Jeff Wall and The Gaze

Jeff Wall, Mimic, 1982

This image could very easily be a documentary street photograph by Meyerowitz or another of the American photographers working in this field in the past twenty years. However, as soon as we know it is a Jeff Wall photograph, we can identify that it is a completely constructed moment. In this particular image, Wall took his inspiration from a moment that he actually witnessed, and then recreated using an 8x10 camera and three actors. 

The image shows a white couple, passing an Asian man on the street. The man in the middle looks at the man to the left, while the woman he is with passes by, squinting due to the sun. The white man is making a clearly racist gesture, pulling the corner of his eye up to mimic the shape of the Asian mans eyes. This moment of petty racism affected Wall enough for him to want to recreate it, because as he said 'these little gestures of hate are precursors of worse things to come.' The distance between the two parties speaks volumes, suggesting that although they inhabit the same city, their experiences and belief values make them, in their opinions, worlds apart. The Asian man looks to the right, perhaps oblivious of the white mans gesture, or perhaps trying to avoid an awkward confrontation of the truth. 

Although as an audience we know this is a staged photograph, it is still uncomfortable in a way to look at this exchange, as it is based on an actual event. Wall is therefore trying to draw our attention to a taboo subject; that racism is found in the most everyday of situations, and without these small moments, much larger acts of racism would not have any foundations.  

The way they are dressed gives another level to this image; the Asian man is dressed in a shirt, trousers and black shoes, and looks quite smart. The couple, on the other hand, look quite trashy in their dress sense. This may have been how the people were dressed in the original moment, or it may have been a decision made by Wall to comment on the fact that this sort of prejudice is found in the poor or uneducated levels of society. 

Historical and Contemporary Documentary Photography

Larry Clark's book, Tulsa, was published in '71 as a limited edition, after being sporadically being shot over the previous 8 years. Clark grew up in Tulsa, and began taking amphetamines with all of his friends at the age of 16. Although he moved to various places in his twenties, he returned to Tulsa and documented his friends and their lifestyles. What really stands out to me about this work, as opposed to other classic documentary photobooks made about America, such as Robert Frank's The Americans, is that Clark was living the experiences he as photographing; he was totally emotionally engaged in it, and as such it is a totally subjective and personal look at American society. Clark did not undertake the work with a social agenda, just the desire to make a body of work out of the documents he had made of his friends. The book was received well by critics, partly because of the fact that it highlighted that the drug culture was not only limited to the urban, poor neighborhoods of the cities, but was found in normal American suburbs.
The low lit, high contrast black and white images are intense in every way- both in their tightly cropped and spontaneous compositions, and the grainy, dark tones. This perfectly suits the the subject matter, which exposes an underground and often ignored subculture of young addicts who would do anything to get their next fix, such as prostitution and burglary. This portrayal of sex, drugs and violence in such a way was a real turning point in photography at the time.

A contemporary documentary photographer also working with youth as his subject matter is Simon Wheatley, who is currently exhibiting his 'Don't Call Me Urban (The Time of Grime) at the Side gallery in Newcastle. Wheatley spent time with gangs in areas of London where postcode wars begin as rap battles and often end in stabbings, shootings and deaths. He shot it all on digital, with the aim of creating images primarily for an exhibition, where the prints were stuck straight to the wall and weren't in frames. There was a lot of text to go with the images as well, as the stories behind the faces were just as an integral part of the project as the images.
Wheatley's images are the opposite of Clark's in many ways; perhaps because the audience he is aiming at has changed. No longer are we shocked by images of violence, sex and drug taking- these are almost commonplace in the world of photography now. Instead, he focuses on showing the gang members as individuals, more than the stereotype they have become known for in the media, but human beings with feelings and desires. By catching them in quiet moments, he is creating a new kind of document, which asks the audience to become more visually critical than ever; to look past the prejudices that society has instilled and to try and find similarities with them and not differences. Wheatley is shooting with a specific agenda; to instigate social change on some level, and make people more aware of the lives that are lead by others.

If these two photographers are anything to go by, it seems that documentary photography's role has changed, or progressed, over the years. Whereas previously it was used simply to show us the unseen, to fulfill personal explorations or to capture moments of real life, now photographers shoot with a clearer agenda. With the general population more visually intelligent than ever, the ability for photographs to go beyond the shock factor is possible.

Simon Norfolk, Ascension Island: The Panopticon

This photograph is of an electronic eavesdropping device, owned by Britain's spy service, located on a remote island in the middle of the South Atlantic. This sounds like something from a science fiction novel, and the photograph reflects this; the deep red hills that look more like a landscape on Mars, the large antennae that look totally alien to us, the eery pink sky.
Norfolk is revealing the inaccessible to us- the devices that create some of Echelon, a global electronic surveillance system. Unlike Weegee and Winogrand, who are doing the surveying themselves, Norfolk is looking at some of the ways in which we are surveyed. Where they comment on how we are surveyed in everyday life, these images suggest a scale of surveillance that we cannot even imagine, where every phone call, text and email can be tracked. This difference is evident in the style of the images; Weegee's and Winogrand's are very typical street photography style, with haphazard framing, jaunty angles, movement and everything that comes with capturing a fleeting moment. Norfolk's subject is still, formally composed, capturing large structures from a low viewpoint- all of this create an eeriness and a sinister feel, which matches the modern idea of computers and technology having far more power and access to our lives than we are aware of.

Garry Winogrand

Los Angeles, California, 1969

Winogrand worked on the streets of America, photographing unaware citizens as they walked past on the busy streets of cities such as New York and LA, photographing very quickly and intuitively. He used a wide angle lens, so that the people on the edges of the image would not think that they were in the frame. 

I found this image very striking indeed, for the many separate aspects that have come together in one moment to create a statement about society. The three women are the central focus of the image, young and beautiful. Their long bare legs are emphasised by the criss-cross of shadows that stretch to the very edge to the frame, giving the impression that they are neverending. In stark contrast to this is the man in the wheelchair. His immobility is only more obvious when contrasted with their many legs, and he hangs his head, almost in defeat. They all glance at him as they walk by, but their expressions are vacant; he has no place in their world, and they will have undoubtedly walked on without a second thought after this image had been taken.

This may seem like an amazingly lucky shot, but Winogrand would have gone through a selection to get this exact image, to give us a certain impression and see his view of the world. Just like panopticism, we are being subtly controlled to come to a very particular conclusion about the goings on in this scene.

Unlike Weegee's photographs in the cinema, this image was not taken in secret- Winogrand was simply walking down the street with a camera, and took the picture. This may make it seem more like surveillance rather than the voyeuristic tone of Weegee. However, it is not a simple observation of a scene- it is a comment, a visual narrative and part of Winogrand's desire to say something about the world. In many ways it is just as voyeuristic as Weegee's.

Weegee and Panopticism

Lovers At The Palace Theatre, 1940

When going to the cinema, many of us would not even consider the idea that we are being watched. It is dark, even the people on the same row as us cannot see us, and everyone is facing the same direction. It is hardly surprising then that these two lovers have chosen this location to share a moment of passion; after all, who is going to know? Unfortunately, the photographer Weegee was only seats away from them, shooting on Infrared film. Weegee has many shots from inside cinemas, but I love this one in particular. You can tell the couple had no idea they were being watched; they look totally comfortable, and the women has even taken her shoes off and placed her feet on the back of the seat in front of her. The man hasn't even paused to take off his 3D glasses.

Was it right for Weegee to exploit this couple, by photographing them unawares in a place that they had assumed would give them privacy? Perhaps not, but in todays society this is nothing compared to the everyday surveillance that we are placed under by CCTV cameras. Maybe what makes this more disconcerting is the fact that Weegee is not backed by any institution, or observing people for any greater good such as safety. He is just one man, photographing people out of his own interest and curiosity, which gives it a definite air of voyeurism.