Film Review: "Ida" (UK General Release October 2014; Director Pawel Pawilkowski; Polish film with sub-titles)

Every now and again a film appears that raises the standard of cinematography to such an extent that it becomes an invaluable source of inspiration for both stills and film photographers. “Vertigo” (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock) is a classic case. Now “Ida”, a recently released film set in Poland in the early 1960s, is set to become another fine example.

The film opens in a convent, where Anna, a teenage novice, is about to take her vows. As the nuns perform their daily rituals, outdoors in a bleak, snow-covered landscape and indoors, in the hushed and spare interiors of the convent, the sense of atmosphere engendered by the camera immediately transports us into their lives. Often the camera pauses, and when it does our eyes rest on a beautifully constructed still frame that would be worthy of its place in any photographic exhibition.

As the story progresses the Mother Superior instructs Anna to visit her one remaining relative, the hard-drinking, chain-smoking Aunt Wanda, before taking her vows. Together, the pair investigate the past (see Image 1) and uncover what happened to Anna’s family during the war. At the same time that Anna is discovering that she is Jewish, that she was christened “Ida” and how Jews in Poland were treated during the war she starts to learn about life outside the convent: for me, this awakening played the more important part in defining the narrative.

Image 1

Whilst an air of austere sadness and tragedy pervades the film I found the scenes where Anna/Ida is discovering herself and growing into a woman (see Image 2) quite uplifting. The acting, particularly by Agata Kulesza as the world-weary Wanda, is outstanding and the film is compact: no scene is wasted. The final twist in the story brings the film to what, for me, was a very satisfying conclusion.

Image 2

However good the film is (and I can certainly recommend it) it is the cinematography that really sets it apart. The images shown here don’t do it full justice: the story could easily be told in a photo-book or slide show of perhaps 500 “Stills”, shown in order (indeed, I wonder whether anybody has produced a book of “Stills” from a single film for commercial reasons). Each still frame would be a classic monochrome image in its own right. The lighting, the positioning of the subject matter in the frame and the sublime use of monochrome produce the all-pervasive atmosphere of sadness, pain and discovery which defines this film.

When the DVD for “Ida” arrives I will purchase it, play it and freeze-frame it at random moments. I will then study the resultant images and try to learn from them how to produce an outstanding monochrome image – over and over again.

Exhibition Visit: "Dennis Hopper; The Lost Album" (Royal Academy, London, 11 October 2014)

Dennis Hopper is best known as an actor in films such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Easy Rider”. However, during the period of 1961-67, when he was effectively black-listed by Hollywood, he turned his hand to photography. Although he claimed later that: “I never made a cent from these photos. They cost me money but kept me alive” and he subsequently never picked up a camera again, in 1970 he was encouraged to exhibit over 400 (from around 18.000) of his photographic prints at Fort Worth Art Center in Texas. The prints were subsequently put away and forgotten about until after his death in 2010. Almost all the original prints (a few were lost) are now being exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Two things struck me when I visited the exhibition. Firstly, I was impressed by the quality of his portrait work. Friends and fellow actors, as well as complete strangers, are posed candidly and naturally against interesting backgrounds, with advertising hoardings being particularly popular (see, for example, the portrait of James Rosenquist; Image 1).

Image 1; James Rosenquist (1964)

Hopper was, of course, a celebrity. With his reputation of also being a bit of a “hell-raiser” his social circle naturally included other lively celebrities and, in particular, fellow actors and artists. Many of the photographs, such as that of a group including Andy Warhol and David Hockney, appear to have been taken at informal gatherings although some, such as the print of Roy Lichtenstein in his studio, were carefully posed. Either way, the portraits in the exhibition demonstrate a natural gift for composition and for bringing out the personalities of his sitters.

Secondly, his prints reveal a real sense of period during some of the most vivid, exciting and revolutionary years of the 20th century. Hopper followed Martin Luther King’s Selma (Alabama) to Montgomery civil rights march in 1965 (Image 2) and was present at “love-ins” and festivals in the San Francisco area during the “flower power” hippie summer of 1967.

Image 2: Martin Luther King addresses an Open Air Meeting (1965)

The prints, in their original form and size, are presented in long, horizontal lines around the walls of three rooms. It was necessary to stand close to them in order to appreciate the detail, but with so many to see it was not too difficult to be able to appreciate them all close up, even in a crowded gallery.  Not surprisingly, some contain imperfections whilst the subject matter of others (such as the numerous prints of bullfighting scenes in Mexico) will not appeal to all. However, his abstracts and images of torn posters and found objects might easily have been taken in modern times. These provide an interesting counterpoint to the documentary and portrait work, revealing Hopper’s versatility as a photographer.

Every now and again I found a print that really caught my attention. My favourite was a perfectly composed image of a street scene (Image 3), in which Hopper uses the driver’s mirror to great effect.

Image 3

This exhibition has received much critical acclaim: I can see why. Hopper’s prints not only offer a unique and privileged view into a most exciting period of modern history, but also show him to be a talented and versatile photographer. If his acting (and directing) career had not "got in the way" he might well have been able to develop a very successful career as a professional photographer.

Exhibition Visit: "Constructing Worlds; Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age" (Barbican Art Gallery, London; 4 October 2014)

Architecture has, from the very earliest days of photography, proved to be a rich source of subject matter. Buildings were popular subjects for nineteenth century photographers for the simple reason that they did not move, so there was no blurring due to the long exposure times needed then. As technology improved the genre became less popular and took something of a back seat, being used mainly as a tool to document the changes in our surroundings. However, as the twentieth century progressed, photographers started to use architectural photography to explore changes in society and ideology, the differences between public and private space and the interaction between the buildings and the landscape that surrounds them and/or the people who use them. This exhibition brings together the work of eighteen photographers, active from the 1930s onwards, who have made some of the more important contributions to modern architectural photography.

This major exhibition was well laid out on two floors of the Barbican Art Gallery. Berenice Abbott’s beautiful 1930s monochrome images of Manhattan’s transition into a skyscraper city provided a very positive start. Abbott’s spectacular views of gleaming modernity (see for example Image 1) were in sharp contrast to Walker Evans’ photographs of poor workers and their run-down, architecturally mundane homes and town buildings, taken during the great depression. Mundanity was a key feature of the concept-driven work of the “New Topographics” photographers from the 1970s, so it is a little surprising to see Bernd and Hilda Becher as the only representatives of this movement, with their (now familiar) series of water towers.

Image 1: Manhattan (Berenice Abbott)

Other photographers whose work is represented and with whom I was familiar included Ed Ruscha (parking lots photographed from above), Andreas Gursky (his famous photograph of the giant Montparnasse tower block in Paris) and Nadav Kander, whose atmospheric views of architecture and people along the Yangtse River in China combine the genres of architecture, social documentary and landscape photography to good effect. Simon Norfolk, whose documentation of the war-torn ruins left by the war in Afghanistan highlight another aspect of architectural photography, was the sole UK representative in the exhibition.

A couple of the galleries showed work by photographers, who collaborated with architects during the design and construction of their buildings. Luigi Ghirri’s collaboration with architect Aldo Rossi produced some imaginative work, which was showcased here. However, I was even more impressed by the atmospheric monochrome prints, produced by Helene Binet (e.g. Image 2), of Liebeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. Was this because the museum itself (which I have visited) has a dramatic design (to reflect the bleak nature of the story that its exhibits tell) or because Binet has done an excellent job of bringing out the character of the building? I suppose that the answer is “a bit of both”. I would have liked to have seen more than the handful of prints of her work on display here.

Image 2: Liebeskind’s Jewish Museum, Berlin (Helene Binet)

I had previously rather scorned Hiroshi Sugimoto’s deliberately blurred images of iconic buildings, such as the World Trade Centre, pre- “9-11”. However, I have to admit that his large prints on display at the exhibition, which reduce their subject matter to its most basic, abstract form, eliminating their surroundings, do have a much more powerful impact when seen on this scale.

The exhibition demonstrates that the relationship between photography and architecture is rather more complex than I had first imagined. A very broad range of subject matter is on display and the curators have tried to cover as many different areas as they could, within the genre of architectural photography (too many to mention in this review!). Inevitably, viewers will enjoy and take inspiration from the work of some contributors and find less to intrigue them from others' work. Whilst the broad range of themes show-cases the genre of architectural photography, it inevitably leads to a somewhat “bitty” feel to the exhibition as a whole. On the other hand, I can’t think of another photographic genre that could be reviewed in a single exhibition without (at least) similar compromises having to be made.

Book Review; "The Polaroid Book" (Taschen, 2012)

Although I have used Polaroid film cameras before, I have never owned one. The beauty of a Polaroid camera is that once you’ve taken a photograph with it you only have to wait for a few seconds in order to get a printout, which gradually appears as if by magic. If the print is not what you want then there is nothing to stop you taking the photograph again. The disadvantage (at least for the casual user) is that, because there is no intermediate darkroom stage, the photograph cannot be modified.

The “heyday” of the Polaroid camera probably occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, when many of the world’s foremost artists and photographers took up the camera in order to create instant art. Edwin Land, the inventor of the camera, encouraged keen young amateur and professional photographers to go out and be creative, using Polaroid cameras. The work that they brought back was sorted and the best material was archived. Working with, amongst others, Ansel Adams Land established an archive of thousands of high quality Polaroid photographs, from various sources, in Waltham, Massachusetts. This book features a varied and interesting cross section of some 250 reproductions of prints from the archive.

I did not have to study the book for long in order to realise that many of the featured prints were not mere snapshots, but carefully designed works of art. Take Peter Beard’s print, “Iman” (Image 1) for example. This appears to be a double, triple or multiple exposure which has been cleverly collated to produce a work of art that asks far more questions than it answers. A darkroom expert or digital photographer skilled in the use of “Photoshop” techniques would struggle to produce an image such as this (assuming, of course, that Beard has not simply used his Polaroid to photograph the completed work!).

Image 1: Peter Beard; “Iman” (1987)

Featured Polaroid artists include Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, Chuck Close, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank, David Hockney (for a collage of Polaroid prints), Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton and Andy Warhol. The range of subject matter and styles is huge, taking in virtually every genre although, not surprisingly, portraits and self-portraits form the biggest set. Within this set, however, the photographers have used imagination and skill to produce some stunning results, such as Arno Minkkinen’s “selfie” (Image 2).

Image 2: Arno Rafael Minkkinen; “Self Portrait, Foster’s Pond” (1989)

Whilst Minkkinen’s photograph has been carefully set up, many other images “capture the instant” rather well, which is what Polaroid photography was (is?) all about. However, my enjoyment of this collection came from trawling the images for ideas for my own work and admiring the skill and creativity that went into their production, in all parts of the world. Karen Kommer’s night-time images of pavement shadows and reflections (for example Image 3) score on both counts, whilst Ferdinando Dolfo’s daytime street scene (Image 4) also holds my eye.

Image 3: Karen Kammer; “Fantastiche Verteilingen" (1980)

Image 4: Ferdinando Dolfo: “A Philosophical Walk” (1983)

This collection (which was edited by Barbara Hitchcock, the director of cultural affairs for the Polaroid Corporation) demonstrates how photographers from all walks of life can take to and develop a new medium (in this case the Polaroid camera) in order to produce works of great creativity and originality. Developments in Polaroid photography over the 40 or so years since the technique was invented have encouraged devotees to use far more sophisticated photographic techniques than simple “point and shoot” and the results are, in some cases, stunning. The onset of digital photography, with its instant readout on the back of the camera, has to some extent overshadowed Polaroid photography in recent years. Nevertheless there is still a place for the Polaroid camera today and it has many devotees: the images in this collection demonstrate why.

·      Action Point: inspired by Images 1-4, I should aim in the next year to produce a layered photo-collage, an original self-portrait, an atmospheric night-time shot and an image where a road sign plays an important role in the composition. To increase motivation I should try to have a purpose for producing the images – perhaps incorporating them into OCA project work and/or photographic competition entries.