Overall I found the work interesting but only to a point. Much of Wearing’s work is founded upon the same premise which is that the public face is quite often at odds with the inner self. It appears that Wearing has been much influenced by the work of American sociologist Erving Goffman.  Goffman produced his seminal book Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life in 1959. In this he talks about ‘Frontstage’ or public face and ‘Backstage’ or inner self. I have obtained a copy of this book and will at a later stage post a more detailed commentary on its key messages.

I found one of her earliest series Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say  the most interesting piece. This was a series of street portraits in which her subjects were asked to write what they were thinking on a card and then be photographed along with the card. The portraits are made in ‘snapshot’ mode without careful consideration of aesthetic considerations – she chops off people’s feet and horizons are not alway level etc. This gives the photographs an authentic feel which adds to the credibility of the overall project. Many of the signs are surprising and are significantly at odds with the appearance of the subject. For example the well dressed apparently confident city gent displaying the sign ‘I’m desperate’.

by Gillian Wearing

The notion of ‘Frontstage’ and ‘Backstage’ are interesting for my own work and I will give this a lot more consideration once I have read Goffman’s book.

Wearing’s portraits of herself disguised as members of her family are very well known. These works I found difficult to read. On the face of it they are typical photographs from family albums. But on closer inspection they appear slightly off. The key to this is the eyes where one can just see that the subject is wearing a mask. With knowledge that these are photographs of Wearing made up to look like her family member one is then faced with the dilemma that they appear like one person (‘Frontstage’) yet in reality they are another (‘Backstage’). This realisation made me even more curious about what was going on in Wearing’s mind as the photographs were taken. I found myself staring into her eyes for some clue. The other very noticeable feature of these photographs is that they are huge gallery sized prints. This coupled with the fact that they are being viewed in a gallery add further complexity. Are we to view them as works of art, family snapshots, sociological studies or what?

Self Portrait as My Sister Jane Wearing, 2003 by Gillian Wearing

The exhibition has numerous video works by Wearing. I was particularly taken by the video 10-16 made in 1997. This work shows a series of interviews with children, one for each of the ages from 10 to 16. The voices of the children are superimposed on video footage of adult actors. My first reaction to this was confusion. I had not read about the work before watching it and so it took me some time to work out what was going on. After a while I found that I had to disengage from the outward representation, i.e. the adult (‘Frontstage’) and listen very carefully to what was being said by the inner self i.e. the child  (‘Backstage”). I am not sure whether this was the intention of the artist but it really did heighten my awareness of what was being said as I was no longer diverted by outward, perhaps contradictory signs. I had to concentrate on what was being ‘given’ rather than what was being ‘given off’, to use Goffman’s terminology.

Many of the other video’s operated in a similar manner. Some I found very difficult and disturbing to watch. Sacha and Mum 1996 for example showed some quite violent scenes enacted between a mother and daughter with the sound heavily distorted.

Wearing generally obtains her subject by advertising in local newspapers etc. So all of them are volunteers. There was much discussion amongst the OCA group members during the visit as to whether the volunteers really understood what they were getting into and to what extend they were being exploited. Personally I think that in the situations where the identity is protected by the use of masks or by actors standing in the represent the person physically then there is no significant ethical concern. With regards to the videos and photographs where the individuals are clearly identified I think the key question is whether the individual is happy to have their inner feelings made public. In these days of social networks and reality TV I believe that these issues are of less public concern. Indeed many are happy to have their moment of fame even if it exposes inner frailties. On balance as a photographer I think that it is right that the works should be displayed but it is incumbent on the photographer to make the subjects aware of what they are letting themselves in for.

On balance although I found the works repetitive in terms of theme, the exhibition was very thought provoking and has raised some interesting ideas which will add value to may studies.

REFERENCES

Whitechapel Gallery (2012) Gillian Wearing London: Ridinghouse

Goffman, E. (1959) The Representation of Self in Everyday Life London: Penguin

Urban Artists Book Version 4 2012 04 22 Cover

Urban Artists Book Version 4 2012 04 22

It is not particularly easy to test the focusing accuracy of a lens when one is not sure about if it has been focused correctly. In order to do this I set up an experiment for which I can be pretty sure about my manual focusing accuracy. This involved shooting a Colorchecker target from exactly 36 inches. I focused on the top edge of the target using the split screen which was relatively easy to do as it filled much of the frame. I checked the distance using a Leica Disto meter. After my effort at focusing the  lens ring showed exactly three feet or 36 inches. I shot the image at f2.8 which by my calculations would give me around 1 inch of depth of field. This would show any focusing accuracy problems with the lens/camera as they would not be masked by available depth of field. The image I took is shown below along with a 100% crop.

Test image shot at 36 inches at f/2.8

100% crop of top edge of target

This shows that the top edge appears pretty sharp with the focus falling off rapidly behind. There is some softness but I think that this is more like down to the softness of the lens at f2.8. So it appears that the lens/camera combination is not backfocusing. The issue seems more likely to be operator error.

To test my focusing accuracy using the split screen I made a series of pairs of images. The first of each pair was focused manually by me using the split screen. The second was set at the distance indicated by the Leica Disto meter. I shot many images of different types of subjects at different distances. My focusing was pretty consistent with the meter when the subject either a) had a sharp edge on which I could focus or b) was relatively close i.e. within the range 3-5 feet. For less defined three dimensional objects particularly at distances over 5 feet my accuracy was less consistent. There was no pattern to my lack of accuracy sometimes I was over, and other times I was under. Never by much but sufficient to show as I was shooting at f/2.8.

The process which gave very consistent results was to focus using the split screen, check using the Disto meter,  refocus if there was a discrepancy to the meter reading,check again using the split screen. By using the Colorchecker as my target the focusing is made easier, although at a distance of 7 feet it is very small in the viewfinder. I have been shooting my portraits at distances between 5 and 7 ft using f/8 or f/11. Here is an example of an image shot at 7ft using this process.

Test image shot at 8ft f/8 at iso 200

100% crop of above image

The bottom line is that I need to practice more and to be aware of my limitations in the short term. I will keep posing updates to the blog.

The amount of fill depends upon the available ambient daylight – I have been trying to avoid tungsten lights. For the fill to be effective I need to keep the key light within a stop or so of the fill. Most times this has been possible but on a couple of occasions I have had to accept a slightly darker background. I do not want to open up beyond f8 so that the depth of field is sufficient to keep most of the face of the subject sharp. (I am using a Hasselblad 503cm with an 80mm lens and a Phase One P45+ back). One of the consequences of this is that the colour balance of the images has varied quite a bit depending on the amount of ambient fill and the nature of the light.

Whilst I am happy to accept that the background lighting will vary, I obviously want the skin tones of the subjects to be to a consistent and realistic standard. I have decided to use a device called Colorchecker Pro to assist with this. This tool has a grid of squares with different colours and tones. In particular it has a set of squares for portrait photography, ranging from cool to neutral to warm tones. By taking a test photograph of the setup for each portrait with the Colorchecker Pro in the frame, it is possible to ensure a consistent white balance for each portrait. This is effected by clicking  Lightroom‘s white balance eyedropper tool on the same square of the Colorchecker Pro  each time. The photographs below show the effect of using the tool on the neutral setting.

Test series of portraits without adjustments

Test portrait series with WB adjusted using neutral setting

As can be seen the adjusted images have a bluer tone. In practice I plan to use a slightly warmer setting for the skintones.

A further technical challenge I have been dealing with is achieving focusing accuracy with the Hasselblad and the P45+ back. My aim is always to use the subjects eyes as my point of focus. The resolution of the P45+ back us so good that unless the eyes of the subject are absolutely in focus then when the images are displayed at 100 percent  the lack of sharpness is very apparent. The sensitivity of this is far greater than I had anticipated and my ability to achieve accurate focusing is not assisted by my relatively poor eyesight. I have now decided to use a piece of string with knots at 1 foot intervals to get an exact distance for the subjects eyes….primitive but very effective!

A final technical problem with the Phase One back arises because the back does not have an anti-alias filter. The consequence of this that with certain clothing materials some images show Moire defects. Because of this and the focus problems I have adopted the practice of checking the output from the shoot at intervals throughout the session. This also offers an opportunity to sit down with the subject to review how the portraits are shaping up. If there are severe Moire problems it might be necessary to ask the subject to wear alternative clothing or to try to adjust the lighting to avoid the problem….not hit this one yet!!

For location work the Lastolite collapsible background seems to work well – although it does have an irritating weave in the cloth which creates lines which are not quite vertical!! I also plan to continue with using ambient light for fill and a single softbox as the key light. When travelling I will use speedlights in an lastolite exybox softbox. At home I can use my Elinchrom Quadra set up with a larger Rotalux softbox. What is clear is that if the ambient light conditions are darker then the overall background will be darker also – as in the Anne Bristoe shot below. For all the work going forward I will use the Hasselblad 503cm with and 80mm lens and the Phase One P45+ back. This will enable me to produce larger prints.

I do have two photographs from the past which were shot on my Canon 1ds mk 3 – Mickie Shapiro and Nick Kinsey. They were also not shot on grey backgrounds. I have been able to satisfactorily replace the backgrounds to a level which would be good enough for my final portfolio. The photographs which I took in Hawaii with just window light and a reflector have a different look and the cream background does not work as well as the grey – particularly for Tricia Totten with her blond hair. Happily I will be able to reshoot these in July.

The photograph below gives an indication of the current state of play.

I am an Ironman series by Keith Greenough

I have now completed my first group of photographs over the period 25th February-18th March 2012. I will repeat the exercise over a similar period during April/May and June/July… Frankly I have no idea how this might turn out and this is one of the reasons why I plan to continue, even if I do not eventually use the work for my Advanced studies.

Here is the first series.

'I am an Ironman' self portrait series