Ten Thousand Hours Photography

10,000 Hours Deliberate Practice Learning the Art of Photography

“Female British Artist”

On the 15th April of this year Sotheby’s New York sold Leonora Carrington’s 1945 “Les Distractions de Dagobert” for $28.5m setting a new record for a female British artist. However, if we remove the words “female” and “British”, she doesn’t make Wikipedia’s list of the top 89 most expensive paintings. In fact, no women artists do

1945 Les Distractions de Dagobert - Gender inequality in women artists

Historical discrimination against women artists is an uncomfortable truth. We acknowledge past injustices, think things are better now, yet know there is more to do. However, the above news struck me as positive, and prompted me to investigate further

[Read more…]

Surrealist Photography

“My Double Secret”

“Surrealism is not a style but a state of mind. It aims to subvert reality.”

Tate Modern, describing the Surrealism Beyond Boarders Exhibition, February 2022.
[Read more…]

Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a French philosopher and literary theorist, he was not a photographer. This book deals with the question: what is a photograph? from that perspective.

Barthes describes the essence of photography as distinct from both art and history.

Art, he contests, is the result of a creative process undertaken by an artist; whereas a photograph is primarily the preservation of “something that was”.

History is a perspective on past events; always open to challenge and contradiction. A photograph, by contrast, is undeniably “something that was”, and it is up to the viewer to infer meaning. A meaning which, as I show below, may change from person to person or evolve over time.

The photographer, and the subject, if it is a person aware of being photographed, can suggest an implied meaning. However, without knowledge of this intent, the viewer may see the image differently, and derive a meaning entirely personal to them.

Tim Flack’s fine book on horse photography, ‘Equus’, ends with this quote from Barthes’ book: “Ultimately a photograph looks like anyone except the person it represents.”

[Read more…]