I spent this morning doing some research on photographers that work within the sub-genre of diaristic photography, and these two online articles proved particularly helpful in terms of broadening my understanding of this style of photography, as well as offering new artists to extend my research into.
I have copied some quotes from the two most helpful articles here, so that I can continue to reference them. I have highlighted key phrases and points in bold.
“Speaking about work within the diaristic subgenre that has been created in more recent time, I wanted to mention the project titled My Little Dead Dick. This was a year-long collaboration between photographers (also a couple) Patrick Tsai and Madi Ju. The project begun in 2006 as an online diary through which the couple shared intimate moments and everyday happenings from their life. The two photographers first met through a photosharing website. They started dating, fell in love, moved in together and started documenting their lives together. They started uploading photographs to the photo sharing site flickr.com as well as to their own blog and very quickly got a captive audience following their bitter sweet love affair and the ups and downs that characterize any relationship. What differentiated this work from the thousands of digital snapshots on sites like Flickr is the fact that the couple were both skilled photographers developing the project knowing it was an artistic endeavour rather than a collection of randomly posted photos. The images, both portraits and self-portraits were carefully composed and edited. ”
“Rather than disputing photography’s biases, [diaristic photographers] have enfolded its objectivity in subjectivity. Diarists skirt issues of imperialism and objectification by turning their gaze inward: this is MY life, MY observation, MY reality. At the same time, they repudiate the notion of mastery with a pointedly amateur anti-aesthetic.”
“In late-1990s Japan, a teenage girl who went by the name Hiromix achieved unprecedented nationwide fame with her snapshots of cherry blossoms, puddles, half-eaten breakfasts and, of course, herself, captured either in a mirror or with the camera held out at arm’s length. It’s no coincidence that the nation that invented the haiku – and, not coincidentally, consumer photo equipment – developed such a mania for the snapshots of a teenage schoolgirl.”
On 35mm: “Because it has long been the equipment families rely on to capture the incidental moments in their lives, its aesthetic has become the universal language of fleeting memories.”
“Owing to its slightness, diaristic photography has something else in common with poetry: it works best in book form. […]Like a real diary, these photos are simply more affecting in an intimate, portable format. The pages’ sequential nature, furthermore, underscores the work’s narrative element – the cast of characters and their evolving relationships; their everyday joys, pains, triumphs and, sometimes, deaths.
After discovering Cristian van der Kooy’s photobook titled, “Anastasiia, She Folds Her Memories Like A Parachute,”(1) I think that the premise for my work will be heavily informed by this style. This work explores the development of the relationship between the photographer and his
girlfriend Anastasiia, which is a similar theme to that which I plan to explore. The photo book includes streetscapes, portraits, images captured from private webcam chats, and reproductions of text messages. I particularly like the text messages and screenshots- they give it a real sense of authenticity and intimacy, almost a voyeuristic feel. Interesting also that the screenshots and messages are printed in a uniform red colour. I wonder if this represents something in particular?
I was able to find a flip through of this book, published by the Photo Book Store UK on Vimeo, but the video’s restrictions don’t allow me to embed it in this post. https://vimeo.com/279244381
I also found a PDF that shows some of the book in full resolution, but I cannot find the source of this (someone anonymous just uploaded it to Amazon storage, and it came from a link in a Google search.)
After researching a little deeper, I discovered the sources of inspiration (2) that van der Kooy drew on for this series. In particular, I was drawn to two of those sources, Unfinished Dissertation by Boris Mikhailov (3) and For Every Minute You Are Angry You Lose Sixty Seconds of Happiness by Julian Germain (4).
Above are some images from Mikhailov’s Unfinished Dissertation. I like the very loose, almost scrapbook feel to the images. But particularly I like the handwriting that accompanies them.
Images above are taken from the series, For Every Minute You Are Angry You Lose Sixty Seconds of Happiness by Julian Germain, in which the photographer documents an elderly man living alone over a period of 8 years. There are photographs of the man’s family album included, and I was impressed by the way that these particular images were presented at the exhibition stage. They are printed large scale, taking up entire walls of the gallery. I am intrigued by the way this changes the viewing experience, as usually a family album is small, and viewing is quite an intimate, close experience. www.juliangermain.com
(1) Van Der Kooy, C 2017, Anastasiia: She Folds Her Memories Like A Parachute, 1st edn, The Eriskay Connection, Netherlands
I read ‘Wabi Sabi’ by Beth Kempton in 2 days earlier this year, and have thought about it ever since. The bi-line, “Japanese wisdom for a perfectly imperfect life” neatly sums up the book’s contents, which delve into the Japanese notion of wabi sabi and how it can be implemented into the everyday.
Wabi sabi, Kempton writes, is difficult to understand. She states that if you “asked a Japanese person to explain wabi sabi, they will most likely recognise it, but will […] struggle to formulate the definition.” She mentions that this is not due to their lack of knowledge, but rather due to the indefinable nature of the concept, and that “the understanding is intuitive,” and therefore difficult to outline.
Part of the book delves in to the idea of the small, natural moments that we come across in our everyday lives, but which we are too busy or stressed or rushed to notice. Examples include the way rays of sunlight shine through the trees (the Japanese word for this is 木漏れ日 komorebi), the sounds of crickets in the evening, or the short time that the cherry blossoms are in bloom before their petals fall to the ground. None of these moments are eternal. They are all fleeting, and so carry with them a beauty as well as a sense of sadness that they will not last forever. However this cyclical changing of nature represents the continuation of life, and this all ties in to the concept of wabi sabi.
How does this tie in to my project? I want to evoke the feeling of wabi sabi in my work, particularly in the images that will represent the passing of time, and the small intimate moments within the everyday.
I feel that Rinko Kawauchi, who I wrote about in this research blog earlier, encapsulates the feeling of wabi sabi in her images. There is the simplicity, the subtle quiet, and the undertone of forlorn that viewers can feel rather than see.
Unfortunately, I borrowed and returned this book before the COVID-19 pandemic forced all libraries to close, so the passages I have posted do not represent the book in its entirety. However I will use the knowledge I have internalised to begin applying this concept to my work, and reference the book again once I regain access to it.
Kempton, B 2018, Wabi Sabi, 1st edn, Piatkus, London.
“Just when it seems that everything has been photographed, in every possible way, along comes a photographer whose work is so original that the medium is renewed. Such a photographer is Rinko Kawauchi, who makes simple, lyrical pictures, so fresh and unusual that they are difficult to describe or classify. Her images document everyday things, yet could not be described as documentary. They are generally light in tone, yet somehow dark in mood. They are almost hallucinatory, yet seem to capture something fundamental about the psychological mood of modern life.”
Garry Badger on Rinko Kawauchi’s book “Utatane” (Siesta), in: Martin Parr, Gerry Badger: The Photobook: A History, volume II, 2006, p. 316.
Kenji Chiga’s work happn was another series that was recommended to me. I think the way the artist merges a variety of different image styles (the studio shot, the live cam shot, the diagram, etc) actually works very well, and is not jarring or detrimental to the work as a body. Rather, I think it helps give wider coverage of the concept.
The work serves as an exploration of the artist’s use of the app, ‘happn,’ and how it connects users who may otherwise never meet. I fell that it actually touches on deeper social issues, particularly isolation within a densely populated area. The viewer must think beyond what is presented to them to find deeper meaning in the work.
In an online article in Lens Culture (1), Chiga describes how this series began.
“I came across the app “happn” one day.
This app could show me who these hundreds and thousands of people I come across daily are.
[…] We shared our stories.
I would not have met them otherwise, but they were living close to me for a number of years. We must have crossed paths without realizing, plenty of times.”
A flip through of the photobook is also available on Chiga’s website. Initially I liked the way it opened, and how you had to flip from left to right continually, revealing fold-outs and smaller pages as you went, but it quickly became overwhelming and confusing. Perhaps that was the intention of the author, but I prefer a more traditional or simple layout for a book.
Above is a random image from Chiga’s instagram, which I just really liked in terms of composition, and the “raw” feel of it.
This work is quiet yet heavy, and the inclusion of the photographs of text / documents adds depth and meaning. It feels real and raw, without being too loose. I would like to emulate this mood in my work, particularly that of the first two images.
“I’m a firm believer in working in the world as-it-is, and arriving at your ideas through that. It has to be a balance between the conscious mind struggling to rationalise, to make sense of it all, and the world itself, which doesn’t give a flying fig for your ideas concerning it. Too much of the former, and you end up with dry didactic work, illustrating an idea with no life. Too much of the latter and you end up with random snapshots that have no redeeming interest or substance. You gotta seek out the sweet spot.” Paul Graham 2015.
[Paul Knight’s]first book jump into bed with me considers intimacy as a conceptual proposition.
Positioning his 35mm camera on any available surface within the given environment or architecture – a mantelpiece, a log, a coffee table, or a rock at the beach – and setting a timer, Knight and his partner simply make themselves available for the camera to see what it sees. […] Knight eschews his diaristic gaze in the same way he loosens photography from notions of time or chronology. We’re left to consider both the spatial and the relational qualities of the sequence and the image.
Paired with an edited transcript of the couple’s history of text messages to one another, jump into bed with me is at once a missive to a lover and an ode to photography’s intrinsic processes. The camera, when left to its own devices, can capture wonderful and beautiful things.
I find this work honest, open, and heartwarming. I feel that it effectively captures the banality of everyday life, whilst simultaneously giving viewers an insight into the intimacy of the relationship. By ‘intimacy’ I am not overtly referring to the images of sex or nakedness, but rather the tiny details and little moments that weave together to create the fabric of this relationship.
In an article published in Vice Magazine (2), writer Dan Rule interviews Knight about this ongoing series. Although the above publication is titled jump into bed with me, the broader series goes by the name of Chamber Music. In particular, the following responses from Knight resonated with me, and have given me some ideas and concepts to consider when creating my own body of work.
In regard to ideas behind the work, Knight comments, “We [he and his partner] sort of make ourselves available in front of the camera, but I like to say that the camera is doing its thing and we just happen to be there.”
When asked about the sense of chronology in his work, he states, “so in terms of time, I want the chronology to be completely broken so it loses this linear representation and is rather interpreted more in a spatial way – in terms of volume rather than length.”
Masahisa Fukase’s renowned photo book 「鴉」(karasu in Japanese, or “Ravens” in English)(1) was recommended to me as a source of inspiration for my project. I was hesitant to look at it because (perhaps unbeknown to the person who recommended it) I have a phobia of birds, and even looking at an image or representation of a bird makes me feel uncomfortable. However, being a creator sometimes means having to suffer and push yourself outside your comfort zone.
My immediate response to the collection of black and white images was that there was a foreboding sense of unease and disquiet, perhaps evoked through the dark and sometimes grainy images. It brought to mind scenes from Hitchcock’s film,TheBirds (1963), a film which I despise due to the nature of its plot. Both works elevate my anxiety and confirm my innate fear of flying, clawed creatures. Both have an ominous overtone.
I was able to locate a video on YouTube (2) that showed a flip through of the entire book, allowing me to get a sense of the work as a whole.
In a review (3) for the Guardian Online, Sean O’Hagan states that“with Ravens, Fukase eschewed traditional notions of portraiture and documentary, instead creating an impressionistic narrative that merges the deeply personal – his forlorn and obsessive state of mind – and the allegorical – the collective trauma of postwar Japan.” (The Guardian. 30 May 2017.)
Although this series (only a selection of my favourites is posted) does not relate directly to my current project, I wanted to save them on this research blog so that I can revisit them later on. This style of mixing photos of empty places and portraits resonates with me, particularly the empty and very structured frames of the landscape images. This style of framing and inclusion of shadow play is similar to that of some personal work that I have produced in Japan, and so I could see myself capturing a series that draws inspiration from Wojciechowska’s work in the future.
