viewer felt they knew the subjects personally. I hope that through researching his work and getting inspiration for it that I can also achieve this personal feel to my work.

John Grierson:

John Grierson was born in Perthshire in Scotland and lived from 1898 until 1972; he was a founder of British documentary film making. Grierson began his studies at Glasgow University where he studied English and Philosophy; he won a Rockefeller Fellowship and went to the USA to research into the psychology of propaganda and how the mass media can influence the public. He became interested in film making and upon returning to Britain he set about making films that were based on a new concept of capturing real people in real life situations allowing people to see into their lives. Grierson invented the term ‘documentary’ which he defined as ‘the creativity of actuality’. His first documentaries included ‘Drifter’ which was about North Sea fishermen and also ‘Coal Face’ and ‘Housing Problems’. His documentaries often focused on poverty, unemployment and other social issues as he wanted to educate people and so create social reform by highlighting the destitute conditions some working people had to endure.  Grierson also helped establish the National Film Board of Canada and during WWII was involved with the making of propaganda films, after the war they went on to make wider ranging documentary films focusing on Canadian peoples lives. During his lifetime Grierson oversaw the production of hundreds of documentary films; he was the director of mass communication at UNESCO and was controller of films at British Central Office of Information. Then in the 1950 and 1960s he moved from film documentaries to television to present the program ‘This Wonderful Life’ which introduced television audiences to documentaries.

The image is taken from Griersons first documentary ‘Drifters’ made in 1929 which he directed and edited. The silent documentary film used intertitles to inform the audience as it followed the lives of North Sea fisherman as they left their village community of Lerwick to go in their steam powered fishing boats, called drifters, due to their use of drift nets in catching the herring. This documentary was ground breaking as it was the first to present ordinary working men in a truly factual way. It shows the fishermen struggling with nature in the harsh environment of the North Sea under difficult stormy weather conditions to go about their task of catching fish. Their boat is mercilessly tossed up and down in the extreme conditions in the middle of the vast ocean, yet the men cope admirably with this as they continue to complete their tasks despite the storm. The film was considered exciting to watch at the time due to the ingenuity of Griersons editing and cutting and the dramatic montages he created. He edited the film to show activities that were simultaneously taking place at various locations on the boat, such as the men working on deck, as well as below deck stoking the steam engine with coal, the engine then powering the boat and the winches, and the heavy nets loaded with herring were reeled in with the help of the winches. In this way the viewer could more easily comprehend the work taking place and how they are all inter dependent on each other.  It showed man making use of modern machinery and steam power to help their battle with the violent powerful sea in order to haul in their catch. The film would have seemed more dramatic as Grierson had left instructions for particular rousing music to be played during its showing. This would have heightened its dramatic intensity to the audience as the fishermen struggled onwards in their battle with nature.

 

This image from the Drifters documentary shows several of the fishermen on board the drifter hauling in the drift net that is loaded with herring that they have caught. The men are all wearing waterproof coats and hats as there is a storm and the weather is cold and wet. There is a large amount of herring that has been caught as it can be seen piling up on the decking. The work is physically draining, with 4 men working this particular net and it will take about 8 hrs to completely reel it in. There is a powerful winch that is being used to help the men pull in the 2 miles of drift net, which is being driven by the coal powered steam engine.
When I saw this image from the scene in Drifters I realised what a difficult job the fisherman have. It is not only a long physically draining effort to haul in so much drift netting without entangling it but they also have to remove the fish from the netting at the same time. At least 4 men are involved in the task in the image and they have to work well together as a team as can be seen by the way they pull the net together in time. A winch is being used to help them with this task which shows how modern technology, at the time, was being used to help them in their work. Not only does the task look physically exhausting and one that requires some skill and team work but they are doing it in a storm as the boat is being tossed up and down with the waves, it almost made me feel motion sick to watch. The men are being soaked with water which will be freezing cold as it is the North Sea they are in, which is why they are wearing water proof long coats and hats. This image conveys to me a lot of information about the work of herring fisherman at this time period and makes me have more respect and admiration for the hard dangerous job that they did.

Grierson was a pioneer in documentary making, he believed that they were an opportunity to teach or say something about other people’s lives and possibly influence the audiences way of thinking. I particularly like the way Grierson makes use of unusual angles in his photography/film as well as the dramatic editing he does where he places contrasting images together so creating dramatic conflict. This is something that I will use to inspire my contemporary life photography.