Introduction Ivan Sigal, Taryn Simon, and Robert Frank each exhibit a photo journal documenting their journey through a place or time well worth documenting. Their experience allows the opportunity for viewers to create their own experience by following the narrative conceived by one or multiple images per page followed by another page of photographs. The amount of images and whether or not a description is available is up to the artist. The way they organize and present the images will create a message, a mood, an understanding and an experience for the viewer to take in. In breaking down Sigal’s White Road, Simon’s A Living Man Declared Dead and Frank’s The Americans I would like to pick on themes, styles and messages displayed by the three. By comparing and contrasting them hopefully I will find a common value that each photo book experience promotes.
Photo books document the activities and behavior of a people living within a society. A common theme I picked up on while observing the three books was the mood set by the individual’s in front of the camera.
Frank’s Picnic Ground-Glendale, CA found me in a state evaluating my own self-compared to the man sitting on the bench. While society’s youth are enjoying the grounds, the man appears to be past him prime and contemplating his previous and next step. He has turned his back on society for the moment to allow himself to ponder. Perhaps the trash cans are a symbol that he appears to have been thrown away or wasted while the trees promote the idea of growth. Society
Cafeteria-San Francisco by Robert Frank promotes a similar feeling. Another man seated next to a wall with his back facing all the other people. Again in a state of contemplation the man does not seem to be in the moment as he has a served plate of food but nothing on his fork. He seems to be in the middle of his meal on a table full of dishes but no one sitting around him. Maybe he is eating his meal at a table where the bussed plates are put in front of the kitchen in the back of the restaurant. The man may be surviving on societies scraps. Or maybe he is in the middle of a five course meal when his date had to use the ladies’ room.
Robert Frank’s Courthouse Square-Elizabethville, NC contains an image of ease and relaxation while still having a societal message of the scene. Although the two men sitting underneath the tree are at the courthouse square, it does not seem to be for business. The softened atmosphere is created by the man’s Hawaiian printed shirt, summer hat and no socks worn with his shoes while him and a friend sit under the shade of a tree. It seems today the man can relax and not worry too much about the judgment of society. That day in Elizabethville was about one of the only important benefactors society gives us in life, and that is good company.
While some turn their back on society in the moment, a part of development is facing society and understanding or at least acknowledging the past. Page 85 of Ivan Sigal’s White Road shows just that. On a clear, warm and sunny day a memorial statue reminds everyone who sees it that days in the past were not so perfect. Whether the child is conscious of this, I think probably not, but a conditioning has begun to take place and they boy eventually will, whether he would like to or not.
Taryn Simon’s A Living Man Declared Dead takes a different attitude toward society as it documents people and relatives of someone who had a major role in destroying a large portion of it in the past and even presently. The two portraits depict Kerstin Krockauer and Niklas Frank. She is a firm manager and he, a retired reporter. Although they both share completely different lives and probably do not know of the other, while facing away from each other, they turn their back from the thought of relation to a man who supported the movement of a society of racism and intolerance.
Company
The company or loneliness of a photo plays a major role of the mood in a photo. No matter the surrounding conditions, by human nature we have an interest to console each other no matter skin color, culture or interest. Now whether the surrounding society understands that and finds it acceptable is another story.
Sigal’s White Road page 83 is a perfect example of the intro containing human nature. As the elderly grow old they usually surround themselves with and by the things and people they love and cherish. The white on the walls give off the idea that this is not this woman’s home while the white of the robe provides the idea that it was probably issued to her. These two assumptions together create three ideas for me. This woman is either in a hospital, a hospital for the mentally ill, or jail. Whatever situation she is in, it makes staring at
this photograph difficult for any human who has been attached to any other human.
Robert Frank’s City Hall-Reno, Nevada gives the exact opposite tone as Sigal’s sick old woman. Frank shows a couple in love displaying their affection for each for the camera. Because they are at city hall, there could be two scenarios. Either the two have been married or one of them was found innocent so now the two can continue their relationship and be married. The two moods created by the two pictures are so entirely different yet play on our emotions from human nature. Conclusion I have broken down the photos that I have chosen to the best of my ability at this point in time. I feel I picked up on themes and messages, maybe even
stories. But I am not sure if I have led the reader to understand the value of the pictures in a photo book. Through images displaying messages or themes, a viewer does not have to understand the photo or recognize any theme. But a thought process must be awakened and begin and even an opinion formed. And that is the value inside of a photo book. That is the value of art.