The Power of a Documentary
Various streaming services have been churning out documentaries about all kinds of things. For personal reasons, I don't watch much TV. I never got into the habit, and now watching TV mostly bores me. But every once in a while, something interesting comes along. Netflix just released Gladbeck -- The Hostage Crisis, which might well be one of the very best documentaries I have seen in many years.
If you didn't grow up in Germany and/or if you were born in the 1980s or later, the title might not tell you much. I was aware of what had happened, but I had forgotten all about it until I saw the documentary. I don't necessarily want to give away to much. As horrible as the bank robbery that turned into a hostage crisis actually was, that's not at all what makes events so gruesome. In particular, if you're one of those photographers who really believes into the "bearing witness" idea, for sure you want to watch the documentary.
The way the documentary was produced greatly enhances the state of shock (if not terror) you'll be finding yourself in. There is no narration whatsoever. One hundred percent of the material on the screen is archival, taken from footage produced around the time (including a fair amount of photography). Nothing is being explained.
Most documentaries contain a fair amount of framing. On the one hand, this helps the viewer. On the other hand, things can easily become a bit predictable. Here, all of that is absent. Even if you know the basic story, you don't know what you'll encounter. And if there's something truly awful (and there's a lot), the filmmakers never cut away. They let it linger. It's absolutely terrifying to watch. When I had finished watching it, I felt as if I had just been hit over the head with a hammer.
If you want to see the trailer, here's the link.
The Guardian has a feature entitled My Best Shot. It's hit or miss. In mid June, there was an article entitled A migrant takes a serene selfie – Adam Ferguson’s best photograph. So there is a young woman named Stephanie Solano taking her own photograph. You can see the cable release in her hands. It really is a great picture.
But how then is this Adam Ferguson's photo? Well, of course it is. That's what we do in the art world, right? It's not who presses the shutter button, it's who comes up with the idea and all. I usually don't have a problem with this. But here, it rubs me the wrong way, in particular given the narration in the article itself:
In the wake of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, there has been a change in how we, as a society, think about narrative: what it means to present someone in a certain way, who gets to control the narrative, who has controlled it historically. This project was a contribution to those discussions, a way to allow people who don’t often have control of their narrative to be the author of their own story.
Maybe I'm seeing this in too literal a fashion (probably at least partly true, I am German after all). But when there's talk about "what it means to present someone in a certain way, who gets to control the narrative" -- wouldn't one then not place that into a container that's called My Best Shot? The caption begins with "Controlling the narrative". But beyond taking her own picture, Stephanie Solano actually doesn't get to control anything here.
This probably rubs me the wrong way because I've lately written two articles about what happens when photographers attempt to collaborate with people. In the first, I took two photographers to task for pretending to involve their subjects, when in actuality, it's really only about themselves and their projects. In the second (just published), I wrote about Wendy Ewald's book and about how her work is so hard to place into a regular photo context, given that she really does a number of things other photographers don't do.
I've been thinking about this aspect of photography a lot lately -- mostly because I think that it's an area that has enormous potential to expand how we treat and think about photography in photoland. It also has the potential of expanding the rather limited audience we're dealing with (which, in turn, has repercussions for photobook sales etc.). I suspect that I will come back to it a lot more over the next few months.
Btw, the editing window of the mailing-list software I'm using is acting up on me today. I don't know whether it's a browser issue or whether they changed the software. My apologies if something looks a little wonky here.
Martin Herbert wrote a really interesting piece entitled What Does Rich-Kid Art Look Like? It focuses on what you imagine it does:
what’s not seen in this picture, in the present day, are all the talented young people who weigh up their burgeoning ability against the cost of art education and what comes after, recognise they can’t afford it, and give up. What is seen, not infrequently [...] is a lot of affable, well-composed, of-the-moment mediocrity by people who could afford it, whose parents could afford it.
Read it!
After my excursion into process-heavy photograms, I'm now back into "real" photography. While I still can't continue the big project I'm working on -- the follow-up one of Vaterland, which look into contemporary Germany, I figured I might as well do something else. I've had a lot of problems photographing in colour in direct sunlight. So I figured I might as well figure out how to go about that. I'm combining this with the regular walks I go on, using the opportunity to give myself the mental break I need, given the barrage of bad news in the media (don't even get me started on the theocrats on the Supreme Court).
As is the case with the photograms, I don't expect these pictures to be anything other than an exercise. But I'm hoping it will allow me to widen my own photographic seeing in a way that will enrich the work I'm planning to do later.
Obviously, this particular photograph wasn't taken on a hot, sunny day. Why stick to rules when there's a rainy day?
Lastly, I'm planning to set up online workshops soon. My idea is to have small groups (6 to 8 people), and I also want to expand the kinds of topics I'm covering. If there are any particular topics you might be interested in, feel free to be in touch!
With that I'm going to conclude for today. I hope life is treating you well even if things in general might be pretty terrible (especially right now in the US).
In times like these, I'm always reminding myself of what they say during the safety instructions on airplanes: put your own oxygen mask on before you help others. It's a useful metaphor if you apply it to life in general.
As always thank you for reading!
-- Jörg