In this essay I'm going to discuss works from Sally Mann, The Cottingley Fairies and an image of my own, in which I will discuss how although they are different in context, they are all connected in the way they manipulate our view. In a world where Photoshop dominates most editorial offices, the images I will be discussing will show that even long before Photoshop, the viewer can be deceived quite easily and in such basic ways.
Photography influences our view on the world in many different ways. It has the power to evoke so many emotions all in the blink of an eye. In the past three months since being at university I have learnt to not judge a photograph in that instant but to take the time to try pick apart reasons, stories and the views of the photographer at the time of taking said image.
The two images I have chosen to reference are two images, which probably seem like a world apart but when looked into more they have their similarities.
Sally Mann
My first image being Sally Mann's 'Candy Cigarette' 1989. I came across Sally Mann's work before I started university and had an instant connection with this image, for reasons still unknown to myself. This image is not as controversial as some of the others I could have used in this essay but as mentioned I have some connection to it.
The image shows Mann's young daughter Jessie, posing with her 'cigarette' in a somewhat grown up fashion, as if playing the adult. If the image had no title to it then you would almost certainly assume she is holding a real cigarette, although the cigarette is not the only thing in the image that raises questions and evokes thoughts, her pose is again very grown up, stood with one arm folded, close to her body with a longing stare into the camera as if wishing to be somewhere else. Her younger sister, Virginia, stood beside her but with her back to us, also stood in a very grown up manner, hands on hips looking on to their older brother, Emmett, who has climbed up some sort of frame. I think the main views brought across in this image are of how young children don't really have the chance to be children for too long any more, they are thrust into an adult way of living at such early ages, whether by the parents, the media or society in itself. The cigarette, the look on her face, the stance of her and her sister, they all appear adult influenced ways of behaviour.
Mann spent some ten years photographing her three children in their natural, safe, homely environment, depicting the children in various stages of growth, playing, hurting, fighting and just generally being brother and sisters. Due to the nature of some of the images, mainly the children being photographed in the nude, playing in and around their remote summer resort, the images caused quite a bit of controversy and was heavily criticised, to the extent of her work being labelled as child pornography, 'One picture Virginia at four, was censored by the Wall Street Journal with black bars over Mann's daughter's eyes, nipples and vagina, as if the everyday nakedness of a four-year-old girl was a problem.' (Jenkins, 2010 [online]).
As a parent myself, I can see how her defence stands to reason, her explanation was that the images are 'natural through the eyes of a mother, since she has seen her children in every state: happy, sad, playful, sick, bloodied, angry and even naked.' (Waters, 2009 [online]).
At the time of making this series Mann must have had some idea how these intimate family pictures might cause some controversy, so much so she went to seek advice from the FBI ‘prior to publishing and exhibiting the pictures, Mann says that she showed the images to an FBI agent and also introduced her kids to him, seeking assurance that the agency wouldn't pursue her on pornography charges; it did not’ (Roberts, 2005 [online magazine]).
With the accusations of child pornography being thrown from every direction toward this series, Sally Mann ran a great risk of losing not only her equipment and work, but also her children as Edward de Grazia is quoted in the New York Times ‘The child pornography laws, especially the Federal laws, are very dangerous for artists like Sally," he says. "She's working under an inchoate threat. Any Federal prosecutor anywhere in the country could bring a case against her in Virginia and not only seize her photos, her equipment, her Rolodexes, but also seize her children for psychiatric and physical examination. No artist should have to live under that kind of a threat.’ (Woodward, 1992 [online newspaper article].
This series and all the controversy surrounding it shows how age can influence people’s views of different areas in life. Should these images have been naked adults then I feel the whole ‘pornographic’ emphasis might have been greater whereas I feel Mann is just portraying her children through a mothers eyes, albeit somewhat eccentric in the items of clothing and the scenes in which they were shot. Also this series was published in 1992, a time before we had internet access, was this merely an exaggeration in the media? ‘"I've counted," Mann says. "Out of the 65 photos in the book, only 13 show the children naked. There was no internet in those days. I'd never seen child pornography. It wasn't in people's consciousness. Showing my children's bodies didn't seem unusual to me. Exploitation was the farthest thing from my mind." (Morrison, 2010 [online newspaper article]
Did Sally Mann create child pornography? No, she was just a parent photographing nature at its finest. Did she exploit her children? Maybe to some extent but I don’t feel it was in anyway derogatory towards her children.
The Cottingley Fairies
For the next part of my essay I'm going to be focusing on 'The Cottingley Fairies 1917.' This series of work was introduced to me in a lecture at university.
The work was created by two cousins, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, who at the time were age 16 and 10 respectively. The 5 images were all developed by Elsie's father, Arthur, who was an amateur photographer with his own makeshift darkroom. They became known to the public in 1919 at a local Theosophical society meeting with a lecture on 'Fairy Life'. After being shown at various conferences they became more widely known and exhibited, this in turn made them sought after by various experts and spiritualists who were asked to give their opinions on them.
The images caused quite a bit of hysteria at the time as the fairies were claimed to be real, shot down at the end of the garden where the girls used to play. In the early stages of the images being viewed they had quite a few people convinced, 'The famous photograph of the Cottingley fairies, which notoriously duped Conan Doyle, is a case in point. But it is the nature of the photographic image that the whole gravitational direction of our viewing is geared towards trust. We can't help doing it.
The press is now full of "doctored" images, manipulated into something that often bears an unclear relationship to the original. Most of this is relatively benign, done for visual effect' (Kemp, 2006 [online])
As soon as the lecture took place on this subject I was took in by the work, not only by the images themselves but how these young girls, who presumably didn't know too much about photography (although Elsie’s father, Arthur, was a keen amateur photographer) still managed to create these images and in turn create one of the most well known photographic hoaxes of the 20th century, a hoax that lasted some 70 years until a confession was made in 1983 'Crawley undertook a major scientific investigation of the photographs and the events surrounding them, publishing his research in a series of articles in BJP between 1982 and 1983, finally proving them to be fakes, gaining the “confession” of Wright, and putting an end to the hoax, which eventually culminated in two films, Fairy Tale: A True Story, starring Peter O'Toole as Doyle, and Photographing Fairies.' (Bainbridge, 2010 [Online Journal])
When the girls made these images there came a time when they ended up falling out with each other over a disagreement about one of the images, ‘But the cousins disagreed about the fifth and final photograph, Elsie maintained it was a fake, just like all the others, but Frances insisted that it was genuine.’ [N.K]
The whole story behind these images and everything what happened following their release just goes to show how a little ‘prank’ can get out of hand very quickly.
My Image
The image I will be using from my own work is from a photo shoot I done just before starting university. The shoot was set up in the way of using pieces of paper, card and post-it notes with different written messages on them, that are then held up for each shot. This was the first 'portrait' shoot I'd ever done, as the style of work I was used to was mainly landscape and nature shots. Since being at university however I have ended up with a clear mind as to my 'style' and now tend to shoot a wider range of works.
In the images, the messages were wrote by the model, to reflect her feelings at that moment in time, feelings which are a daily occurrence for some people, therefore can reach out and be adopted by many of the viewers who see the images. I think also sometimes, although you might not have them feelings at that particular time, the image can take you to a time or place when you did. As mentioned in my introduction, photography has various ways of evoking different thoughts and feelings and I believe this series works to draw upon these factors.
When an image draws upon personal experiences, I feel this is when it is most effective in becoming influential to how you differently you may or may not view it.
Conclusion
As mentioned in the introduction, the differences between the above images aren’t so distant, ‘Candy Cigarette’ shows a young, naïve girl trying to act up to an age from which she’s way off, ‘The Cottingley Fairies’ are a mock up of fictitious characters who most children at some point tend to believe in and for my personal image, although not including cardboard cut outs of fairies, is staged and does go some way to making you feel an emotion you may or may not want to be feeling. I feel I have covered these subjects in a way that doesn’t focus just on one point but gives a better understanding as to why I chose them.
References:
Jenkins, T. 2010. Art or abuse? A lament for lost innocence [online] (1st) http://www.independent.co.uk//arts-entertainment/art/features/art-or-abuse-a-lament-for-lost-innocence-2078397.html 28/12/2011
Waters, F. 2009. Brooke Shields photograph: the sexualisation of children for 'art' [online] (2nd) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/6251130/Brooke-Shields-photograph-the-sexualisation-of-children-for-art.html 28/12/2011
Roberts, M. 2005. Model Family [online magazine] (3rd) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Model_Family.html 03/01/2012
Woodward, R. 1992. The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann [online newspaper article] (4th) http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/27/magazine/the-disturbing-photography-of-sally-mann.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm 03/01/2012
Morrison, B. 2010. Sally Mann: The naked and the dead [online newspaper article] (5th) http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/29/sally-mann-naked-dead
Kemp, 2006 [online] (6th)
Bainbridge, S. 2010. Geoffrey Crawley, the world-esteemed former editor of British Journal of Photography, has died. [Online journal] (7th) http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1863815/bjp-editor-photographic-inventor-author-uncovered-worlds-running-photographic-hoax-died
Bibliography:
Wells, Liz (2009) Photography: A Critical Introduction, Oxon, Routledge
Shore, Stephen (2007) The Nature Of Photographs, London, Phaidon
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail (2009) Photography At The Dock, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Jenkins, T. 2010. Art or abuse? A lament for lost innocence [online] (1st) http://www.independent.co.uk//arts-entertainment/art/features/art-or-abuse-a-lament-for-lost-innocence-2078397.html 28/12/2011
Waters, F. 2009. Brooke Shields photograph: the sexualisation of children for 'art' [online] (2nd) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/6251130/Brooke-Shields-photograph-the-sexualisation-of-children-for-art.html 28/12/2011
Roberts, M. 2005. Model Family [online magazine] (3rd) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Model_Family.html 03/01/2012
Woodward, R. 1992. The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann [online newspaper article] (4th) http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/27/magazine/the-disturbing-photography-of-sally-mann.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm 03/01/2012
Morrison, B. 2010. Sally Mann: The naked and the dead [online newspaper article] (5th) http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/29/sally-mann-naked-dead
Kemp, 2006 [online] (6th)
Bainbridge, S. 2010. Geoffrey Crawley, the world-esteemed former editor of British Journal of Photography, has died. [Online journal] (7th) http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1863815/bjp-editor-photographic-inventor-author-uncovered-worlds-running-photographic-hoax-died
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