William A. Ewing, FACE The New Photographic Portrait.

I was recommended this book in relation to my current photography project based on representation and portraiture, and (in my short time of experience in the field) i haven't yet come across a photography book that i was so engrossed by. So much so, i bought myself a copy because i know that it will be so useful down the line.

Ewing dots the book with quotes by photographers, critics, theorists etc that are inspiring and thought provoking, as much as the work itself sometimes. The book itself promotes the question of what has a portrait become? How has it changed? And portraiture itself really has come a long way. From traditional full length, to head to waist length and just head and shoulders. And now these boundaries have been pushed, they're being taken even further step by step. People want to make new work that is contemporary and says something different. And to do this, work has to be made differently.

For example the work of Eva Lauterlein and her series 'chimères' (2002)

"Real, yes, but something tells us that these beings are not fully human. There is a disengaged, robotic quality to them. Yet Eva Lauterlein's subjects are real, and human - to a degree. Or rather to several degrees. Their faces and bodies are computer-aided reconstructions from photographs of real men and women she knows, with as many as forty different photographs employed. Lauterlein might well have gone on to create freaks, but in her eerie (re)creations she cleverly skirts the line between attraction and repulsion." William A. Ewing, FACE 2006

It's clear to see how contemporary photographers take a new approach to portraiture, new techiniques and technologies play a part in work such as Lauterlein's. Maybe we can only expect portraiture to become more ground breaking over the years!

http://www.evalauterlein.net/chimeres/index.html

Ewing, William A, FACE The New Photographic Portrait, Thames & Hudson, London. 2006

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

"So how does it sound to you, how does it read?" my tutor asks...

Well with difficulty i think to myself. And also like a train of thought of someone who is not a photographer... But this text is important in photography, i have been recommended it numerous times and have occasionally taken it out the library to look at specific areas (like the student i am). So why is it so well known and considered within the field?

(hops onto amazon and orders a copy... after reading thinks...)

Well as it sounds like a thought process, for me it made me think of questions i have about photography. Like when you share a conversation with someone and suddenly all your own thoughts and ideas come to the front of your mind. I begin to question 'what does make a good photograph?' and i do agree with Barthes's comment "the photograph becomes 'surprising' when we do not know why it has been taken". Surely this is what draws you into a photograph? You begin to think and consider the details of an image.

Barthes categorises those details into 2 groups, the Studium and the Punctum. The Studium is the part of the image you first take in, for example the cultural, linguistic and political interpretations and a sense of 'general enthusiastic commitment' like a general overview that all people see. The punctum is something within the image that might catch just one persons eye and be something that they connect with. It 'punctuates' the studium in Barthes's words.

In reflection i am glad i have taken the time to read this book, even though at times it was a real struggle to get a grasp of! But i now understand just why my tutors over the years have repeatedly mentioned this title, and i recommend it to you too!

Barthes, Rowland. Camera Lucida, Vintage, 1993.