Photography, Taylor Wessing Prize and Prayer Wheels

Uncultured simpleton as I usually am, my knowledge of the fine arts is very limited, bordering on non-existent. Therefore I am glad whenever my course requires me to familiarize myself with them at least a tiny bit. Last time it was the Disobedient Objects exhibition - admittedly, the political background was so strong I am not even sure if this was 'art' proper, but it did offer me a good excuse to venture around the V&A and perhaps feel a bit more cultured.

The next topic was photography and so we were encouraged to visit the Taylor Wessing Prize exhibition - again it was quite a while ago, so you will not be able to go there (you can submit your entries for next year though - see there), however many of the photos are available online. I strongly encourage everyone to check them, especially if you have any interest in photography - but by no means only then. As Taylor Wessing is a portrait competition, it was interesting to see how various pictures transgressed the boundaries of this particular form of art. In fact, I sometimes was not entirely sure if the photo presented was in fact a portrait. But more on that below.

I was asked to choose two pictures, describe and compare them. The first of these, 'Celia Paul' by Nicholas Sinclair, was my absolute favourite, however I had slight trouble choosing a second one. There were many wonderful photographs there and in the end I picked mine basing on how I could compare it to Sinclair's photo, rather than on my preference itself. While Michele Aboud's 'Stella' is one of my favourite portraits from the exhibition, there are a few others I find at least as good, if not better. I cannot stress it enough - search them on the internet! And go to next year's exhibition! It is a wonderful experience.

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The Taylor Wessing Prize 2014

What struck me at the Taylor Wessing Prize exhibition is how although it theoretically should feature portraits only, I could find plenty of pictures that would hardly qualify as such. Even Lars Hastings‘ 'Konrad' – the winning photograph – did not have a clear focus point. The Oxford dictionary defines a portrait as 'a painting, drawing, photograph or engraving of a person, especially one depicting only face or head and shoulders'. 'Konrad' does not feature 'a person'. Whether it was a portrait of the baby, as the lighting suggested, or the dog, as its central position would imply I could not guess, furthermore there are three other people in the background. I am not the only one who seems to have that problem - Christian House from 'The Telegraph" describes the composition as hardly appropriate for a portrait in the first paragraphs of his review (House 2014).

Fig. 1 L. Hastings, 'Konrad'

It is beautiful, ingenious and reminds me of Flemish paintings. But is it a portrait?

[source]

In contrast, both pictures I have chosen are actual portraits – each features one person, a female. Aside of that, however, there are hardly any similarities between them, which in my opinion illustrates how it is possible to achieve diversity through a medium of a conventional portrait, without stretching the definition of this form of art.

Fig. 2 N. Sinclair, 'Celia Paul'

[source]

Nicholas Sinclair’s photograph shows a full figure of a mature woman, dressed in a long garment, possibly used for work only as it is covered in grayish paint. The robe itself is white-gray in shade as well, and this colour dominates the composition. The woman – Celia Paul, as the title suggests – is surrounded by various props, all covered in paint. There is an easel in the foreground, a dark-framed mirror in the background and a simple chair on the left. To the right one can see a picture, presumably painted by the woman herself, showing a fairly bleak female figure, painted in shades darker than these which dominate the room. Her eyes are closed and she has a rather still, sad expression. These exact words could be used to describe Celia herself, which may suggest that the painting is a self portrait. However the explanatory note on the side clarified that it was in fact her sister, with whom Celia Paul had a strong and intense relation.

Although there is a profusion of props on the photograph, they do not distract from its central point – the painter. Each adds something to the portrait – the mirror reflecting an empty room, an empty, dirty chair, a bleak portrait – adding to the rather dark atmosphere of it, further enhanced by Celia Paul’s expression. It is thus a very suggestive portrait, which speaks to the viewer even without the explanatory note provided by the artist.

Fig. 3 M. Aboud, 'Stella'

[source]

'Stella', on the other hand, is in a way a very standard portrait, showing a female head and bust against a neutral background. The model – a  girl or a young woman – is dressed in a simple, navy blue shirt, which compliments her eyes, but otherwise hardly forms any statement. It is clear that on this picture the meaning is to be inferred from the face expression – confident, even slightly defiant, and quite lively.

The light shining on one side of Stella’s face enhances her rather sharp features, and the muted colours with exception of the blue shirt draw attention to her startling eyes. What is of particular interest to me is the aesthetic side of the photograph. I would not describe Stella as conventionally beautiful – her features are captivating but rather harsh. Furthermore, the angle of the photograph appears to enhance some of them, such as the pronounced nose or the rectangular face shape. At the same time, however, it is hard to forget Stella’s face and in the gallery people tended to stop in front of this picture for quite long. The picture tells a story of a strong character, without using any medium other than the model’s face – a contrast to 'Celia Paul', where the various props form an important part of the narrative.

Neither of the portraits shows a classical beauty, focusing on the models‘ personality traits reflected through their appearance, rather than being purely aesthetic. As far as I am concerned, this makes them both unique and interesting since they convey a message other than the mere expression of classical beauty through a medium as restrictive as a portrait.

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So much for modern, Western, highly aesthetic and conceptual photography. When you look at how, why and when people take pictures nowadays, you will notice that artistic photography is in fact a small minority - most of the photos of today are drunk selfies, polished up instagram selfies, first-profile-picture selfies… You get the idea. But even when cameras were not so readily available, photography was by no means only a medium of artistic expression. It is first and foremost a mean of capturing a moment in time, individual and unrepeatable (Barthes 1981, 4). Furthermore, photographs (as opposed to perhaps painted portraits) are often perceived as objective (Sontag 1986, 7). Therefore, they are ideally suited for recording special moments in life - births, weddings, deaths (mortuary photography of the Victorian Era is perhaps the most striking example of the last one).

But do we necessarily want to be pictured just as we are on such days? Don't we dress up, make up and  carry all sorts of hideous designer purses and other props, all in hope to look more elegant, sophisticated, refined - to 'come out better'? This term was coined by Chris Pinney to describe how on Indian photographs from 1980s and 1990s are all taken in hope to help the models present their best side (Pinney 1997). Below I shall describe one of these and compare with a certain picture of myself, hopefully showing some interesting parallels between an Indian, 1980s, black-and-white studio photograph and a 21st century, colorful, ad hoc Western one.

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Photography - a comparison

The first picture is taken from Christopher Pinney’s 'Camera Indica' and shows a young, finely clad man with neat hair and a serious expression, set against a plain background with an obviously fake pillar on the left. According to Pinney, in India around 1980s photography was a relatively exciting novelty. Thus people would have prepared for a picture, hoping to leave the best impression. Pinney describes this as 'coming out better', an idea that a photograph should represent one’s best qualities, enhanced through the pose, mimics, gestures, props and background.

This would explain the smart dress and confident gaze, however what I find particularly interesting is the use of a telephone as a prop. As Pinney explained, at the time this picture was taken there was only one phone in the model’s village and it was not in his posession (Pinney 2014). As a rare technological innovation it was viewed as a sign of modernity. While holding the telephone in the picture does not reflect the model’s real life, it supposedly makes him appear modern. This is 'coming out better', rather than being overtly concerned with realism, and it is achieved through the use of a culturally alien prop. The telephone is a sign of modernity precisely because it is viewed as 'Western' (at this time telephones were widespread there), rather than Indian.

Fig. 4 'Camera Indica'

C. Pinney, Camera Indica

I have chosen the second picture following the last argument. It was taken by a friend of mine in June, 2014 in a Buddhist monastery in Qinghai, western China, and shows me holding a prayer wheel. As an agnostic, born and raised by a Catholic mother and an atheist father, in a country where the vast majority of population is Christian, I was not well acquainted with Buddhism until I became interested in religious studies, which was only a couple years before the picture was taken. I had never attended any Buddhist religious ceremony and visited such a monastery for the first time in my life. The prayer wheel was culturally alien to me – I could not read the inscribed mantras and did not know which way to spin it. I did, however, want to pose with it and this is one of the very few posed pictures I have from that trip. A traiditonal, non-modern, culturally alien object in a way fulfilled the same function for me as the telephone did for the `Camera Indica‘ model – it illustrated and attempt to explore a different culture, perhaps become a part of it, and thus broaden my horizons. A desire to have that saved on a photograph is a part of `comign out better‘, just as in case of the picture above.

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So, would you say 'coming out better' is still a valid concept (even though nowadays we can take photos every two seconds)? Is 'Konrad' a portrait (and what is a portrait anyway)? Why the Indian man of the 1980s, so boldly equipped with a telephone, is standing in front of a traditional prop-pillar?
Please, share your thoughts!

Bibliography:

Barthes, R. 1981. Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Pinney, C. 1997. Camera Indica: the social life of Indian photographs. London: Reaktion Books.

Pinney, C. 2014. Photography in Central India [Lecture to BA Anthropology, University College London]. 11.11.2014.

Sontag, S. 1986. O fotografii. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe.