http://www.postsecret.com/

Heidie Lender

I love this set of photographs by Heidie Lender, She gives the following explanation for this set of photographs " I investigate the host of personalities within, the layers that make up the self, the characters we hide, show, accept and reject, and the role that fashion and design play in molding those characters."
Follow the link below to read more about this project and see the other photographs of the set...
http://heidilender.com/category/once-upon

A Précis - Once upon a time

The photograph as contemporary art looks at the complexity and creativity of photography. This book also aims to gain further understanding of the inspirations and expressions of the chosen photographers. 

chapter four, fittingly titled, Once upon a time, discusses the use of photography as a narrative. The narrative is often inspired by fables and these photographs are choreographed scenes that tell a story or tip the thoughts and imagination of the viewers.  The photography by Jeff Wall, title insomnia, is a good example of the narrative illustrated in a single image. In the photography below we, as viewers are able to establish our own though and reasons as to how the event in the photograph has occurred. The placing and details in the kitchen scene directed by Jeff Wall, influence the reaction of the viewers. 

Jeff Wall 

insomnia,1994

source (http://mastandhelm.tumblr.com/post/20833492965/jeff-wall-insomnia-thanks-for-this-alaina-i)

The term “tableau” or “tableau-vivant”, meaning the staging of a scene, often using a model or models that articulate a narrative in a single imaged and “tableau-vivant” strictly meaning the re-creation of previous art works by staging a scene to photograph.  In Tom Hunter’s photograph The way Home, He has staged the scene from the Shakespearian drama, Hamlet, and in direct reference to John Everett Millais’s work Ophelia, depicted below. This is an example of tableau-vivant.

Tom Hunter

The way home,2000

source (http://www.point8.org/4_Articles/53/tom-hunter-performative-portraits)

John Everett Millais

Ophilia, 1852

source (http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/john-everett-millais/ophelia)

“Cinema, figurative painting, the novel and folktales act merely as reference points that help created the maximum contingent meaning, and to help us accept tableau photography as an imaginative blending of fact and fiction, of a subject and its allegorical and psychological significance.” (Cotton p.52)

 Cotton mentions the concept of the photographer becoming a director, in the process of creating tableau photographs.  I believe this to be true because of the degree to which the photographer constructs and manipulates the scene.The photographer also engages with the models or actors involved in the same way a director would and therefore we can consider calling them a crew or cast.

Timing is a factor in shooting a tableau photograph. Capturing a moment in time either before, during, or after sets a time for the narrative. We are able to see this in Sarah Dobai’s photograph , Red Room, in which, the photographer has captured the couple, “hovering between the moment before or after a kiss or sexual act.” This moment allows viewers to carry on the narrative or imagine what has lead up to this moment, which creates a narrative for the viewers through a single image. 

Sarah Dobai

Red Room, 2001

source (http://irenajurek.blogspot.com/2011/12/sarah-dobai.html)

This contemporary art form and the reason why I decided to do my précis on chapter four of this book is because I found it interesting that as viewers we are able to gather so much information from a single image. It is also interesting to see the result of photographers using references from films, fables, folktales, novels and figurative painting. 

  

Reference - Cotton, C. The photograph as contemporary art .

"Live the full life of 
the mind, exhilarated by
new ideas, intoxicated by
the romance of the unusual." 
     -Ernest Hemingway