Tim Boddy: An analysis of the editors’ methodology in the polemic photobook using found photography. by paula roush

Research Paper Student Number: 2612834

Research paper submitted as a requirement for the degree of Digital Photography, London South Bank University, May 2010.

An analysis of the editorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; methodology in the polemic photobook whilst using found photography.

By Tim Boddy

Abstract

This Research Paper examines the role of the editor in photobooks that contain found, or vernacular photography. The concept of found photography in art has increased substantially in the latter end of the 20th Century, and as the photobook comes into increasing prominence in this century, the relationship is hence one of significance. A specific type of photobook is explored in the paper - the polemic photobook. These are the types of photobook that question the role of the editor, and how they become the author of these ‘found’ images that previously have lost their ‘original’ author. The role of the editors in Wisconsin Death Trip and Without Sanctuary, and the work of Erik Kessels, explores the concept of the editor/author relationship through various means of input such as sequencing, extra documentation and reproduction, in an effort to recontextualize the images. Narratives are often created in a photobook using the photographs so as to be read as a photographic novel, in an attempt to engage the reader. Authorship is raised in relation the images used and hence a comment on the medium of photography is often apparent.

Contents

Chapter 1 A story (Pre-Introduction) ……………………………………………… 4 Introduction and aims of the paper …………………………………. 6 Chapter 2 (Keywords and structure defined) Found Photography & Joachim Schmid: an explanation ……. 8 The photobook: background and history ………………………….. 12 The Polemic photobook ………………………………………………….. 15 Chapter 3 (Photobook examples) Wisconsin Death Trip …………………………………………………….. 16 Without Sanctuary & Walter Benjamin’s ‘Aura’ ………………... 20 Erik Kessels ………………………………………………………………….. 25 Chapter 4 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………. 33

Appendix ………………………………………………………………………………... 35 References ……………………………………………………………………………… 36 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………… 38

4 Chapter 1 – Introductions A story (Pre-Introduction)

A young, slim Parisian, and owner of a dreamy imagination, misses her last train, and spends the night in the station in the pleasure of her own company – not an unfamiliar role for the introverted character. Come morning, she acquires a photo album dropped by a focused man in a rush on a moped, filled with seemingly discarded, torn-up photographs taken exclusively in photo booths, and then carefully reassembled by the creator. Once home, she converses with her neighbour in relation to this odd find, and on analyses of the book, points out a man who frequently appears throughout (12 times to be exact), a man with ‘always the same blank expression’. His mugshot is taken in various locations all over Paris, known because the anonymous author of the album has scrawled the location of their ‘finds’ next to the relevant photograph. Why has this man taken all these photos just to mutilate and then discard them? Such a strange, mysterious thing to do. On further reflection, she concludes that the man is dead, and uses these discarded photos to remind the world what he looks like, to preserve his memory, in fear of being forgotten; she creates her own narrative. However, over time the riddle is eventually unwrapped, and it turns out that the man in the photographs is simply the repairman of the photobooth, just an ‘ordinary’ man doing his job and testing the photobooth machines. She, and this story, are of course a work of fiction; ‘she’ being the protagonist (and reader of the book) Amélie, and the ‘man on the moped’ Nino Quincampoix (creator of the book) from Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001).

Fig. 1

6 Introduction and aims of the paper

“Rehabilitating old photographs, by finding new contexts for them, has become a major book industry.” (Sontag, 1977, pp. 56)

Two points can be taken from the opening passage taken from Amélie. One is that the creation of this type of photobook is not uncommon (as Sontag describes in the above quote) - in fact Dick Jewell did precisely as the fictitious Nino Quincampoix did with his book Found Photos in 1977, compiling discarded pictures he gathered from English photo booths. These two examples are of photobooks utilising the ‘found’ photograph, and more importantly ones that conduct an exploration of the narrative; and this is the second point to be taken from Amélie’s story. This Research Paper is an exploration of this particular type of photobook. First of all, the explanations of keywords will be explained, particularly that of the ‘found photograph’, a genre of photography that has been subject to increasing prominence in recent years, in which the artist becomes the archeologist as stated by Bull (2001) in his essay Raiders of the Lost Archive. Many artists have used found photographs in their work, and the work of Joachim Schmid will be explored in this respect to help underline the concept clearly.

The next keyword to be defined is the photobook, which perhaps is a seemingly straightforward concept, though a brief background and history will be provided. Of more importance is the particular type of photobook that will examined, photobooks that contain found photography as fitting with the brief here, but also photobooks that are polemic in nature; ones that examine

7 the role of the editor/author relationship of the photobook, and reflect the role of the artist and creation of narratives, and by whom. This is a crucial aspect to understand the significance of the artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; input into a photobook, and a distinction between certain types of book will be made clear. The section following this will explore specific photobooks that fall into this category, with Without Sanctuary and Wisconsin Death Trip in the first part of Chapter 3, and the work of Erik Kessels in latter part of the chapter. Critical theorists will be sought upon in relation to the found photograph and their use through publishing in photobooks. Questions regarding how the editors in each of them use found photographs to create a particular slant, how powerful this perspective is and if their methodology puts the editor of the photobook, (or the artist), in the position of the author, will all be discussed.

8 Chapter 2 - (Keywords and structure defined) Found Photography & Joachim Schmid: an explanation

Found photography is just that; a discarded or perhaps lost photograph that has been separated from its owner, and thus the relationship with the original photographer in no longer tangible due to their anonymity (Copper, 2007). The finder of a photo of this type has the ‘luxury of looking at a clean slate’; they generally have no links to the original author, no weight of expectations, no preconceived notions. This allows the photographs of the new owner to use and interpret the object in an open-ended manner, and have the power to create his or her own narrative for a new audience, if that is what they choose to do so. Many of the photographs found will inevitably, though not always exclusively be, taken from an ‘amateur’ perspective, often described as vernacular photography. A plethora of artists and photographers have utilised the found photograph in their work, some as a means to an end in different projects, such as Christian Boltanski in Accident Chronicle, and other artists such as Joachim Schmid have made the genre their lifeblood. Today, due to an overwhelming use of the amateur, and/or snapshot photograph (‘a notable increase in the practice of found photography’ as stated by Stephen Bull (2001)), this area has succeeded in “…marching into the canon and into the highest regions of the visual culture entertainment” (Berger, 2009). This is why now, more than ever, the found photography remit of this paper is a worthwhile enterprise for discussion. The ‘more than ever’ as stated rings true, as while the practice of using the vernacular photograph in art has been established since the birth of post-modernism from the 1970’s, we have seen a rise in the trend since the 90’s:

9 ““the tendency to appropriate, then recontextualize other people’s photographs, for exhibition or publishing, has become a major feature of 1990s practice.” Bull (1997)

Schmid’s work exemplifies the embodiment of the genre involving found photograph and its relationship with the author, and as thus this section will use him as an example; for over the course of more than 25 years he has completed a myriad of projects of this nature, with many varying degrees of input in the projects from himself, the new author. “…there is no better illustration of the uneasy affiliation that found photography has had with authorship than the work Joachim Schmid has made” Schmid famously stated “No new photographs until the old ones are used up!” a quote said with his tongue certainly lodged in his cheek, but also with a definite serious undertone. Challenged often at the heart of his artistic practice is the role of himself as the artist, and where the authorship lies in the photographs he displays. Emphasised is the anonymity of the found photographs discovered, but not necessarily the anonymity of his own input. In discovering the photographs, often ‘chance and randomness’ comes into play, but by precise editing and presentation by Schmid, this results in his work ‘excluding precisely such concepts such as randomness, chance, and anonymity’ (Berger, 2009)

Take Photogenetic Drafts for example. In this project, Schmid received hundreds of negatives from a commercial portrait studio in Bavaria, after he placed an advert pleading for others photographs under the guise of a

10 ‘recycling project’. The negatives were ripped up before they were sent to Schmid however, but he was then able to incorporate this apparent stumbling block into a new project. With the negatives cut straight down the middle, and with the consistency and predictability of this particular portrait structure in terms of pose, lighting and viewpoint of the studio, Schmid exposes this rigid formality of the portrait. The portraits are presented as a singular image (Fig. 2) spliced together from the two torn halves of a different negative, but the faces of the subjects’ regular match up, such is the rigid nature of the photo shoot from this studio (Weber, J. S., 2007). In doing so, the nature of the photographic practice is revealed, whilst at the same time: “a close look at the individual images quickly leads to speculation about the people in them… Why do we seek to capture and freeze in the time the faces of our children, our parents, our lovers, and ourselves?” (Weber, J. S., 2007)

Thus, the viewer is left to create their own story of these subjects, as Schmid provides little information about them. Yet, paradoxically, we are effectively told the information in the photographs by forcibly reading the photographs as a series that Schmid lies out before us; of the consistency and predictability of this studio and its middle class subjects. The input of Schmid is of course vital to this contradictory outcome. With this original ‘blank canvas’ of photographs, seemingly devoid of meaning individually, that Schmid found, he has recontextualised their meaning through his methodology; whilst transcending his role from editor to that of ‘author’. Though paradoxically, his role of the ‘author’ is one Schmid is constantly challenging in his work: “Schmid deliberately explodes the notions of personal style and expression that we normally associate with photo authorship” (Weber, J. S., 2007). As

11 such, the medium of photography is subject to consideration, as the life and afterlife of photographs are unearthed; the objects themselves become the story (Weber, J. S. 2007). With a greater understanding of found photography and the editor/authorship relationship using Schmid as an example, we can now further delve into the world of the photobook that utilise this artistic field.

Fig. 2

12 The photobook: background and history

The photobook has a long history, as long as photography itself in fact with the first ever photobook Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype by Anna Atkins privately published in 1843, predating William Fox Henry Talbot’s The Pencil Of Nature by eight months (which was the first commercially available book) (Parr and Badger 2004, pp. 13-14). Since then, the photobook has been utilised by thousands of well-known and unknown artists and photographers, institutions, and publishers. The purpose of the photobook inevitably varies from case to case, though Parr (2004, pp. 4) overviews the medium of a successful photobook here: “Photobooks alerted me to the way in which a well-made book can bring a group of photographs to life. The combination of remarkable images and good design in a book that is beautiful to open and pleasurable to leaf through is an ideal way of conveying a photographer's ideas and statements." Martin Parr is a suitable candidate to quote on the subject of the photobook as he is by his own admission obsessed with the photobook and has a phenomenal collection. This is stated in the introduction to his own book, The Photobook: A History Vol I, co-written with Gerry Badger - and this book, and it’s successor Volume II, will be sought as a rich resource for this paper, such is it’s depth and scope on the subject.

For this Research Paper, a very particular type of photobook will be explored; those that: a) challenge the concept of the picture editor as the author, and b) deal with photographs that are not their ‘own’ images (i.e. not taken by the photobook creator), or the found photograph as explained in the previous

13 chapter. However, the vast majority of photobooks are edited and presented by an author who was not the creator of the photographs, as supported by Parr and Badger (2006, pp. 205): “the skills employed to take good photographs are not necessarily the same skills required to make a meaningful sequence or a good book” So, many photographers will hand over responsibility to the editor, or at least work in conjunction with them to produce the work. This compliance in these type of books between an individual artist/photographer and editor is not a feature that needs to be addressed in this paper, as the authorship and narrative is mostly created by the original artist in the first place, the editor’s role is purely incidental. This is reflected in the “convention to nominate the photographer as the author” (Parr and Badger 2006, pp. 210)

Another area along a similar yet diverging path, is where the editor hired by a publishing firm, chooses stock images from say an agency, or library, and presents them in such a way but with little artistic intent. These books may present images along themes such as ‘End of year’, featuring images from the past year of a certain subject, or a photobook wrapped around a specific place. For example, there a plethora of illustrated photographic books on London that place a very commercial interest at their foundation. 100 Years of London (Twentieth Century in Pictures) is such a book, which consists of photographs taken from The Press Association national archives, and the author of the book is not even an individual - Ammonite Press is declared as the author. Even when a single author is credited without having taken a photograph (utilising archives) as in Batsford’s London Then and Now (Diane Burstein), the book has no comment to make on the medium of photography, and seeks

14 no wider purpose other than to illustrate London. No narrative is dictated, or laid out for the reader, and no comment on the medium of photography itself is offered. Therefore this is not the type of photobook that raise questions of the relationship between editor and authorship, or have any deeper, didactic purpose in their compilation of images, and thus are not relevant to the question in this Research Paper; but is important to acknowledge their existence and to distinguish between them. ‘They may contain brilliant, striking photographs, but fail to meet the various qualitative criteria that elevate them to the photobook category”. (Parr and Badger, 2006, pp.205)

It is a suitable time to conduct a Research Paper of this ilk in relation to the photobook, as we are experiencing a sharp increase in their manufacture; A huge 70% increase of the photobook production was predicted in 2008 alone according to Yophoto website. With Parr and Badger’s statement that more photobooks are being published than ever before by the artistic photographer, it is “now de figeur for any photographer of ambition to make a book”. If this fact is coupled with the increase in found, or vernacular photography as stated in the previous part of this Chapter, we discover a need for the subject of this type of photobook to be explored.

15 The Polemic photobook

In what type of photobook does the editor challenge the crown of author then? This is the question that needs to be addressed, and through a series of examples the appropriate criteria will be developed. Keeping within lines of the remit set by this paper, the books examined will contain ‘found photography’, or supposed ‘vernacular’ photography. The photobook has a power in the relationship between its images. They are read as a sequence, or at least viewed as a whole by the reader; an individual image taken out by itself loses meaning “Thus can be seen the special status of the photographic image: it is a message without a code…” as stated in Roland Barthes’ highly significant The Photographic Message. Intervention by the editor in this form of a photobook is crucial, in which their intentions will become apparent, as the reader becomes engaged in this phenomenological development as they have to physically leaf through the pages laid out in order in front of them. As such, editors/artists that choose to appropriate ‘their’ chosen images in such a manner where a direct polemic intent is created will be analysed. This could be achieved through a variety of factors in their methodology, with editing tools such as sequencing, inclusion/omission of images, text, and more importantly what impact their choices have on the outcome for the viewer. Are any narratives imposed? Is it left to the viewer? These are questions that are raised by Schmid in his own found photographic work as described previously, but how do these questions relate to the format of a photobook? What statements are offered in relation to the medium of photography? The answers to these questions are a strong part in the objectives of this paper.

16 Chapter 3 - (Photobook examples) Wisconsin Death Trip

Two photobooks that share a similar ethos as well as a common interest in the plundering of American history are Wisconsin Death Trip and Without Sanctuary. Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip uses found images from local photographer Charles Van Schaick taken between 1890-1910, in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Lesy paired these photographs (which he discovered in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin) with records and articles from this era and location, to create a particular impression and narrative for the photobook. Potentially a fairly ordinary, perhaps mundane historical topic on the face of things – but it is how Lesy presents the material that proves vital. With this rich resource of material, Lesy with a creative licence chose to treat them ‘proactively rather than reactively’ (Parr and Badger, 2006, pp. 217), and set out to engineer a particular narrative of this specific time and place. The articles and texts chosen adjacent to the photographs include insane asylum records, local news stories depicting domestic violence, murders and other gruesome acts, with an overall tone where the ‘scenario emerges as a depressing one’ (Parr and Badger, 2006, pp. 217). These chosen documents and quotations selected essentially have nothing to do with the photographs (Sontag, 1977, pp. 57) but yet are presented in association alongside them. Fig. 4 shows some examples of the text inside the book.

Whilst it is possible to believe, or perhaps with a ‘greater certainty’, that this particular time in rural America may have been a harsh climate to live in as industrial changes swept afoot the country, this is a photobook that strongly

17 forces a point of view in the choices it makes. For this is Lesy’s historical view of proceedings, only sharing with us his selective presentation of the truth; he shows, above all, that history, no matter how persuasive the terms in which is presented, is partial as stated by Parr and Badger in their description. For example, Susan Sontag proposes in On Photography that Lesy could have chosen to present “other texts from the period—love letters, diaries”, or perhaps marriage certificates, and thus rather than the depressing view manufactured by his array of news articles and insane asylum records, an impression could have been given a more optimistic in tone. (Sontag, 1977, pp. 57)

Fig. 3

18 This vulnerability of the objects (found photographs) in particular presents the editor, Lesy in this case, with bags of potential to offer and distort a particular version of events, leaving these objects ‘totally whimsical as history’, in a theory developed by Sontag. The role of vernacular photographs here is key, as this genre of photography can be open to any kind of interpretation before being presented, sequenced or edited. Thus with this clean slate, they can be “refashioned, re-imagined, re-sequenced, made into a multitude of different stories” (Williams, 2005). Consequentially the intentions of Lesy, the editor of the book, become apparent. The book becomes “dynamic” as well as the nature of photography questioned, succeeding in creating a “discursive language to explicate the slippage within the medium of photography” (Mcnabb, 2006). His role as editor is implicated with that of author by his own methods of selection, presentation and implications. Sontag argues that by utilising the ‘authority of a document’ (raw records, and often first person accounts such as certificates, letters, diaries etc) they are taken to hold an authenticity and contain a reality, something that may not be as believable a book containing an ‘extended literary narrative’ (one without photographs or documentation).

Fig. 4

Without Sanctuary & Walter Benjamin

Without A Sanctuary also deals with the darker side of American history, but with a far greater emotional velocity at heart. James Allen, an Atlanta-based collector, stumbled across a commercial postcard documenting the lynching in Marietta, Georgia, of Leo Franks, taken in 1915. After this find, Allen spent a large amount of time in the late 1970’s finding other photographs of this ilk through a plethora of resources. Hundreds were found of these horrific events generally from the American South, as photographers of the time brutally captured these moments - perhaps not even hiding behind the relative ‘neutral’ standpoint of documentation “most of the photographers who made them were not dispassionately documenting, but celebrating the ritualizing of the murder of American citizens by their fellow Americans” (Parr and Badger, 2006). One card as seen in Fig. 5.1 for example, shows a mutilated, burnt corpse of a young African American, and a caption written on the back reads ‘This is the barbeque we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son Joe” (Fig. 5.2). It’s astonishing how even commercial outlets at the time, such as the postcard manufacturer in the previous example, were comfortable in the distribution of the images, and hoarded as souvenirs by the eventual owners.

Inevitably, these graphic images that Allen presented in the book polarized opinion, and continue to do so. Many agreed with Congressman John Lewis, who voiced that Without Sanctuary may “inspire us, the living, and as yet unborn generations, to be more compassionate, loving, and caring” as quoted

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 5.2

22 by Peter J. Wosh, 2000. Also argued in the validity of the images by Wosh are the attitudes of the commercial entrepreneurs at the time: “Exposing such historical horrors, asking tough questions about the past, and coming to terms with inhumanity in the finance capitalist culture of Gilded Age America all remain very worthwhile enterprises.” Though in the same essay by Wosh, a conflicting opinion is offered, one in which we, the viewer, look upon the backward, bloodthirsty American citizens in the photographs performing the lynching as ‘the other’. Wosh in this context describes the scene as we may read it as follows: “A snickering white man in a straw hat, a smiling Florida teenager in her Sunday dress, and a grinning Arkansas gentleman poking a corpse with his cane make us feel better about ourselves, after all.”

What is certain is that the role of Allen as the new author is a world away from the original intentions of the photographer, whose primary intent is one of the glorification of lynching, the dehumanization of the victims, whilst also purely keeping a personal memento of the event as described by Allen in the book: “I believe the photographer was more than a perceptive spectator at lynchings. The photographic art played as significant a role in the ritual as torture or souvenir grabbing - a sort of two-dimensional biblical swine, a receptacle for a collective sinful self. Lust propelled their commercial reproduction and distribution, facilitating the endless replay of anguish. Even dead, the victims were without sanctuary.” The fact that Allen presents these images in the form of a photobook reminds us of the concept of ‘Aura’ by Walter Benjamin. Benjamin is a highly influential theorist, with The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical

23 Reproduction one of his most significant essays, having been cited by 2870 scholarly articles on Google. We seek context from this essay, as his theories on photography and reproduction are relevant towards this paper.

Originally, an individual postcard Allen acquired was just that; they had their own unique messages written by hand on them, had faded to a brownishyellowing in a certain way over time, and become torn here and scuffed there of their own accord and generally dirtied as Fig. 5.2 shows. By presenting them in a book, the postcards are replicated numerous times over and over in exactly the same way, and thus they lose their authenticity. This ‘mechanical’ process, in this case the automated print room of a publisher, leads to the reader having to acknowledge that the “Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses towards art" (Benjamin, 2008). Benjamin views this as central to the loss of aura – his argument that aura is eliminated by mass reproduction, in this case a pictorial postcard reprinted in a book. Thus the meaning of the postcard in the first place changes with the character of it technical reproduction. The self-contained and unique original has to be viewed as something else completely, with the original now ‘hopelessly out-ofdate’ in terms of its meaning. Benjamin views all art photography in this manner, photography responsible for the destruction of aura, as explained here: “to an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints ; to ask for the ‘authentic’ ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed”. However, the analogy of the postcard as the ‘authentic original’ stands-up nevertheless, as the postcards here are unique entities due the unique way

24 they have aged or been tampered with – it’s only through their replication that the loss of aura exists.

What is the outcome of the ‘destruction of aura’ then? This loss of aura has the potential to open up the politicization of art, the image has the power “to raise political questions in regards to the reproducible image” as Benjamin states. The cult of the original is separated in loss of the aura and now we can all view the postcard in a photobook, hence a new appreciation of art is introduced while at the same time, a whole new mode of deception and distraction also enters. Our images are democratized consequently with loss of authenticity, and a brand new audience can now see these published images in the photobook, where this new audience have a greater degree of freedom in deciding for themselves as to how they interpret the images, and thus their story.

25 Erik Kessels

For the following section, the relatively more modern photobooks of Erik Kessels will explored alongside his role as the editor in each. Erik Kessels throughout the 2000’s released a vast swath of various types of photobook through his publishing company, KesselsKramer Publishing. The origins of the photographs in his releases are very diverse, but one constant remains the same; the fact that he has never taken a photograph, or hired someone to take a photograph for any of his books. Featured is “…the kind of photography that you’d never normally put on a wall of a museum.” (Kessels, 2008) In Almost Every Picture is such a series released through the company whilst utilising his archive, totaling eight separate books to date. For his first book Kessels, an avid collector of ephemera, found approximately 400 photos at a flea market in Barcelona one day. At first glance they appeared to be fairly non-descript, a photo of an unknown woman apparently on holiday posing for the photographer as shown in Figs. 6.1-6.2. However, once Kessels trawled through all 400 of these vernacular photographs, each and every single one contained the same woman in hundreds of different locations, not once with anyone else purposefully in the frame. Even more remarkable, or ‘bizarre’ (Kessels, 2008), is that the mysterious woman was nearly always framed in a very similar way, and fairly similar facial expressions. Inevitably this posed many questions for Kessels; Who was/is this woman? Who was the photographer? What was the relationship between them? How did they end up discarded at a flea market? Are they even still alive? The only other clues available were the dates written on the back of them, presumably by the amateur photographer. After years of holding on to them, Kessels then

26 decided upon ‘pressure from all who looked at them’ (Kessels, 2008) to release them to the public in the form of a photobook, In Almost Every Picture #1.

Fig. 6.1

The photographs are presented in the photobook just as they were found, the only information included is the dates the pictures were taken (which were on the back originally regardless), and presented in chronological order. This basic approach to editing enables us to read the story as images themselves, a creation of a ‘photographic novel’ as Kessels stated in a lecture for Foto8 (2009). Though the story is mostly one for the viewer to create themselves, enabling the imagination of the viewer to run wild in terms of a narrative. The very same questions mentioned previously by the editor Kessels still apply to the reader, as nothing is withheld. Perhaps the only clue one could draw out is the fact that the woman in the photograph gets smaller in the image as time

27 goes by – and therefore that the photographer is losing interest in the subject. Though even this conclusion is a subjective one. So whilst they may be standard holiday snaps individually, together they can be seen as “an exquisite labour of love” (Kessels, 2009) in relation to the sheer volume, as he expresses in the following: “it’s when the photo comprises part of a series that together form a certain story. These photographs were never intended to make a series, the people making them were entirely innocent of that goal.” The sheer quantity involved in the photobook underlines this theory, and we are reminded of the work of Joachim Schmid in this respect, (as quoted by Weber, J. S., 2007, pp. 18): “Five pictures from the street are rather uninteresting, but fifty are interesting and five hundred are extremely interesting. The quantity adds to the quality’”

Fig. 6.2

28 This approach by Kessels is different to that of the editors in the previous two books, Wisconsin Death Trip and Without A Sanctuary. It is a given that there is a gulf in the subject matter between them, despite the similarity in that they both contain amateur, vernacular found photography (Kessels and Allen both utlising the flea market). As discussed, Lesy in Wisconsin Death Trip plays a proactive role in the inclusion of certain photographs and other material to build a specific point of view. Kessels on the other hand lets the photographs do the talking, taking a stance that is more reactive than proactive, and hence allows the reader to do much of the interpretation whilst setting up this mindset for the reader. Despite this sparse editing, the very fact that he has chosen this specific set of images enables the audience to create a story; he has gifted us a blueprint essentially. A ‘second-life’ has been breathed into these initially private, singular, vernacular photos, through the process of publishing them, and again a concept that echoes Benjamin’s Aura.

Eventually, the truth surfaced as to the mystery of the photographs sometime after the book was published. An exhibition in Barcelona was created featuring images from the book, and a minor campaign started in an attempt to trace the woman in the photographs, through posters and mentions on television news bulletins. Even T-shirts were printed, and as such the images “then get a 2nd, 3rd and even a 4th life”, reaching somewhat of an ‘iconic status’ (Kessels, 2008). A former co-worker at a telephone exchange eventually recognised her, and for the first time the anonymous figure had a name: Josefina Iglesias (http://www.dazeddigital.com/Photography/article/4413/1/In_Almost_Ever y_Picture). Iglesias it transpired had been dead for years, as was the

29 photographer, her husband. The married couple were unable to have children, and thus were able to spend a lot of their spare time and money on holidays, revealing at least part of the mystery behind the puzzle.

In Almost Every Picture #2 follows a similar structure in terms of story telling and use of vernacular photography. Here the reader is presented with hundreds of images of the same taxi in different locations, taken by an amateur, though able anonymous photographer. It is only when the reader looks closer at the images and views more of them that a further subject is noticed - that of a woman sitting inside of the taxi in every single photograph as can be seen in Figs. 7.1-7.2. In an identical vein to the first In Almost Every Picture, this begs the question as to why was this photographer (and presumably the taxi driver) taking images of her inside the taxi? And of course, what is the relationship between the photographer and subject? The photobook sets out to engage our minds with this mystery with the following passage added by Kessels (2003) in the book: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The passenger and the taxi are pictured in front of mountains, fields, sunsets, city squares, highway rest stops. What were they doing there? Who was she? Why did they travel like this?â&#x20AC;?

Figs. 7.1-7.2

31 Another difference in the two examples here of In Almost Every Picture versus the photobooks featured in the previous chapter is the type of found photograph. Wisconsin Death Trip and Without Sanctuary utilise photography that has previously been seen in the public realm (albeit to a limited degree), and that was the photographers’ intention upon the printing of their work originally. The individual photographs used in these had a purpose in their previous incarnation before the authors, Lesy and Allen, presented them in their own specific way in their photobooks. Here with Kessels we are dealing with a different set of photos of the vernacular variety, ones that were never intended to be seen out of the private sphere - the snapshot. By using the vernacular tool of the anonymous image, the private lives of ‘everyday’ regular people are transformed, reborn, into something entirely different with a developed second meaning; which is exactly the same transformation as what the photographs go through. Compared to the photographs original meaning, with the passage of time its moorings become unstuck, and open to any kind of reading (Sontag, 1977, pp.56). The naive, unforced quality of the vernacular photograph is essential to the journey that transpires in them. Without the snapshot aesthetic, we, the reader, would not be so keen to be drawn into this guessing game involving the characters in the photograph. We may not know the people or circumstances in the photographs, but we do know that there is a strong truth in them; perhaps more so than if the images were by that of a ‘professional’ photographer. As Graves (1977) states “the nameless picturetaker may in the end be the truest and most valuable recorder of our times”. By this apparent lack of editing, and a focus on just snapping away, Graves continues that the amateur photographer “innocently freezes forever the plain people of his

32 time”. One could argue in this assumption that there is a deeper skepticism towards a professional or staged photograph than towards that of a amateur, with the reasons for this numerous. This lack of input by Kessels, coupled with the private vernacular snapshot of which the reader is more likely to believe as authentic, plays ultimately into the hands of Kessels, as the reader falls into this story holding an authentic weight. “…they (the reader) can enjoy and interpret the picture without the weight of artistic sway. This allows the viewer to full absorb the entirety of the images’ denotation without preconception or bias and in turn letting the audience realise the connotations and the possible narrative”. (Copping, 2007)

33 Conclusion

Once the general idea of the polemic photobook was separated from other photobooks utlising found photography early on, or ‘illustrated photographic books’ as Parr ascribes, the exploration could begin of these didactic, artistic types in this paper. The editor of the polemic photobook succeeds in engaging the viewer, as was proved by the examples that were analysed in Chapter 3. They achieve this in a variety of methods, using different subgenres of the found photograph. A variety of tools are used, such as the inclusion of particular documents (Wisconsin Death Trip), the politicisation (Without Sanctuary) or a large quantity of vernacular photos (In Almost Every Picture). It is worth noting however the different approaches between the editors in each, and the different outcomes also. But what is common in the application of these tools is that the editor succeeds in the creation of a narrative – be it an open, or attempted closed one. As Kessels states in the previous Chapter the images when presented in a sequence are read like a novel, becoming the visual equivalent of sentences and paragraphs. Thus the editor of the polemic photobook transcends over to become the author of the photobook, carrying the baton of authorship from images that were seen as previously ‘free from signs of authorship’.

If we go back to our ‘Pre-introduction’ in Chapter 1, the success of Quincampoix’s photobook lies in the seduction of the reader, in this case Amelie and her neighbour, who become entranced in the creation of their own story. This same success occurs in the photobook examples, as the second life breathed into the photographs by what we can now call the author, allows this

34 development to take place. The subtle paradox however is that the new found authors mentioned along the way challenge their role of authorship, and test the limits as to what their individual input achieves. We see this particularly in the work of Kessels in regards to a minimalist approach to editing. Photographs as objects are called into question echoing the ethos of Joachim Schmid in Chapter 2, and the impact this has in terms of the photobook is an important one, going on the theory of Walter Benjamin in Chapter 3 - the medium of photography is commented on in these books. Thus, the form of the photobook itself, through authorship, reproduction, and artistic input is questioned through these polemic photobooks. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The full complexity, and wider meaning of photography begins to be realizedâ&#x20AC;? (Parr and Badger, 2006, pp. 211)

35 Appendix •

Fig. 1 Jeunet, J. P., 2001. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain [DVD] [Screen grab] UK: Momentum Pictures

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Fig. 2 Photogentic Draft #24 (2007) [Online Image] Available from: http://schmid.wordpress.com/ [Accessed 05 March 2010]

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Fig. 3 Van Schaick, Charles Twin Infants In A Coffin (1886) [Online Image] Available from: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/ [Accessed 05 March 2010]

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Fig. 4 Lesy, M. and Van Schaick, C. 2000 Wisconsin Death Trip [Electronic book] Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Available from: http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search?q=wisconsin+death+trip

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Figs. 5.1-5.2 Charred corpse of Jesse Washington suspended from utility pole. [Online image] Available from: http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/ [Accessed 01 March 2010]

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Figs. 6.1-6.2 In Almost every Picture [Online image] Available from: http://www.kesselskramerpublishing.com/ [Accessed 03 March 2010]

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Figs 7.1-7.2 Kessels, K., and Stultiens, A., 2003. In Almost Every Picture #2 (Paperback) S.l. : s.n., 2003.

36 Reference List

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Allen, J., 2000 Without sanctuary: lynching photography in America Santa Fe, N.M. : Twin Palms.

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Ammonite Press, 2009, 100 Years of London (Twentieth Century in Pictures) Lewes, East Sussex: Ammonite Press

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Badger, G. & Parr, M., 2004, The Photobook: A History vol. 1 London ; New York: Phaidon,

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Badger, G. & Parr, M., 2006, The Photobook: A History vol. 2 London ; New York: Phaidon,

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Berger, L., The Authentic Amateur and the Democracy of Collecting Photographs Photography & Culture - Volume 2—Issue 1 - March 2009 - pp. 31–50

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Benjamin, W., 2008 The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction London: Penguin.

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Bull, S. 2001. Raiders of the Lost Archives at http://vads.ahds.ac.uk

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Bull, S. 1997. Other People’s Photographs. Creative Camera (344): 38–41.

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Burstein, D., 2009. Batsford’s London Then And Now London: Batsford

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Copping, C., 2007. Found photography: The cultural value of other peoples’ memories Graphic Design: New Media, 2007

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Graves, K., and Payne, M. 1977. American Snapshots Oakland: The Scrimshaw Press.

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Jeunet, J. P., 2001. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain [DVD] UK: Momentum Pictures

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Kessels, E,. 2008. We Are All Photographers Now!/Tous Photographes! Available at: http://www.boring.ch/waapn/incoming/podcasts/erik_kessels.mp3 [Accessed 2 February 2010]

37 •

Kessels, K., and Stultiens, A., 2003. In Almost Every Picture #2 (Paperback) S.l. : s.n., 2003.

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Mcnab, C,. 2006. Martin Parr & Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History vol. 1. Book Review, [e-journal]. Available at: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Martin+Parr+&+Gerry+Badger,+The+Photo book:+A+History+vol.+1.(Book...-a0164327974 [Accessed 9 February 2010]

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Parr, M. and Kessels, K., 2009 Foto8 Parr/Kessels Lecture [Audio]

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Schmid, J., MacDonald, G., Weber, J. S., 2007, Joachim Schmid Photoworks, 1982-2007 Göttingen : Steidl ; [London : Thames & Hudson [distributor]]

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Sontag, S., 1977. On Photography Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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Tang Museum, 2007, Joachim Schmid Photoworks 1982 – 2007 [Online] (Updated 17 January 2007) Available at: http://tang.skidmore.edu/index.php/calendars/view/126/tag:1/year:all (No new photos….) [Accessed 29 January 2010]

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Williams, V., 2005. Vernacular photography. Innocence regained? Or just another kind of fiction?: Eye Magazine, Vol.14 spring 2005.

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Wosh, P.J., 2000 Archivaria – The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists, NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America Number 50, Fall 2000.

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Yophoto, 2008. Photobook Market to Grow by 70% [Online] (Updated 28 February 2008) Available at: http://www.photographyblog.com/news/photobook_market_to_grow_by_7 0/ [Accessed 12 February 2010]

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Jones, C., 2009. In Almost Every Picture DazedDigital.com [Online] (Updated 25 August 2009) Available at: http://www.dazeddigital.com/Photography/article/4413/1/In_Almost_Every _Picture [Accessed 27 February 2010]

38 Bibliography

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