I have been thinking a lot about how I want viewers to respond to my East End work. At the moment I’m very concerned that it is coming over as a travelog or worse still a tourist brochure…this place is where this event took place and so on. This is absolutely NOT what I’m aiming for with the work.
What I am really want for is for viewers to be psychological and emotionally engaged by the text/image combinations. I want them to imagine what it would have been like to be there at the time, to imagine how as an immigrant they would have felt and to think about the social issues that flow from this.
Some of my image/text combinations seem to prompt this kind of response. The image of Cable Street for example is moody and expressive in style and the text adds to the emotional charge with a graphic description of what occurred in that place back in 1936.
Other image/text combinations read more like the dreaded travel brochure. The picture of the Curry House on Brick Lane alongside statistics on the growth rate of Indian Restaurant businesses is very matter of fact and is pretty well devoid of emotion.
Another concern I have is the lack of a consistent style for the photographs and a clear rationale for how the aesthetics supports my underlying concept. My current photographs range from chiaroscuro drama to picture postcards. The images don’t have a strong signature.
I was in Brick Lane today and I started thinking about the inscription on the sundial of the Jamme Masjid Mosque on Brick Lane. The sundial was placed on the original building when it was a Huguenot church and has remained in situ for 250 years. It reads ‘Umbra Sumus’, which is a quotation from Horace. It means ‘We are shadows’ and refers to the transient nature of human existence.
The quotation is very apt in the context of my own work, which is about the history of the East End and the ephemeral nature of its immigrant population. I began to wonder if I could use the metaphor of shadows as traces of people from the past in my photographs. This would suggest that I should adopt a low-key presentation with chiaroscuro effects, as in the Cable Street image, throughout the series.
This aesthetic is inherently more dramatic and expressive. The darkness of the images could also suggest that the places are haunted by their past…… and I might even be tempted to call the work ‘Umbra Sumus’. I have reworked the book format to better fit with this concept, although some of the images will need to be reshot at twilight/night-time. Food for thought….
photo-graph 
jsumb
November 19, 2013
“I want them to imagine what it would have been like to be there at the time, to imagine how as an immigrant they would have felt and to think about the social issues that flow from this.”. I wonder is this too directional/didactic? If the work opens up a discourse, anchored by a text which is open-enough to encourage the viewer to consider the concerns you want to discuss, which, by the way seems, to be working on the whole for me at any rate, then perhaps as an author this is the best you can hope for other than informing the viewer this is what you will think about? Keep the faith! I think the key will be in the texts chosen, the images do not appear to be travelogue style with the way they have been presented so far.
Keith Greenough
November 19, 2013
Thanks for the feedback and encouragement John. I think you are right that it is the way that the text and image work together which is crucial. I will be shooting in the early mornings and at nighttime for quite a few of the images as I definitely want the landscapes/interiors to be absent of people. Also I quite like the ‘Umbra Sumus’ concept as an underpinning for the work…if not necessarily the driver of a dark moody aesthetic throughout. I plan to shoot my preferred locations under several different lighting conditions and will ultimately make my selections from how these turn out.
vickiuvc
November 19, 2013
Think the approach ‘Umbra Sumus’ will help tie your images together; and help you get away from the fear of producing a travelogue. Good luck—following with interest, although not saying much—too tied up trying to complete my assignment!
Keith Greenough
November 19, 2013
Thanks Vicki….I have a feeling that this work is going to change a lot before I get to the end.
vickiuvc
November 19, 2013
Catherine sums it up perfectly when she says ‘your own critical process of continual re-evaluation’—this is what you do, you constantly question, revise and redevelop—which is so positive.
Catherine
November 19, 2013
To me it’s not self-doubt so much as your own critical process of continual re-evaluation. I too think the new concept is good.
Just one thing I wanted to check. the PDF kept jumping about so I downloaded it to settle it and also have a two page view. The text is appearing on the left – is that the way you intended or an anomaly on my Mac? I do keep getting slightly confusing by the naming of the steers which don’t always seem to match – is there going to be an outline map in the book so I can follow the path?
Keith Greenough
November 19, 2013
You could be right Catherine. As I said to Vicki I think this work is going to change a lot. The text does appear on the left…not sure about the map. We shall see.