Monday, 8 December 2014

People and Place: my final assignment

Notes on my creative journey: from a concept to an image 


A public bench makes a fascinating study. Having previously used a park bench as an object for my earlier assignments and exercises[8], I decided to continue exploring the theme in the final assignment.   
The bench attracted me because of its long history, universal existence, and its many uses and interpretations. 
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannia[9], benches were used widely by the Romans as seats and were wide enough to be used for sleeping and eating from. They “were the most common form of seating in medieval halls at a time when a chair was a rare luxury reserved for those of high status.” The civic benches at plazas in the14th Century Tuscany were used for theatre performances and tribunal hearings, which conveyed “the sense of civic action and stimulated popular use.”[10]
Its long-standing history has secured the bench a prominent place in the everyday people’s life all around the world. 

In many ways the bench represents a part of our shared cultural heritage that is instantly understood across the world. 

A bench is often used as part of the visual language to convey certain feelings and emotions – depending on the context they could range from loneliness to love and romance. Its regular appearance in visual and verbal clichés is in itself a fascinating area of study. 

A bench as a public space has an endless variety of uses. It can be a home for homeless or a quiet spot to enjoy a quick lunch. It can be a place to meet with friends or a part of someone’s daily routine. It is one of the few places where social division can be played down and where talking to a stranger is still acceptable. 
It is a meeting place for strangeness and familiarity, similarity and difference, ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, public and private. 

Not surprisingly, the use of public spaces has been the subject of many academic studies and research projects, some of which are mentioned below. 
The first theoretical concept that helped me to develop my thinking on the subject is the idea of the city as an ‘ecology.’  Kevin Lynch (1981:119)[11] described human settlements as a ‘complex ecology.’ This understanding is built on seeing the urban spaces as living and constantly developing. A strong connection between the space and its occupants is the key to the ‘city ecology’ concept. As Kevin Lynch commented, ‘most utopias fail to keep space and society simultaneously in mind.’[12]
Building on the ecology of human settlements, a concept of the city making as a social process is helpful in this discourse. In her most recent work ‘City by Design’ (2013:1)[13], Fran Tonkiss describes how people shape, create and re-create their environment day by day.    
Applying the ecology of a place to the assignment, public benches can be seen as the living spaces that change from one moment to the other depending on who and how is using them. These living spaces are created and re-created with every passing moment, with every new situation and every new visitor. 

It seems fitting to describe the public bench as a ‘situational place,’[14] a kind of on-going theatrical performance, with the visitors and passer-byes being the actors. These situational bench-places ‘emerge and vanish with the performative interactions that create them’ (2010; 44).[15]

This is evident when trying to ‘capture the right moment’ with the camera as there is a constant flow of emerging and vanishing individual moments-performances.

My exploration of the ways people experience public spaces started with observing and taking pictures of some strangers - individuals and groups of people - using public benches. Can the photography help us to understand their experiences? If so, what can we learn? 

From my experience, observing people in public places has similar qualities and is as engaging as watching a theatre performance. A bench helps to create a suitable and well-defined stage and there are plenty of actors who appear to be willing to perform. 




Lunchtime city 

The shooting angle and the composition of the image above were used to maximise the sense of a staged performance. Using a 70 mm lens helped me to stay relatively unnoticed. The lines created by the pavement slabs are leading the eye to the bench where the real life situation is played out in front of the viewer. We observe some strangers sharing the same space: some are eating in silence, or drinking and chatting, whilst others are emerged in ‘people-watching.’

The bold angle of the shot, the presence of the wall and the geometrical lines leading up to it - all of these make the viewer (quite mercilessly) a part of the picture putting them right in front of the observed. This creates slightly uneasy dynamics and adds some tension to the scene. It seems that the tables (or benches!) may turn anytime as the occupants of the benches may switch their attention to the viewer and become the observers themselves at any moment.  

Lunchtime city raises a question whether a public place could still be seen as a space where spontaneous social interaction between strangers takes place. The inhabitants of Lunchtime city share the benches but their experiences of the present moment seem very different. Their facial expressions caught by the camera range from (what appear to be) loneliness to boredom, and from disapproval to content. 

Lunchtime city points that where there is a potential for a spontaneous social interaction, there is a chance of meeting ‘the Other’ and a possibility of withdrawal or misunderstanding, conflict or friction. 



Looking down

The theme of interaction and withdrawal is explored further in the Looking down image. Shot from the gallery of a shopping centre in central Cambridge, it captures an everyday situation that can be observed in any urban centre around the globe. 
Our daily lives are full of the fleeting moments like this one – all compacted together until they become just a kind of background noise. It is only when an individual moment is frozen in time and is observed closely, it reflects back a mirror image of our modern urban way of life and how it affects individuals who are caught in it. 

Then we recognise how the urban pressures make people look, feel and behave. We are able to read the signs of their body language, the direction of their gaze, their postures, the way they shield themselves from the surroundings with various mobile devices – often choosing not to see, hear or communicate with their immediate environment.  

As M.Grimaldi and P.Sulis noted in the context of modern public places, ‘it is paradoxical that in the very moment when everyone can potentially reach every different place or being, in contact with numerous cultural realities, cities instead deny their original attitude and become places of avoidance.’(2009:262)[16]

Still, as long as the opportunity for a contact exists, there is a possibility that it would be used. As Storper and Venables pointed out, ‘being close enough literally to each other allows visual contact and emotional closeness, the bases for building human relationships.’[17]


A deeper understanding of the ways that people use and experience public spaces is at the heart of this project. In this context the discussion on the issues of identity and culture, and similarity and difference is helpful. The focus on identity and diversity highlights that people might experience and use urban places differently, as observed in the images Lunchtime city and Looking down. 

Looking at the Facing away image, even the same individual may use the same space in various ways depending on their needs, emotional state and changing situations and ‘in line with their own shifting subjectivity.’(2000:42)[18]



Facing away


Facing away brings the past, present and future into play. It is a snapshot of the present moment frozen in time. It is a place between the past and the future, a place where the past actions and future intentions meet. 
To some extend, Facing away conveys disconnectedness and a sense of loss. It is interesting to notice that this disconnectedness is also in a way a message, a communication that creates a dialogue within and with the space. It leaves an invisible mark and a personal memory connected to the place. 

In this context, the notions of memory and personal and collective history gain importance. 
Edward Casey noted that ‘memory is naturally place-orientated.’[19] Public memorials, symbolic and historical sites, such as the war memorials or the recognised sites of the battlefields, are the examples of the living public history and commemoration existing near us. The battlefields provide an interesting example as some of them may be well known and signposted but many others are not. 
A collection of photographs of First World War battlefields by Mike St Maur Sheil comes to mind as an example.[20] If taken out of the First World War context, some of them may be interpreted as beautiful and tranquil landscapes.


At the memorial


Equally, there are places that may be connected to some less known, perhaps personal, life changing or tragic events. Every day we may be passing by numerous sites that witnessed such events and we might not know or might even never find out about their relevance and history. Artist Nicky Bird explored this theme through her ‘Beneath the surface/ Hidden Place’ project (2007- 2010). It looks at ‘the history under our feet…that is within living memory connected to a changed, erased or hidden place’[21].
Intimate connections between a place and memory are present in this assignment’s image collection. 
Such links may be quite obvious to the viewer when refer to a collective recollection or memory, as for example in the image above, At the memorial. 
In other situations such links may appear more subtle and unnoticed as in case of the personal history or memory connected to a place, such as in the Facing away image. 

Within the academic and research fields, there is a widespread acceptance of the premise that people constantly shape and re-shape their living spaces. Does the link between a place and its occupants imply that their identities are also to a degree formed and shaped by the environment? 
As Professor Deborah Stevenson demonstrated in her work, cities play a key role ‘in the construction and experience of the cultures of everyday life’ and that ‘within their spaces, collective and individual meanings are made and unmade, and identities are formed.’(2003:54)[22]
According to G. Bridge and S. Watson, the influence between the occupants and the places works both ways whereby ‘differences are constructed in, and themselves construct, city life and spaces.’(2000:251)[23]

Within the framework of this assignment, the ‘link’ or the ‘influence’ between the people and a place can be described as a relationship. It is the visual manifestations of the people’s relationship with the space that this assignment is exploring through images. 
As people act, live through and experience their own relationship with the space around them, they are the active participants and not just the passive witnesses or victims of that influence. 


In the park I
In the park I (above) is an example of such interaction. Before this lady arrived at the scene, the small boulder-shaped stone bench looked empty and deserted. Her arrival transformed the dreamy and frozen park scene into a moving, pulsing with life place. 
So far, the focus in this assignment had been on the interaction between people in places, and people and places. In the park shows a relationship of a different kind. Interaction with the natural world is an important part of being a human. It helps many people to express their emotions and feel connected to the world around them, to their environment.  
I used a 200 mm lens to keep the distance from the subject. That allowed me to capture undisturbed the beautiful, private moment. I liked the poetic expression of the woman’s face as if it was lit up from within. Even the rain did not spoil the precious moment. 
In the park I is an example of a single individual in the park who isn’t a lonely figure. 
In contrast, the image below emanates quite a different feeling. The stillness of the lit up umbrella stands out clearly against the moving crowds. A combination of a single figure hidden under the umbrella, the dark wet night and an empty bench makes an uneasy scene. 
There is something about a lonely figure on a park bench on a rainy day that does not seem right (people don’t usually use park benches when it rains) and triggers a strong emotional response within us. 


Night city
The facial expression of the person under the umbrella is hidden from us. The fast moving city surrounding them makes them anonymous. It is up to the viewer to interpret whether this anonymity is a gift or a burden. 
This scene reminded me of the ‘subjektive fotografie’ of Otto Steinert, who managed to combine beautifully some moving and still elements within his street photo images[24].  Steve McCurry’s Power of Place and Solitude collections[25] contain some powerful images exploring people’s relationship with their environment. His images, such as for example ‘Japan’ and ‘Hindukush Mountains,’ inspired me to work on this theme. 

It seems relevant to bring the theme of freedom at this point of the discussion. The notion of freedom of the city is a popular discourse amongst the novelists and academics alike. 
It has been described by Raban as ‘enormous’ and an opportunity to ‘choose and invent one’s society’ where ‘nothing is fixed, the possibilities of personal change and renewal are endless and open.’[26]
Raban’s soft city is the imagined place full of illusions, dreams and aspirations that come to life through the interaction with its occupants or passer-byes. Still, the ideas of multiple shifting identities and finding freedom in ‘the confusion and anonymity of the metropolis’[27] have not lost their relevance it the modern cities. 



Changing faces
The notions of freedom, anonymity and shifting identities play a part in the Changing faces image. 
However, the image could hardly be described as a celebration of freedom. Instead it creates a feeling of tension. There is a sense of insecurity and uneasiness expressed in their conservative and disconnected body language and in the way that the pair’s faces remain hidden from the viewer. The photographic work of Robert Frank, especially his image ‘Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey’ (1955),[28] gave me an inspiration to experiment and actively look out for such situations. It is interesting to note how each element within the image contributes and connects to all others to tell the story, thus creating a dialogue with the space.

The notion of dialogue with the space is pivotal to this project and is an important element of each individual image included in the collection. 
A concept of urban text is relevant to this discourse. It considers city spaces as texts ‘that were inscribed with the traces of time, experience and use. (2003: 54)[29]


In the park II
The sleeping bag on a bench, captured in the image above, seems to still hold the shape of the human body even though its occupant is not present in the shot. With this image I experimented with creating a story narrative loaded into a single frame without the people being present. 
The inspiration for this image came from the work of Jeff Wall, who observed and used homeless shelters in his work.[30]
Looking at the spaces around us and at the images in this project’s collection, it is relatively easy to notice and start interpreting the signs, symbols and meanings of these places, in a similar way to reading a text or interpreting a language. ‘The coding and decoding of these meanings is an interactive process with the users of the city being actively engaged in a dialogue with the spaces (2003:60).’[31]



Hope Square 
It is helpful to be aware of the possibility of many meaning and interpretations when considering, for example, the Hope Square image. 
Gaylord Herron once wrote ‘Everything in photography boils down to what’s sharp and what’s fuzzy’ (2007:120).[32] I focussed the shot on the face expression of the man by the bench to draw the viewer’s attention in to the frame. I positioned the two men within the frame to add the imbalance and tension. I thought that the empty bench would help to build the sense of suspense, as if something is about to happen. The memorial plague behind the bench intended to help the viewer develop their story.   
In the context of this assignment, it is helpful to remain aware of how the urban texts and urban stories could be and are read and experienced differently, and how they are interpreted and re-interpreted simultaneously and in many different subjective ways. They are also changing and shifting through the changing and shifting space-people dialogue. This process continues and repeats through the interpretation and re-interpretation of the photographic images of the constantly changing ‘urban texts.’


Cul-de-sac

Some learning from the People and Place course

Because of the People and Place course:

-       I am now a regular user of the Cambridge University Library. The course has significantly widened the range of the sources I use for my individual research and I am confident at finding the information I need.

-       I value much more the time and all the background work that goes into creating a single memorable image. 

-       I am much more patient and methodical in my working practices. 

-       I plan my project work, starting with an idea, following with a blue sky thinking session and then developing my project further through research. 

-       I started a project ideas book to help me remember and act on my great project ideas.

-       I use all opportunities to critically evaluate my work and get other people to do it.

-       I am now a confident user of my own studio lighting kit.

-       I use prime lenses on regular basis. I only use zoom lenses occasionally when there is a special reason. 

-       I use my tripod less often and am comfortable with that. I do a mixture of hands-held and tripod-based photography depending on the circumstances. I enjoy street photography much more as a result. 

-       I will continue working on the following projects in 2015: 

-       Together we save lives (EA Air Ambulance photo project);
-       Public Benches project; 
-       Washing lines;
-       City reflections; 
-       For Sale; 
-       The Museum series; 
-       Sheds, tents etc.

Practicing what I have learnt: 
As part of planning my assignment work I looked through the past assignments and used the techniques learnt from the course, including various composition and angle positions. 
I am confident at using the narrative structure and following the storyline when planning my assignments and working on the creation of the images. 
Having completed the course, I am much more aware of the need for a vision. It is crucial to know why I am taking a picture and to have a concept for my project.
I understand that the context and narrative are crucial to developing a good judgement and selecting a strong collection of images. 
With practice I am now much better at choosing my assignment locations so they are smaller and more defined, which means that my aims are more realistic and manageable.  
Through the People and Place assignments I developed a workflow for image selection and assessment. When selecting the final images, I assess each image as follows: 
How does this image help me to tell my story? 
What unique feature does it have that is not present in any other images? 
If it’s not there, what would be lost? 
I have learnt a lot through the People and Place course and it has been a useful step in my creative journey and developing my own photographic style. It has changed my working practices and gave me the structure to try different methods and experiment with variety of themes. It also made me realise how much there is still to do and learn. My journey will continue further, enriched by the new skills and knowledge. 
I am grateful to OCA and especially my tutor for being supportive and encouraging but also pushing me out of my comfort zone to explore myself further through photography. 

 References  

[1] Tonkiss, Fran (2013) Cities by design: the social life of urban form, Polity: Cambridge, UK
[2] Fox A. and N. Caruana (2012) Behind the image: Research in Photography, AVA Publishing. 
[3] de Bono, Edward (1985) Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management. Little, Brown, & Company
[5] http://www.urbanpicnic-streetphotography.com/street-photographers/tatsuo-suzuki/page/7/
[6] http://updates.rutbleesluxemburg.com
[8] Assignment One, Exercise Two, in http://anna-allen.blogspot.co.uk/p/people-and-place.html
[11] Lynch, K. (1981) Good City Form, MIT Press: Cambridge MA and London
[12] Banerjee T. and M. Southworth (eds) (1990) City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch, MIT Press: Cambridge MA and London
[13] Tonkiss, Fran (2013) Cities by design: the social life of urban form, Polity: Cambridge, UK
[14] Intercultural interaction and "situational places": a perspective for urban cultural geography within and beyond the performative turn," by P. Dirksmeier and I. Helbrecht, published in Social Geography, 5, 39–48, 2010, http://www.soc-geogr.net/5/39/2010/sg-5-39-2010.pdf
[15] Ditto, p.44
[16] Grimaldi, M. & P. Sulis (2009) Inbetween spaces for social interaction – new public realm and he network society, IFoU, Amsterdam.
[17] Storper, M. and Venables, A.J., Buzz: face to face contact and the urban economy, Journal of Economic Geography Vol. 4 (2004)
[18] Ditto, p. 42
[19] Casey, E. (2000) Remembering: A Phenomenological Study, Indiana University Press
[20] http://www.westernfrontphotography.com/main.php?g2_view=textpages.Display&page=6
[21] http://nickybird.com/projects/beneath-the-surface/
[22] Stevenson, D. (2003) Cities and urban cultures, Open University Press: Buckingham and Philadelphia
[23] Bridge, G. and S. Watson (eds) (2003) A Companion to the City, Oxford: Blackwell
[24] http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/image/0865504910486827633245662/
[25] http://stevemccurry.com
[26] Raban, J. (1974) Soft City, The Harvell Press
[27] Stevenson, D. (2003) Cities and urban cultures, Open University Press: Buckingham and Philadelphia
[28] http://moca.org/pc/viewArtWork.php?id=18
[29] Ditto, p.53
[30] http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/jeff-wall/room-guide/jeff-wall-room-8/jeff-wall-room-9
[31] Ditto, p.60
[32] Angier, R. (2007) Train Your Gaze: A Practical and Theoretical Introduction to Portrait Photography, AVA Publishing
[33] http://www.gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/selected-works; and https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gregory+Crewdson&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1324&bih=1320&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JrOOVOSVGMa3Ucj3gagK&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#rls=en&tbm=isch&q=gregory+crewdson+in+a+lonely+place&revid=322248902
[34] http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/jeff-wall/room-guide/jeff-wall-room-8/jeff-wall-room-9; and https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gregory+Crewdson&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1324&bih=1320&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JrOOVOSVGMa3Ucj3gagK&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#rls=en&tbm=isch&q=jeff+wall+photography&revid=772837117