PHO701: Interdisciplinary Approaches
- Laura Marsh
- Oct 2, 2020
- 5 min read
‘Camera Lucida’ by Roland Barthes is a book am I familiar with since my BA (Hons). Barthes take on the photographic images is an intriguing one and it is sometimes hard to navigate his thoughts and views. What does stand out to me and has done since I first read it back in 2004, is his philosophy on the ‘Studium’ and ‘Punctum’. The Studium is that sense of being interested in a photo, something about it catches your eye or links to an interest you have in the subject, for example, I have an interest in astronomy and space in general, so any photos captured by NASA or amateur shots, fascinate me and I will examine and explore the image. Something I will touch on later.
The ‘Punctum’ however sparks a different core with me. The Punctum Barthes describes is like a “prick” or a “wound”, something that hits you or stands out to you form the photo. I relate this to photographs of loved ones, as does Barthes when talking about a photograph of his mother in ‘Camera Lucida’. It is a feeling that I can describe of sadness and realisation of an event that is about to happen either shortly after or sometime after the photograph was taken. (Barthes, p25-28, 2000)
I experienced this feeling this week when I watched a Netflix series about the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, Challenger: The Final Flight. This is an event I was aware of, I was too young to remember it happening or to watch it live, but I am familiar with the photographs of the day, the explosion and spectators reactions, many of whom were family of the crew. The introduction hit me, showing video footage of the crew walking to the launchpad, all smiles and waving to the cameras and excited about their mission, unaware as was everyone at the time, about what was about to happen. Except now as an audience, watching this some 34 years later, we know what is about to happen. I started to get a feeling of dread and nerves, seeing those people in the last minutes of their lives, which was about to end so publicly. The introduction ended just at the point of the explosion, you do not see this, but you know it’s happened. Despite this happening 34 years ago, that moment felt like it happened at that moment, 9pm on a Sunday night in September 2020.
(Challenger: The Final Flight | Official Trailer | Netflix, 2020)
The footage brings new depth and meaning to the images of the explosion, you do not have to imagine what happened before or after, now you can see it. This topic was raised in this week’s presentations, specifically Sam Shere’s famous photograph ‘Crash of The Hindenburg, Lakehurst, New Jersey, 1937’. I was not aware there was video footage, now having seen it, that idea of the Punctum stands out so much more, seeing the ship flying with passengers onboard, knowing at any moment many of them will die. Strangely enough, longer footage of the disaster appeared on my Youtube feed, this footage was colourised, which makes it even more real to me, seeing the colour of the fire tear through the ship was incredible.
(Hindenburg Disaster Colorized, 2020)
Forum: Other Than Photography…
For this forum, I chose a piece which relates to my interests and my own current work.
I chose a piece by Pieter Claesz, ‘Vanitas Still Life’, 1630. This is an oil on panel painting, which covers the theme of Vanitas. This is subject that I have always had an interest in, and I have covered in my past work briefly. Vanitas is a subject or theme the is based around mortality. The objects in the still life symbolise various parts of life and death from loss, grief, and memories. There is a strong amount of symbolism within this and most Vanitas pieces will include a skull of some animal to remind the viewer of their own mortality. By looking back at my own work, these are areas I have noticed I cover in my own work in some way or another by capturing moments, memories, and loss in nature.
I see this subject as very personal one, the objects the artist choose to use could be objects that have meaning to them or to others, something which fascinates me and I would like to explore this more further.
Webinar: Interdisciplinary Discussion
I spent some time thinking about the works I could discuss for this forum and I chose a photographer, who is not that well know as far as I am aware, but her work gave me a lot of inspiration many years ago and links to a subject that interests me.
The photographer I chose is Kathryn Osgood and I have chosen a photograph from her series called ‘Vanitas’.
When I think about interdisciplinary within this work, I can see a relationship to still life, history maybe? symbolism, religion, iconography, philosophy possibly and it could also touch in with cultures. I am not sure about all of these, but these are what come to my mind when I look at this piece of work and some possibilities to consider.
The composition, colour and lightning is so important to this subject as I believe it gives the photograph depth and meaning, when we think about topics around death and mortality, black and dark colours do come to mind, so the use of shadows and a vignette in the images gives the viewer a sense of the theme and meaning, again, something I now use in my work to a degree.
The theme, Vanitas, I chose for both these discussions I feel is quite relevant to the work I do. It is a subject that intrigues me and resonates with me, in terms of memories, life and death, symbolism and nature, all types of interdisciplinary I have noticed within my own work.
I discussed this during a live webinar with my online tutor and peers. I showed an image of mine from 2 years ago of a dead shrew I found on a country path. I tend to look down a lot when I walk, and I love noticing little things that others might not see. This Shrew for example is quite small and camouflaged within its surroundings. It was sad but also beautify to look at, and how perfect he/she was. I wanted to know what happened to it? Why was it there? Did it die there, dropped by a predator? Who knows, but I wanted to capture it as it was, as a peer said during the webinar, that photographing it, is a sense of honouring the life.
I found the webinar nerve racking at first as I am not a comfortable public speaker, plus it was the first one so nerves were normal. Once we got going, I became comfortable talking about my work and how it relates to interdisciplinary, such as symbolism and nature as well as Roland Bathes Studium and Punctum. I was also directed to an Instagram page Berlin Animal Life, which I am now following and will look into. They document dead animals found in the street, I was also given a link to a photographer, Clive Landen and his book ‘Familiar British Wildlife’. Something I will start to explore more.
Bibliography:
Barthes, R., 2000. Camera Lucida. Vintage.
Images:
Fig 1: ‘Sam Shere, ‘Crash of The Hindenburg, Lakehurst’, New Jersey, 1937’ http://100photos.time.com/photos/sam-shere-hindenburg-disaster
Fig 2: Pieter Claesz, ‘Vanitas Still Life’, 1630, Oil on Panel Painting
Fig 3: Kathryn Osgood, ‘Kathryn Osgood, Vantias, date unknown
Fig 4: Laura Marsh, Shrew, 2018
Youtube:
2020. Challenger: The Final Flight | Official Trailer | Netflix. [video] Available at: <https://youtu.be/ILAeVAgqFV4> [Accessed 2 October 2020].
2020. Hindenburg Disaster Colorized. [video] Available at: <https://youtu.be/IEYT1rmDx2U> [Accessed 1 October 2020].
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