The latest set of images and texts are included in a pdf file. Just click on the photograph below:
Cable Street, looking East from junction with Leman Street, November 2013
©Keith Greenough 2013
The frustrating thing about distance learning is that you long to be able to present your work in a seminar so that others can critically appraise it…..blog posts will have to do, but I hope to present the work for discussion at a Thames Valley OCA meeting soon. My original goal was to present 10-12 early urban landscapes as part of Assignment Two due in April next year. I think that I have sufficient material now so I am ahead of myself. That said I will continue to visit the East End regularly and revisit some of the sites at different times of day and climatic conditions….would love a foggy day!! I am also reading a few fictional books about the East End to get another insight and to locate some interesting texts: ‘Brick Lane’ by Monica Ali, ‘Rodinsky’s’ Room by Rachel Liechtenstein and ‘The People of the Abyss’ by Jack London…lots of reading to do!! For Assignment One which is due in mid-December I have yet to finalise my draft artist’s statement for Always Follow Ur Dreams!!, but I have a pretty clear understanding of what this is so it shouldn’t take long to produce a first draft. I have completed the project on Gestalt Theory using my ‘Another Hawaii’ photographs to illustrate my understanding of these concepts (I need to post this to the blog). I have also completed my proposal for a Critical Review see here. So I seem to be on target. The main thrust of my work over the coming two/three months will be to complete the Critical Review, which is the remaining part of Assignment Two which is due in April. I am away for almost all of March and so this will need to be done sooner rather than later. I have made a start and am busy reviewing a very useful text on Frank’s ‘The Americans’ called ‘Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans’ edited by Sarah Greenough (no relation!!). All in all I am happy with my progress but there is still a very long way to go!!
photo-graph 
Anne
November 11, 2013
Hi Keith
I don’t have a small group to go to, but I’m happy to try and give feedback virtually!
I love how you’re photographing early morning and the colours in the photographs really draw me to look at them. Its such an interesting project and great to watch it develop.
From the point of view of image plus text: I like the pairs best that have the greatest disjuncture between text and image. I think I’d prefer to see the text on the same page as the photograph so I can look back and forth between the 2. I guess it would be if this was in book form though
I have a slight question why you’re doing white text on black, or images on black. My feeling is that I want it to have an evidential feeling leaving me to find the narrative/meaning myself (I know photographs never are objective evidence of course!) I’m not sure if standard text, black on white, would do that better, dependant on font I suppose. White on black feels a bit declarative, like making a statement…I don’t know if that’s just me though! Then again because there’s that question in my mind about it, it makes me reflect on “colour” too, in the images, the reversed text, people’s skin.
Its really interesting work Keith. I have no idea about text, font, etc. this is just my gut feeling which is probably unreliable!
By the way I went to an exhibition recently – James Morris, he’d been in Palestine – he combined the photographs with found text. I thought of you!
http://jamesmorris.info/portfolio/all-that-remains/
You have to click on “village stories” to get the text.
and http://jamesmorris.info/portfolio/time/ is similar
best wishes
Anne (d)
Oh btw, I’m booked for the Dayanita Singh day, maybe we’ll finally bump into one another
Keith Greenough
November 11, 2013
Thanks for the feedback Anne….lots of food for thought. You are definitely right about the pairs where there is more disjuncture between image and text work best. Researching the texts takes a lot of time and I still have much work to do.
In terms of presentation there is much more work to be done. There is a great diversity in approaches taken by photographers/artists. Some like Allan Sekula make a point of segregating text and image in an effort to give equal attention to both (in theory at least). He even provides somewhere to sit and read the texts in some cases! Sekula also uses a mixture of prints, text panels, and slide shows in his gallery installations. His book formats also tend to segregate image and text. I will be reviewing his ‘Fish Story’ work as part of my critical review so hope this sheds more light on his thinking.
Others such as Joel Sternfeld in his ‘On this Site’ book presents photographs on one page of a book and the text on the opposite side – just like you said you might prefer. His images are of sites where something tragic occurred – sites of mass murder etc. His texts however are descriptive, which is not what I want. I am looking for the texts to open up meanings not to close them down. He also prints on white paper.
Simon Norfolk tends to present the images and has texts as a preface and detailed captions in an appendix at the end. I think the trick will be to make sure that my approach to presentation is conceptually consistent with how I want the work to be perceived….my thoughts on this at the moment are in a state of flux (code for me not knowing what I am doing).
Will follow up on James Morris…thanks for that….and sadly I can’t make the Dayanita Singh event….one day our paths will cross. And thanks once again for the feedback….excellent!!
Anne
November 12, 2013
I just remebered that I was really taken with Zarina Bhimji’s captions, the ones that went with her phtoographs. They ombined the photograph of a place empty of people, with text that alluded to what had happened there. I didn’t know what the work was about at all when I first looked at them, I found the combination set up a set of allusions almost the way poetry works.
The first one I saw in a group show was “howling like dogs I swallowed solid air” I remember pondering on how they fitted together for ages, the best explanation (that I think I read somewhere) was that it alluded to propellers on aeroplanes somehow….this I think is a photograph from a deserted airport..my memory for the details is terrible. But the feeling of it is so strong still.
Keith Greenough
November 12, 2013
Thanks for reminding me about Zarina Bhimji. I saw her show at the Whitechapel. My enduring memory of her work was how she used ambient sounds recorded at places she filmed to wonderful atmospheric effect. I will follow up on the howling dogs.
jsumb
November 12, 2013
The Pennyfield text is (seems) fictive and is probably my favourite coupling, the Monica Ali is also discursive and not so factual and that also works well for me. Not that I’m saying the others don’t work, they do, it’s just for me the ‘openness’ of the fiction is something that appeals. Really promising. I suspect we’ll talk about this tomorrow!
Keith Greenough
November 12, 2013
Lots of work to do on the texts. Most people seem to prefer that there is a disjunction between the texts and images. The fictive texts also seem to me to paint a picture. I want the viewer to have work to do and their imaginations stimulated.