Topic: Fantastic photo story on the Guardian website

[Ailsa]

This is the kind of photography I just can't get enough of. I know it breaks no new boundaries, but it spills over with warmth and humanity - and gives importance to ordinary people doing ordinary things. There's just not enough of it about these days. The accompanying book is well and truly added to my wish list.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2008/mar/19/communities.wales?picture=333157504

[david b]

I can also recommend David Hurn's book 'Wales: Land of my Father' for a similar take on the same subject.

[Karl]

Wonderful stuff. Also check out Ragnar Axelsson's Faces of the North. Different countries but same warmth and connection with people and communities. I think you covered this in your time at B&W Ailsa. I had to order it from Iceland as there was no print run left in the UK. I think you can get it in good photo bookshops now.

[Ed Wenn]

Yeah! Thanks, Ailsa; great link. 10 minutes not in any way wasted. Definitely my type of thing too. Since we're straight into 'related work' I can recommend 2 other photographers:

Anders Petersen's incredible book, Cafe Lehmitz which is cut from the same cloth, albeit slightly more twisted and rum-sodden.

"Cafe Lehmitz was located near the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Germany. Open for most of 24 hours, it was frequented by sailors and stokers from all corners of the world. By merchants, dockers and cabdrivers. By prostitutes, striptease dancers and pimps. By poets, small time criminals and other night-revellers. One thing they had in common: they were given the cold shoulder by 'respectable society'.
Swedish photographer Anders Petersen came across the place at the end of the Sixties and for nearly three years would spend most of his days and nights near the tables, benches and dance floor where life was lived to the full."



The second related photographer is possibly more surprising, but David Bailey took some truly wonderful images in East End pubs early on in his career. Can't find links to them online, but I saw them at an exhibition a few years ago and they were very impressive.

[eyecaramba]

Couldn't agree more Ailsa.

Reminds me a bit of Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin's work which you would likely enjoy.

http://www.klmphoto.com/

[Ailsa]

Reminds me a bit of Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin's work which you would likely enjoy.

Yup - like that very much indeed. However, for some reason that I've had to ponder, it didn't quite get me in the gut the same way as Robert Haines's work did - despite how strong McLaughlin's series are. At first I thought I was just being a bit parochial - that I could relate to Haines's work better because it was shot in the UK - but then I realised what it was, and that is that he was photographing in his own community, which - for me - gives it the edge. That's in no way a criticism of Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin, it's just an almost imperceptible extra something in the connection between photographer and subject.

Wonderful stuff. Also check out Ragnar Axelsson's Faces of the North. Different countries but same warmth and connection with people and communities. I think you covered this in your time at B&W Ailsa. I had to order it from Iceland as there was no print run left in the UK. I think you can get it in good photo bookshops now.

Karl - couldn't agree more. Easily in my top ten all-time favourite books. Again, for me, has that je ne sais quoi that you tend to achieve when you photograph in your own backyard - some of his photographs just make the heart sing. I've been fortunate enough to visit the Faroe Islands; it's a place whose terrifying beauty almost defies description. These are a couple of my favourites from Axelsson's series:

http://www.rax.is/Gallery/FAROE_ISLANDS/ppages/ppage12.htm
http://www.rax.is/Gallery/FAROE_ISLANDS/ppages/ppage14.htm

and, in particular...

http://www.rax.is/Gallery/FAROE_ISLANDS/ppages/ppage15.htm

[eyecaramba]

I think I tend to parse that same distinction, Ailsa.  There is something with the way that people present themselves. 

I am generally either photographing what I know or touring the world of everybody else.  There is something to be said for both approaches but I have to say that the more prsonal, then the more better for me if everything else... quality, high interest, character, quirk factor, etc. is there.

Other favorites in the sociological voyeur genre... maybe Debbie Fleming Caffrey, Birnie Imes, Nicholas Nixon, Shelby Lee Adams.  Love them all though.  And there are varying degrees of intimacy for these guys but I don't know enough about specific images to say.

[Ailsa]

OK, here's a different photo story, also from the Guardian website. I think it raises further questions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2008/mar/26/longtermcare.immigrationandpublicservices?picture=333234162

It's about the importance of immigrant workers in the UK's care system, so an interesting and worthwhile topic. However, I somehow feel dissatisfied with the results and I think it goes back to what we were discussing before - that connection with the subject. The pictures themselves are nice enough, but I found them rather workaday, and I'm sensing that the photographer is a photojournalist who was commissioned to produce the series in quite a short time frame - that he was told to take them rather than coming up with the idea himself. As a result, he did what photojournalists do, and took the best photographs he could within the time given. I'm full of admiration for the sort of photographer who can walk into a situation and, within a very short space of time, see the potential, and the 'hook' - but on this occasion I think there's something lacking. Whaddyareckon?

Of course, this is all hypothesis and I might be doing the photographer an appalling disservice! 

[Janet_P]

I agree Ailsa, I think this series could have done with a little interaction between carer and patient (for lack of a better word). I would have liked to have seen some caring going on or at least little warmth between the two.
The Haines shots are stunning, with so much of the 'place' as well as the 'people' in them.
I'm going back to have a look at all the other links now.

Janet

[LT]

I think with the exception of numers 6 and 7, they all look far too staged and do not represent in anyway my experiences of res care homes - either staff or residents ... although number 7 goes a long way towards it  -ie lots of residents sitting around the corners of a room while the extremely low staffing numbers struggle to make themselves understood (poor hearing and dementia do nothing to assist in understanding strong accents) whilst working long shifts for very little money and home owners make a packet out of the misfortune of others.  Pack 'em in and keep costs as low as possible. I could go on like this for ever.

Did I ever tell you why I got out of Social Care??

 

[Ailsa]

I think with the exception of numers 6 and 7, they all look far too staged and do not represent in anyway my experiences of res care homes - either staff or residents ... although number 7 goes a long way towards it  -ie lots of residents sitting around the corners of a room while the extremely low staffing numbers struggle to make themselves understood (poor hearing and dementia do nothing to assist in understanding strong accents) whilst working long shifts for very little money and home owners make a packet out of the misfortune of others.  Pack 'em in and keep costs as low as possible. I could go on like this for ever.

Did I ever tell you why I got out of Social Care??

 

Nail. Head.

The pictures are far too heavy on the 'outsider looking in' approach.

And no - I really can't imagine why you chose a change of career...!

[Andrea.]

Thanks everso for all these wonderful links. I remember some from the good days of B&W mag. The rest I will wander through when the rain is horizontal!