OCA Study Day: Out of Focus, at Saatchi Gallery

I signed up for this study day as soon as it came online. It was interesting for many reasons. Gareth mentioned that it was “a little bit risky” for them to run this study day because there are works by too many photographers and he can’t study all in advance. However, I thought it is probably a little bit risky to introduce contemporary practice to people like me who are still in early stage of his/her study in photography.

Let start with the most important thing I have in mind: how can you tell the difference between a horrible piece of work and a new style of work? I look at this photograph and it says nothing to me, but it obviously says a lot to Charles Saatchi, who paid a lot to acquire the work and paid for space to exhibit it. Am I stupid? Or is he stupid? While I do think judging Art is a subjective exercise, but I hate to think that it is so subjective that we cannot even decide if the work is poorly executed or fantastically cutting edge. 

If we all shoot classical style, no matter it is landscape, portrait or still-life, any short coming in technicality is relative easy to spot. If we do something “contemporary”, then it is not clear how it should be judged and compared to. So what is the reason for produce such “contemporary” style work? Is it because there is no way for us to use any traditional mean/classical style to get our message across? Or is it because we can't manage to out-shoot the classical masters (say Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, just to name a few), so we have do something so out-of-wreck, then no one can easily points out that our works are just rubbish? So what is this? Rubbish or genius?

I find it rather difficult to be brutally honest about how I feel about some of these art (or photographic) work, for fear that I have missed the point, and appear to be bigotry and uneducated. I remember seeing a very similar approach to photography in many degree shows I have visited this year. In fact, when I visited the degree show from the Royal College of Art (RCA), my friend Steve Eggleton, an event photographer, asked me why I would want to get a degree in Photography at all. He told me that I will learn more by assisting the other working photographers in the field. I have a feeling that what we have seen in RCA seem to give him the impression that an academic study in photography will only lead to the type of works that is very questionable in quality (which is 100% of what we had seen that day anyway). In fact, some photographers I spoke to, regard the current trend of higher education in Photography pointless. Some regard the idea to teach students to be experimental and go outside the path of traditional photography style just a gimmick to cover up the lack of solid foundation, which is becoming less an empathises in current curriculum.  Of course, I can’t comment if any of them is true. After one year in OCA, I am still confused what is the current curriculum is taking me to, what is the best way to learn photography, and what do I want to achieve by taking on a formal study in this subject. There is one thing I know for sure that is not on the current curriculum, and it is how to get a job as a photographer. I wonder, maybe the idea to head in a trend of creating un-understandable art work is to helps graduates to make sense on why they have £30k student loans and no job: General public just can’t understand my high art. It is always someone else at fault, but never mine.

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Despite my scepticism on these types of contemporary photographic practice, the study visit itself is a success. I find it very useful as an educational experience because it gives us more to discuss about. In my opinion, there is less value to visit an exhibition of the work by any of the classical grand masters because most of us will agree how good it is, etc. By going to see works that even the tutors themselves have difficulties to come to term with, it opens the door to re-think and discuss what exactly is photography and how should we approach it.

With regard to the works being exhibited, I do think the first room with the punchy style portraits by Katy Grannan has the strongest work. It starts with a very questionable way to light portraitures, with funky subjects that share similar accents to the “freaks” that Diane Arbus photographed. There is no effort to light or pose the subject in a flattery way, and somehow this makes the subject more realistic: they are not your classical beauty and there is no point to make them one or pretend they are one. I wonder if the current trend of portraiture is to present as much texture and detail as possible. The work here reminds me of the work by Aleah Chapin, the winner of the National Portrait award this year. The work she submitted is her aunt. Frankly it is not the most beautiful subject, and having her paint naked is not particularly flattering.

Gareth has his comment on We Are OCA here: http://www.weareoca.com/photography/oh-superman/#comment-7196. He mentioned that if he has to live the rest of his life confined in one room and that will be gallery 10 with the triptych by Mat Collisaw. I will choose that room base on the space and the ceiling height, more than what is inside. It is not horrendous work but I have one question: what is the purpose to use mosaic ceramic tiles instead of making huge print? Is it more effective in communicate what you have in mind or it is just some sort of show off if not a gimmick?

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Peter mentioned something about our work will take on its own life after it was created, and whole range of other factor will affect how the viewers interpret the image. He recommended John Berger and Roland Barthes analysis. Fortunately I have both read and watched the program by Berger (I have even written a blog post here!) Barthes' work is another 20 page of essay that is bury somewhere under the "to be read" pile (just keep getting taller). I think this point was raised in the forum at some point (also because of me). Not that I disagree, but  I have never felt comfortable about the idea that I have no control on how people read my work. In fact, I find the whole story about different interpretations on the image that won the world press photography award very annoying (the post is here).


Personally I look at this as a very linear problem. We are dealing with communication issue here. A successful communication is you understand what I have said. A failed communication is you don't get what I have said. I accept the fact that your understanding does not necessarily mean you have identical feeling, inspiration, and experience on the subject matter that I talked about. However, if I talked about an elephant, you have an elephant in mind but not a lion. 


For me, using photography as a medium of communication have to satisfy the same rule as using language. Therefore, if you are getting a totally different idea than what I am trying to show in a photograph, then this is a piece of failed work! There must be a central idea to the shot and it is my job to apply any mean necessary to make it as strong as possible. In fact, this is one of thing I keep trying in the Still Moving Project (here).


I think this is why I am more interested in what the photographer trying to communicate and how he wants to approach it, instead of what I think about the work personally. I always look at art work with a student hat on, and wonder if I can learn something from the approach and analyse why the approach fails. The work looks shit to me doesn't bother me as much since so many things in this world looks shit to me anyway. If the approach is good than I can pick it up (basically steal it) and improve it on my own practice.


However, I have to confess that you really can’t get that information by looking at the photographs. You can get this information by talking the photographer. Of course, they can always lie about their purpose. I can’t recall if I ever encounter someone has the courage to admit that their work is pointless and random, and some people happens to be retarded enough to pay him a million for it.


Then on Brian's question on Art vs Photography... Well, I am not really a photographer anyway. I think I said it at in the "About me" section. If you need to call me something, please call me a "camera user", not a "photographer". You can't dispute my title because indeed I use my camera (for whatever purpose and for whatever rubbish I produce).


I don't do photography. I am not sure what is that.