Commission: The Object issue lecture & talk by Ulrich Lehmann

From Steffi's lecture I simply picked out a couple of the photographers that caught my eye and really interested me through their subject matter or the way they photographed and presented the subject.
As I have already narrowed down my subject matter and concepts there was no photographer that seemed to look specifically at clothing as a waste product however I found some created similarly presented in a way I wish to.

The first photographer was Simon Ward, he had a series titled 'Still Life' & 'after-life' which contained images of dead animals that he had found and collected in the street or were his pets that had past away; although it is a very morally charged series of images I was very intrigued by his process of working.

Cat, 2002

He used a flat-bed scanner to capture every little detail of the animals body which he then blew up and hung on the walls of the exhibition gallery so that they had to be paid attention to.
I was firstly enthused by the backdrop of the image, the black void which makes the subjects look isolated, alone as if they are floating in space. Suspended in a dark space they could be anywhere, like my clothes that have been hoarded they were lost in our attic for years and I feel with these animals its as if they have been forgotten and left to waste wherever they lay.

Bobsicle, 2009

Although not in all of them, I really like particularly in this image titled 'Bobsicle' the birghtness and purity of the fur makes the image very peaceful despite the nature of the subject; it has come to my attention that all of the clothes I wish to use in my final images are pale & neutral which I think will create a very still image refelcting to themes of waste.

I imagine these two dimensional images to purely portray the shells of the animal, again relating back to materialism I feel our likes are like an animals fur. These possessions are what we will leave behind when we are gone, after we’ve left the clothes abandoned in this unknown void- dark space surrounds them until they are rediscovered or found by a new owner. In the same way I will be presenting my families clothing, I will be carefully looking after the (some fragile) piaces of clothing like Ward seems to look after these lost & dead animals, caring for them despite the fact that, to put it bluntly, they are of no use anymore just like my families clothes are.

I then decided to look further at the series 'Garage' 2008 by Ricarda Roggan  which are taken at night portraying frontal views of wrecked and wasted cars illuminated by harsh lamplights. There is a human feeling of sadness attached to these inanimate objects which almost animates them. They are taken out of any context and dropped into a 'non-space' which allows people to relate to the individual subjects much like the sort of feeling I wish to create in my final commission images. 

'Garage 5' 2008

The cars bumper which has been crushed begins to look like a saddened mouth while the headlamps suggest downcast eyes; themes of abandonement, isolation and death crop up as it is obvious that these cars will never be used again, inevitably a waste material of a society. 

Although harsh, the lighting also in a way seems soft in the way that it fade into the background almost giving the car some dignity, I want to create a soft lighting in my images which does not highlight the backdrop to create a sense of wasted, empty space.

Talk by Prof. Ulrich Lehmann

Due to Ulrich's main field of work being fashion his talk related a lot more to my concept therefore I found some of his links & ideas a lot more useful. He firstly brought up this idea of sustainability- the fashion cycle where fashion in a regenerated way recycled after a period of time. However this does not mean the actually clothing from previous eras are re-used and therefore they are thrown away or or hoarded away as usual replaced by something new.
I was intrigued by the work of Hanna Liden who produced a series of photographs called 'Deli Bag Self Portraits', she is literally wearing waste how we wear clothes everyday which will one day become waste through wear & tear or simply gone out of fashion. The uspide down 'Have a Nice Day' plastic bags are quite ironic in the positive message they are giving off despite the destruction they are having on the earth to be produced and then thrown away.

'Untitled' from the series 'Deli Bag Self-Portraits'

Again in this empty black void she sits which makes the bags stand out boldly against the backdrop, this sense of lostness develops. It is strange how if you wore and old plastic bag that is waste it is bizarre however if I chose to wear my nan's old function dress which has been left to waste for over 40 years it wouldn't been seen as waste any longer but simply an outfit. 

The plastic bag for many is a 'one-use' item used simply to transport shopping home and then thrown away which also relates to my idea of clothes having one use, despite all of the production & money that has gone into producing it. 

- Questions began to emerge- why don't we keep and preserve old things? Well in a way through hoarding this is happening everyday but in a fashion sense things must always be being renewed, replaced by something else. In this sense sustainability is just not possible in a fashion industry, as an item of clothing nowadays is replaced before it has even been used up. 

- I was really intrigued by this quote that Ulrich had by Karl Marx in 1867 who said, '..murderous, meaningless caprices of fashion, caprices that consort so badly with the system of modern industry..' showing that even in the 19th century there was this idea that there was an expiry dat on clothes, they would die & therefore held in time never to be used again. 

-  In fashion there is this saying  'planned  obolescence', which basically means that something is made to go out of fashion after a period of time and then wasted rather than reaching its full potential as an item of clothing. 

- Hoarding counteracts this idea- one-use items of clothing such as wedding dresses are made with great care for a special day and therefore havea lot more care put into them which contradicts this idea that we should be making our everyday clothes well so that they last. 

The second photographer I was most interested in was Hans Peter Feldmann with his series 'All Clothes of a Woman' 1974 which links back to my reserach into an average woman's wasted clothing in her wardrobe.With the same idea that I want to create, Feldmann photographs all 70 pieces of clothing in a woman's wardrobe hung simply & flatly which makes the audience reconstruct the image of the owner whose clothes are being publicly presented. 

'All the Clothes of a Woman' 1974

By presenting them like this I feel each piece of clothing value is raised  as it becomes quite important.  The clothes in the photographs are the same old pieces of clothing they have always been however by contemporarily photographing them they become renewed, a similar effect that I wish to create when photographing my clothes, breathing a fresh breath of air into each item which has been wasting away, unworn for years.

I have been inspired by many aspects of the two lectures we had today whether it be purely production-wise or subject-wise I feel that it has been very interesting and helpful in developing my shoot ideas.