April 2006
- 2
Wynn Bullock: Romantic Photography
My introduction to Romanticism was with Wordsworth and others, during my A Level English. I particularly enjoyed Yeats, who I regarded for many years as my favourite poet. At university I wanted to study the Romantics but it was a tough decision, made in favour of Dickens, Shakespeare and the Tragic Play. I did however spend a little time reading about the tradition, for my own interest. Wynn Bullock is a quintessentially Romantic photographer, I’ve…
- 8
Geoff Dyer
Geoff Dyer was in Manchester last night, giving a talk as part of the programme of a local photography group. He mostly just described the content of his recent photography book, The Ongoing Moment. It’s a narrative reflection on canonical photographic images, particularly those of Dorothea Lange. I’m a little ambivalent about photography based writing; it can be interesting and useful but can also meander into contingent and contrived commentary that has a tenuous relation…
- 20
Philip-Lorca di Corcia
There’s been an interesting case recently, concerning this photograph by Philip-Lorca diCorcia: The gentleman in this shot, Erno Nussenzweig, protested against the taking of his image and attempted to sue di Corcia. It seems to me, there are various issues underlying this. The court ruling stated that di Corcia fits into an established tradition of street photography, begun with people like Evans, Cartier-Bresson, Klein and Robert Frank. In some respects this is correct, but in other respects…
- 25
Bill Viola
Video artist Bill Viola uses an interesting fusion between philosophy, old-school art and modern technology. Some of his work uses extreme slow motion presented on huge plasma panels, collapsing the boundaries between photography and film. I attended two exhibitions in London about three years ago, and had this to say: 1) Tate Modern There’s a steady stream of Viola’s work in London galleries. A few years ago I saw his ageing triptych at the Tate – the…
- 30
Cyberspace Photography
A few years ago during and then after my first MA, I became quite interested in the psychology of cyberspace. For a year or two, I even considered doing a PhD on the subject. I’m glad I didn’t because in retrospect it was never sufficiently central to the kind of interests I have, and the outlook I have on life. Rather, it was one of the more interesting topics during a badly managed and somewhat…