What do you know about this person’s life story from the photograph?
I chose the following photograph, “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison (dated 1999-2000, printed 2001, made out of silver dye bleach transparency and an aluminum light box).
In the photo, we see a room that is very eclectic but in an organized fashion (to an extent, at least) with hundreds of lightbulbs adorning the ceiling (but very few of them lit), and other personal items (ex. clothes, dirty dishes, record player, etc) in every corner. When we make a space ours, often times we will fill the space with material objects that reflect who we are and our taste and/or hold some kind of meaning to us. That looks to be the case in this photo. It is a large, open space that is decorated very personally unique to the person it belongs to. The clothes that are hung up, the dishes that are stacked in a bin, the rags and spare materials that are over the floor and the chairs, are all examples that make the space very intimate and particular to the individual. By making the space into a comfortable, homey place, the space becomes more personal.
The room looks like it could possibly be a studio space, where the individual might go to work in comfortable isolation. Along with that, the space could also be seen as an “escapism,” where one might go to be in solitude. In the photo, the subject is sitting completely alone, but seems utterly comfortable under the circumstances. The lighting of the room tells a lot as well. It’s well-lit, but on the dimmer side, which results in a cozy, low-key atmosphere. One could say from this choice of setting that the individual cares about the comfort levels of his environment.
Is this a real or imagined story?
It looks to be a real story; I can easily imagine somebody’s living space looking like this, and the scene itself is relatable. Since the photo is called “Invisible Man,” I can take away that this man is more alienated from the rest of the society. Whether or not by choice is up for question. The photo itself is not exaggerated or overdone – instead, it has an element of realism and naturalism to it. The lighting does not look artificial and the individual in the photo looks natural and completely in his comfort zone. It’s a snapshot as opposed to a posed photograph. I find that “imagined stories” look more set up – you have to adjust the lighting and composition instead of just photographing what is already natural.
Select one of the photographs that remakes a historical painting. Compare and contrast the original artwork with Jeff Wall’s re-work. What is similar and different in the appearance of the subjects and setting? Why might Jeff Wall have selected this painting to re-work? (To answer this question do some brief research on the original painting.) How has Jeff Wall changed the meaning of the original work in his contemporary piece?
I chose “Yejiri Station“ by Suruga-Katsushika Hokusai. It is a 24.3 x 36.3 cm woodblock color print from circa 1832, during the Edo period. Jeff Wall’s pictorial piece, “A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)”, 1993, is based after this print. It takes place in British Columbia and resembles a cinematographic photograph, consisting of actors, sets and special effects.
The photograph shows a business man walking along a riverbank with a briefcase. A gust of wind blows the papers in the air, and they end up flying into the sky. In this first depiction, the man is positioned on the left where the wind has hit him and the papers blow across the photograph to the right side of the sky. This positioning allows the audience’s eyes to follow right across the photo. Wall used manipulation to create a story within the photograph. The body language changes throughout and having the three stages to the image makes the audience feel like they are watching a series of events happen. By having the papers flying through the sky adds movement to the still image. In addition to this, the tree has a slight curve, showing the strength of the wind.
Jeff Wall often references art history and uses photo manipulation in his work. In this piece, he used manipulation to emulate Hokusai’s painting. He might have selected this painting to re-work because there was a lot of motion and events already happening in the original piece, and he wanted to transform it into a photographic panorama by reflecting a natural but staged reality. By doing this, Wall is emphasizing on a seemingly casual snapshot to depict moments of every day life that usually go unacknowledged.
