The photograph and its limitations for fiction

Every creative medium has its own strengths and weaknesses and it’s always difficult not to draw parallels between those of the still and the moving image. The latter has at its disposal an arrangement of (at least in cinema) several hundred thousand still photographs that flow in real time, and that’s before we’ve even added the power of dialogue and soundtrack into the equation. Sure the still image affords its own peculiar power in the freezing of time, allowing the viewer a greater exploration of any given scene or expression. Where else can you get the opportunity to look around a human face without the worry of interruption? But this strength in the sphere of the real is in equal measure a weakness in world of the unreal.

Try making a screen grab on your Mac/PC while a film is playing. Make sure it’s of a scene featuring actors in full swing. With all the acting talent in the world, something just won’t feel right. With the time to study expressions and body language so intimately, the human eye seems less able to suspend its disbelief. That very mind that was lost in the action and swept along by the soundtrack suddenly becomes a little distrusting. The characters become actors and the scenes become sets.

It’s a strange phenomenon but perhaps goes someway to explaining why attempts to portray fictional worlds with still images often seem to fall flat when human subjects feature heavily, especially where faces are visible. Were those same faces moving they might inspire wonderment, yet in a still image you’re left thinking more about the intentions of the creator and what he/she wants you to believe. Perhaps given that pause for thought our innate skills as humans to uncover falsity in the faces of others suddenly whir into action. Either way, even the most complex of ideas end up looking rather ham and I personally end up resenting the attempts of the image maker at what seems like clumsy coercion.

I’m sometimes asked why I focus more on props and sets and the aftermath of or period prior to an event rather than the actual character-laden event itself, and the above is one of two good reasons (the second I’ll blog about another time). Those series of people that I have completed are of real people, asked to do little but look away from the camera lens. So the above functions as a current theory for me anyway though I’m not averse to the idea that it could be a convenient excuse for the fact that I’ve yet to nail it. The sphere of photographic narrative fiction is in its infancy after all, and if there’s any hope for the paucity of my conjecture, it currently lies with Alex Prager, who has succeeded on many occasions where Gregory Crewdson and countless others seem to fail.

1950s/60s – a golden age?




I’m drafting a biography for the new version of my agent’s website shortly to go online and it helped me unravel my fascination with the 1950s and 1960s which I’ve had since childhood (the American aspect I shall deal with in another post). The power of nostalgia is a more obvious one, but an interest in a period that occurred prior to birth is a little more difficult to fathom. There’s an explicable interest in knowing that they were periods in which my mother and father and grandparents lived, and no doubt the film, television and musical legacy far outshone their own timescapes in the form of respective re-releases, re-runs and re-plays. Beyond this, you have to consider it as a desire for some sort of social and cultural escape, in the same way people routinely hop onto jet-powered aircraft to drink up the newness of other worlds. The former is a poor substitute for time travel perhaps, but until that aircraft takes shape, it’s a thoroughly fascinating one for me.

There is one draw for me though that I find easier to decipher, and that’s the politics of that age (I actually graduated in Politics not photography). Indeed it’s that aspect that I ended up writing about in my bio. Perhaps better to read you the first paragraph to better explain what I mean…

‘…much of Matt Henry’s personal work is inspired by the political and cultural landscape of 1950s and 1960s America. “This was a unique period in time,” claims Matt. “It was an age in which the forces of tradition and conservatism fought head to head with the ever-increasing voices of liberal revolution. Whether it was Beat literature, the anti-war movement, the Free Speech Movement, the fight for black civil rights, the explosion of feminism or the misinformed belief that LSD could cure the world, optimism and self-belief could triumph even in the face of the Soviet nuclear threat. And all this backed by one of the greatest soundtracks in musical history.”’

In short then, this was a golden age for the West because people ACTUALLY believed that they could change the world. And, more importantly, WOULD change the world. Decades on and we have had the collapse of the socialist experiment and what Francis Fukuyama called the ‘End of History’; the end of the great competing narratives that sought to shape our world. Cue the dominance of Reaganite and Thatcherite politics and the acceptance that, as Gordon Gecko so succinctly put it, ‘Greed is good’. The idea that we might stand up to the powers that be and shape our destiny became one of acute embarrassment as we all slouched into the warm bean-bag of technology-driven consumerism. The Internet opened up the channels of communication to all and promised a new dawn of liberation, yet in the West we all just used it to buy more stuff. A genrealisation no doubt, but if you could agree that the key sentiments of recent times are langour, complacency and pessimism, then you might accept those of the 50s (late) and 60s to be their polar opposite. And that’s all I have to say about that, as Mr. Forest Gump once said.

I shall leave you with a couple of great call to arms tunes from that time…






The Bomb

I’ve finished a new series, entitled ‘The Bomb’. Fiction as per usual, but as with ‘The King’, based on a real historical event. This time it’s the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 that brought the USA and USSR to the brink of ‘mutually assured destruction.’ Check out the story on my site to see JFK on the TV in the final image, flanked by a couple of serious looking dudes. As with the King, the story focuses on the impact of the event on someone periphery to the main story; in this case a family who has left in a rush for the hills before the button is pushed.







Photography: style over substance?

An extract from the shortly to be released Directory of World Cinema: American Hollywood states that cinema was first considered a technological marvel to wow an audience and reveal the technical prowess of the film-maker, rather than a vehicle for story-telling. “Those who made films,” the author claims, “considered the new medium emblematic of scientific advancement rather than a necessary artistic practise.” It wasn’t until the American Edwin S. Porter first used Thomas Edison’s newly developed camera that cinema moved on from spectacle to story-telling. Narrative became central to the film-makers art, audiences became more enthralled and the Hollywood machine was born.

This brief history jogged a suspicion of mine that photography as a medium has somehow become mired in the spectacle and, for the most part, failed to move into the realm of narrative, at least in the fictional sphere. Much of the work produced today, and certainly in the commercial world, is rooted in a desire to amaze with tricks of the camera or computer, be it in the use of CGI, HDR, Photoshop, or complex lighting set-ups that produce high contrast chirascuro scenes.  Some of these are jaw-dropping, and joyous to look at, but for many this has become an end in itself rather than a means to really engage an audience on anything other than a superficial level; just as CGI might be used to paper over a shoddy Hollywood script.

Those that do engage with narrative are usually focused on the real, making their practise more akin to documentary-making than fictional story telling.  While there are those who would assert that there’s no such thing as pure photographic ‘reality’, there is a difference between this sort of work and the entirely constructed scenes of Gregory Crewdson or Philip Lorca Dicorcia. Theirs are examples of style and substance in the fictional realm.

Liz Wells, in her book Photography: A Critical Introduction, notes that from the inception of photography in the nineteenth century, photographers tended to fall into two camps. The Pictorialists made pictures of allegorical subjects, such as religious scenes, and aimed to de-emphasize the ‘photographic’ qualities of an image with techniques such as gum bichromate printing or the scratching of prints. In the other camp were those who celebrated the camera’s ability to produce an accurate record of the visual world and did not want to treat the medium as a kind of monochrome painting. It was the latter camp that won out, and photography took over the represenational task previously accorded to painting, as the latter art form moved further away from realism via movements such as Impressionism.

So we could conclude that there’s a historical bias towards straight photography, but this doesn’t account for the subsequent experimentation by pioneers such as Man Ray, long before the birth of Photoshop and digital imaging. In fact, straight photography is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was, but neither has the medium assumed the story-telling mantle once  ascribed to the Pictorialists; the experimentation with style is there, but there are few actively engaged in doing anything with it.  A fictional narrative (be it single image or series) with no production can expand our reality, deepen our moral sensibility and shape our own sense of self. A highly produced image with no narrative can do little but titillate for a passing moment. If we photographers want to produce work that will stand the test of time, we need to step up to the plate.



The King – some background

So I thought I’d talk a little about the ideas behind my new series ‘The King’. It’s a tough call whether or not to lay out a mental process as part of the joy of photography comes from its ambivalence. The best images are often the ones that make you work hard and that’s something I’ve always set out to achieve by revealing just traces of an event that has occurred or is about to occur. It’s about having a faith in the power of human imagination; are the best horror movies not the ones that actually reveal very little? But it’s also interesting to witness people gaining enjoyment from an openness about a thought process;  perhaps they get satisfaction comparing your ideas to their own or discovering a depth to a story they’d yet to fathom (or disappointment if you’re own explanation doesn’t match the ingenuity of their own).

So anyway, the idea came from an interest in the concept of hero worship, that people need somebody or something to love and exalt. And an interest in why we feel the need to create art as human beings and whether that’s driven by some subconscious attempt at immortality. And those two things kind of come together… that worship is almost a way of escaping this existential angst, of ignoring the fact that there is no plan or no certainty other than death. I often catch myself shocked when the Hollywood faces of my youth have aged in tandem with my own. These people cannot die! So the story is as much about the death of Elvis as its impact on an Elvis fan. I’m also interested in how the  representation of something in whatever form (jigsaw, newspaper story etc) can somehow carry the power of the original, or even come to enhance that power.

I didn’t want the story to be one of grievance or sadness but of recognition that Elvis does exist beyond death, that he is immortal. The Elvis fan works through his day with that inside knowledge and strength that perhaps the viewer doesn’t share. He’s a believer. The mirror hanger, the Elvis playing cards, the paper, the appearance on TV after his death and the jigsaw are all confirmation that the King is very much alive. And I’ve tried to convey this with an assurance and positivity in every scene. There’s blue sky in the car park, the guy’s gambling and winning, the paper’s neatly folded in the diner and he’s finished his coke, the horses stand proud and firm on the television set and the jigsaw scene shows a guy very much relaxed in the comforts of his home.  Blessed is the  life of the believer. There are a few things in there for fans of symbolism too: Elvis performing on his way to the clouds (the great gig in the sky?!), the death card laid last by the dealer (the Ace of Spades), the blood red of the diner, the TV switched to off though the image still plays and the jigsaw pieces as bodily decay with the reconstruction of his face a kind of second coming. More in this vein to follow!

The King

So I have a new series up live that I’ve been working on for some time. Here’s the final shot – you can see the series as a whole on my site. Needless to say quite a lot of work involved in putting together all five images, so great to finally finish. The jigsaw you can see here was 1000 pieces, and it took me about a week on and off just to complete the face! By the end I’d got quite into it I have to say – what a pleasure when a piece finally nestles into place. Looks like I’ll have something to do when I retire in my 70s other than terrorise the neighbours with an air rifle. You can see the campaign emailer that I sent out to advertise the series here – I stuck in some rather fitting song lyrics from the Elvis tune ‘Are you lonesome tonight?’ which plays to jolt your faith in the everlasting spirit of the King. More on this to follow. Anyway, hear that lovely tune at this YouTube link.




IP and the future of photography

There’s an argument in favour of doing away with intellectual property that seems to be gaining ground. Protecting the copyright of music, film, photography and such like in the file sharing age is considered not just impractical, but no longer even desirable; creative work should be owned by no-one and be passed around for the greater good. It’s a lovely idea, and would be wonderful were the other things that society needs and desires also donated by their creators. Farmers could open up all their fields for passing locals to dig crops as they pleased while they themselves disappear down to the local joiners workshop to help themselves to a kitchen table. In the social sciences, this is known as a gift economy, examples of which can be found historically in small communities throughout the world. It’s not hard to work out why this might be a toughie to implement in large, modern, industrialised societies.

So if we can’t rely on the rest of society to willingly donate the fruits of their hard work, why should we as photographers, film-makers, musicians, illustrators, graphic designers hand over the product of our blood, sweat and tears for absolutely nothing in return? The answer is of course that we shouldn’t. The internet has facilitated a greater demand than ever for cultural works of all kinds to the point that music, film, photography and the rest has gone from being a luxury to something of a necessity in the Western world. These are the things that most of the population use to relax with in their periods of leisure and that corporations are reliant on to promote their products. We have this in-grained assumption as artists that our work isn’t really that important, that we’re lucky to do what we do, and that if we get any sort of basic standard of living from our graft, then that’s a real bonus.

So the first change we need to make as artists is a mental one; we need to accept that what we do isn’t just an indulgent luxury but, assuming the work is of a suitable standard, fundamental to the function of the modern economy. This should not only help promote a renewed confidence in getting the best possible fee from our clients but also encourage us all to think longer term about getting our dues by aggressively asserting the rights over our Intellectual Property. And we can do this in two ways. Firstly by personally making use of an adequate system of licensing so that our copyright is never waived and the fees we charge are usage-dependent (to prevent images for a ‘small leaflet run’ suddenly ending up on billboards across a continent for no extra fee). And secondly by joining together not only to fight any relaxation of IP laws but to promote changes in those laws to favour IP protection.

Here in the UK we have a system that actively incentivises the unauthorised use of our imagery. But luckily for us, we also have organisations working tirelessly to change this situation. The Association of Photographers is one, some members of which are also active with a group called Stop43. If you’re already a member of a photography organisation, time to find out whether they’re active in the protection of intellectual property. And if they’re not, find an organisation that is. I’d be interested to hear from non-UK readers of any organisations working hard to protect the future of photographic practise.