One of the comments from my tutor during my discussion over my Square Mile submission was that the style of the images is quite “deadpan”. I got a sense of what he meant from his brief description but did not entirely understand and so I did a little bit more research.
There is a chapter dedicated to “Deadpan” in The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton. Cotton (p81) describes the deadpan aesthetic as “a cool, detached and keenly sharp type of photography….what can be seen at a glance if one looks through the images in the chapter is the seemingly emotional detachment and command on the part of the photographers. These pictures may engage us with emotive subjects, but our sense of what the photographers’ emotions might be is not the obvious guide to understanding the meaning of the images. The emphasis, then, is on photography as a way of seeing beyond the limitations of individual perspective, a way of mapping the extent of the forces invisible from a single human standpoint, that govern the man-made and natural world. Deadpan photography may be highly specific in its description of its subjects, but its seeming neutrality and totality of vision is of epic proportions.”
Deadpan can almost be seen as the opposite of the “decisive moment” photography which is more of a “slice of life” documentary style photography in which photographers aim to be in the middle of the action and seek to capture that telling gesture or the subject at the height of its action.
Deadpan photography became more accepted in the art world and seen in galleries in the early 1990s, however many of the leading deadpan practitioners had been working at least 50 years earlier. It is often labelled as “Germanic” as this was the nationality of many of the key deadpan photographers, many of whom were tutored by Bernd Becher at the Kunstakadamie in Dusseldorf, Germany. Interesting as I have spent some time in Dusseldorf in a work context and so it would be nice to go back to see and learn more about the artistic side of the city. Germanic also refers to the traditions of 1920s and 1930s photography – also known as Neue Sachlichkeith (New Objectivity).
A couple of the regularly mentioned forefathers of deadpan photography are Albert Renger-Patsch and August Sander.
Albert Renger-Patsch (1897-1966)
The Wikipedia entry for Renger-Patsch states “The sharply focused and matter-of-fact style exemplifies the esthetic of The New Objectivity that flourished in the arts in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Like Edward Weston in the United States, Renger-Patzsch believed that the value of photography was in its ability to reproduce the texture of reality, and to represent the essence of an object. He wrote: “The secret of a good photograph—which, like a work of art, can have esthetic qualities—is its realism … Let us therefore leave art to artists and endeavor to create, with the means peculiar to photography and without borrowing from art, photographs which will last because of their photographic qualities.””
I have looked through some of Renger-Patsch’s work online and do enjoy the crispness of the work, the clean composition and often the use of leading lines in the photographs such as the one below. I think I will do a separate piece of research at a later date on this photographer as his work is appealing to me.
Renger-Patsch’s comment on realism had me thinking about whether my square mile work should have been in colour rather than black and white. This was something my tutor also commented on in my tutorial, asking me to reflect further on why I had chosen black-and-white with more academic research – not just because it feels right. This is something to be considered further in my research to come. Interestingly, I have seen some black and white desert photography in some of Edward Weston’s work from follow up to the Wikipedia description above so I will research this a little further also in the context of my black and white vs colour photography research. Other photographers to look at in this context are Richard Misrach (colour photography – e.g. Battleground Point), John Riddy, Gabriel Basilico and Lukas Jasansky and Martin Polak. Research can be a huge rabbit warren sometimes!
August Sander (1876-1964)
The Wikipedia entry for Sander states that he “is best known for his portraits, as exemplified by his series People of the 20th Century. In this series, he aims to show a cross-section of society during the Weimar Republic. The series is divided into seven sections: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, and The Last People (homeless persons, veterans, etc.).”
These deadpan portraits involve neutral expressions and cool, head on compositions. The tone is impassive, matter-of-fact and detached. The people are often posed.
Sander and Renger-Patzsch created encylopedic typologies of nature, industry, architecture and human society through the sustained photography of single subjects. A had no idea what a typology was before now. A photographic typology is a study of “types”. That is, a photographic series that priorities “collecting” rather than stand-alone images.
Other students of Becher include:
Andreas Gursky
Thomas Ruff
Thomas Struth
Candida Höfer
Axel Hütte
Gerhard Stromberg
Simone Nieweg
Other examples of deadpan photographers include:
Alec Soth
Robert Adams
Stephen Shore
Walker Evans
Anthony Hernandez
Ed Ruscha
Joel Sternfeld
Jitka Hanzlova
Albrect Tübke
Rineke Dijkstra
Plenty of photographers here to research further….
OCA Photography BA 