Current Work...

I'm not going to say much here, because time isn't on my side at the moment in the way of my current uni project. Below is an example of what i was doing at a shoot on Tuesday, using the frame to divide the people in the frame.



Below is an example of a shoot that i did on Wednesday.



Lastly, the image below is an example of what i have been doing today. This shoot (that will continue tomorrow morning) will culminate in my final image/s which i have recreated from observation.

Assisting Paul Mobley...

So this last few days I've been doing some work experience with a photographer from the United States, Paul Mobley. We had a great time shooting everywhere from Camden Town and Billingsgate to Pembrokeshire in Wales, shooting subjects that ranged from rugby players to neo-goths. It was a truly memorable experience and something i will never forget. 

It was pretty much non stop from when he arrived at Heathrow until he left again this morning. We covered around 700miles by car and we only used the car for two and a half days, the third was spend exclusively on public transport around London.

I learnt an awful lot about the industry, techniques, lighting and various kinds of equipment and how best to use them. I met a whole heap of new people as well through doing this job and gained a lot of confidence through working the way we did. For example, i thought that around 75% of people who we asked if they would like their portrait taken would say no, however over the course of the 4 day shoot, around 5-10 people that we asked said no. Some were more willing than others and gave us a lot more time to shoot them in where some would only give up five minuites of time, others gave thirty and one guy stayed an hour and a half after rugby practice on a freezing cold night until 10:30 so that we could shoot him.

It shocked me how welcoming people were. As regular readers will know my current work for uni centres around the idea of a very suspicious and unwelcoming society which made me very surprised. I would imagine that when put in context people are far more welcoming. This is something that I'm going to try and experiment with for the end of my project. (i don't have a clue how this will culminate into final images, but hey, thats how it should be right!) 

So this is only a quick post because i can't really express through the written word how amazing this experience was. Hopefully i'll be able to put one or two of the images from the four days up here at some point with Paul's permission so keep your eyes peeled!

Armistice Day...

Often wrongly referred to as 'Remembrance Day', The 11th of November has been changed in recent years. When i was in primary school in the 90's we were taught the significance of why we wear the poppy and have a minutes silence during the eleventh minute, past the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month every year. 

The armistice with Germany was signed at this time in 1918 bringing to an end one of, if not the bloodiest conflict in history that was, The Great War. (It was only after World War II that The Great War was referred to as World War I, or so i have been led to believe.) Armistice Day adopted World War II as a subsequent conflict to remember, however i believe that this is where it, officially at least, stopped.

The notion that Afghanistan, Iraq and the Falklands conflicts are now being included in Armistice Day by the british public and are endorsed by many celebrities is appalling. Now, don't get me wrong, the loss of life in any way is devastating, and to me, one of the worst ways to die would to be thousands of miles away from your family, friends and home. So i want to make it clear that I'm not saying that it's a good thing that people are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan as I write this, however these two current conflicts are different to the two wars that Armistice Day was created for.

For example, Iraq and Afghanistan are not wars. No war has been declared, however with The Great War and World War II war was declared by Great Britain on Germany and Nazi Germany respectively. These wars were fought out of necessity rather than interference with foreign nations that we have no business stepping into, let alone illegally. 

And who do we remember? I remember the people who were conscripted to protect their homes, family, and everything that they held dear. I do not remember people who's job it is to police foreign nations just as much as i do not remember people who get electrocuted to death by office equipment. It's their job and choice is a huge part of this argument. No one forced soldiers to go into Iraq and Afghanistan, whereas those who fought on the beaches of Normandy, in the streets of Paris, in the Ardennes forest of Belgium, and all over Europe had little to no choice in their fate.

In closing, next time you buy a poppy or pause in silence on any Armistice Day, contemplate what it really means as opposed to thinking what everyone around you thinks.

I support Armistice Day for those who fought against oppression. I do not support those who opress others.

Pressured Observation

My project at the moment is dealing with people's mannerisms, covering both facial expressions and wider body language. The basic idea was to purely observe people's behaviour (without them noticing me) and through informing myself about theories surrounding the issue by researching both in the library and on the internet, hopefully gain an insight into these stranger's lives.

I started by observing people in Market Square in Nottingham city centre, at first with pen and paper, then moving onto using a camcorder. I found that using a camcorder to tape my observation was far more beneficial as i could focus on filming one person/ group of people and when i watched the tape back i could see other scenes that i hadn't been focussing on and would have missed otherwise. It also gave me 100% of my time for looking when i was there and when playing the tape back i could take notes on behaviour i had observed and then hypothesise as to why this behaviour was being exhibited.

When i put on the tape that i had filmed earlier in the day i was astounded by some of the behaviour that was going on. All the research of psychological, behavioural and body language theory had paid off because there was a lot of things that, without the knowledge that research granted me, would have completely passed me by. In one 45 minute video i had enough to exhibit examples of 11 different types of behaviour which mean more when read into than we would usually expect. Below are a few examples of these different behaviours. Read into them what you want. If you want to know what i deduced from them, then just ask.

Moving on from pure observation i wanted to move into what i would now call 'pressured observation'. The idea for this part of the project was to explore where the lines between explicit and implicit rules for social conduct blur and how far they bleed into each other. I would hide out of plain or direct view and set up my camera focussed on a subject then send in the participant, in this case Ross, to sit down next to them. The hypothesis of this study that i was working under was that there is an implicit rule within western culture, which is very noticeable in British society, that tells us if a stranger is sitting on one end of a park bench we should sit on the other end. However, there is no explicit rule telling us that this action is illegal.

With just the first subject i knew that this project was going to reveal some telling insights into how people deal with being put in uncomfortable spots. This gentleman, in the photographs below, asked Ross not to sit too close almost immediately when he was sat next to. The first image shows how close Ross got to the man, which was within arm distance, but in no way making contact with him.

The second subject was also worthy of note. This gentleman said the following to Ross: "Excuse me, I don't mean to be funny but do you mind sitting somewhere else, it's just that I'm on the drink." He then showed Ross a bottle of cider (visible in the photographs below.)

There is a difference in the reasoning behind both people's response here. The first subject's reason is possibly self preservation, hence acting slightly more aggressive than the second who seems to want to distance himself from people for their safety rather than his. 

The third subject i chose for Ross to stand next to was a girl i actually know. I jumped at the chance of getting a view from both sides of the experience. It's more than obvious when looking through the photographs i took of Ross standing next to this girl that she isn't comfortable with whats happening but she fails to say anything directly to him. The day after the shoot i got in touch with her and she thought it was hilarious that it was set up. She realised that something wasn't quite right but wasn't quite sure what. My guess would be that it would be her uncomforted in the situation that she had been put in. (This is not to write off completely the idea that she may have received a sensation that she was being watched but was unsure where from and was confused by this. This is another theory i came across when researching.)

The main point in this work isn't to show what other people do, (because we all do it in one way or another i'd wager) but it is to question why it happens, and if it happens in some places more than others. I'm going to have to try this in London.

It's All Going On...

So here's my first real blog entry. In the last week an awful lot has happened. The days seem to all have merged into one, however i will try my upmost to separate them.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 29TH-

This day started off with a professional practice lecture which covered work experience. I couldn't shake the feeling throughout the lecture that it was going to be incredibly difficult to find a photographer to do valuable work experience with. I'm pretty open minded with photography although i know what i like and don't like and am very strongly opinionated when it comes to certain practices under the umbrella of photography.

My ideal placement for work experience would be to assist an up and coming UK or US based art photographer because the main concern for me is how i will make a living out of my work, and has been for a long time now.

After this i enlisted the help of Ross Brind (who was in my groups last year for both critical and visual practice. An incredibly talented and thoughtful photographer who has been a great pal since i enrolled at Nottingham Trent) for a shoot i had been planning in the week. I will explore this shoot more in a future post as i have quite a bit to say about it and couldn't do it justice in the same post as a whole weeks worth of other happenings. (I can already feel that this blog may jump around a bit more than i first anticipated.)

We then proceeded to the Nottingham Contemporary Gallery in the lace market district of the city to see British Art Show exhibition which is spread throughout 3 venues around the city:

• The Nottingham Contemporary Gallery
• The Nottingham Castle Gallery
• The New Art Exchange, Nottingham

This was a great exhibit and provoked me to think a lot about my own work. One in particular, a piece by Charles Avery, appealed to me while i was there and even more after i had left. Ross informed me after having gone away and researched him he had found out that Avery creates fictional worlds and his work is part of one of these fictional worlds. This links back to photography in the way that photography is purely a medium for 'cutting out' parts of the world that strike you in some way. But i could go on about that for hours so i might save that ramble for another post. (I hope that the pattern of every post i do, spawns a number of other blogs does not persist!)

  SATURDAY OCTOBER 30TH

This day was not filled with much apart from one event which provoked some thought in me. I was at a party where one of my friends that i had known all the way through secondary school was present. After failing to go out to some bars for various reasons we decided it would be nice to have a catch up. I left her house at 2am (really 3am as the clocks had gone back that night) after a long chat and reminiscing about secondary school and college where we did an art foundation course together.

On the walk home i had two thoughts, neither one new, but they seemed to have a new weight and strength to them which made me consider them carefully.The first was what if i hadn't gone to secondary school at the school i went to and instead chose another school? What if i hadn't met this girl? This kind of train of thought could go back to my birthday (23rd August) where if i was born a fortnight later i would have been in the year below her at school. It would have put me in a completely new social circumstance. This wondering is seldom productive but i can't help thinking about it.

The second, not unlike the first, was more about the people i had met on the way to being where i am today. How they have shaped my life in some way or another. I have never been a huge fan of portraiture but at that moment, and still, i long to go after these people who have all shaped my life in significant ways and take photographs of them. I came up with the idea of real heroes. Last year i was handed a free comic for the promotion of a new television show and since then i have always wanted to do a parody of a comic strip. Marrying these two ideas of the comic strip and the people who have shaped my life made me incredibly excited. Taking out the over the top caped crusader characters contained in run of the mill comic books and replacing them with seemingly run of the mill characters who make real differences. Again, this is another idea that i will hopefully come back to sooner rather than later.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 31ST

Nothing actually happened on Sunday as is common practice with students the world over.

MONDAY NOVEMBER 1ST

We had a large format workshop on Monday. Learning how to use the 10'x8' cameras was pretty similar to using the 5'x4' cameras, just on a bigger scale. I discovered that i want to always shoot like im shooting with a large format camera. The amount of consideration that goes into the shooting of a large format camera is immense. even the slightest wobble will knock the focus out. 

This kind of photography, considered, precise and thought through is completely the opposite of what some people see photography as now that the digital age is strutting up and down every high street in the country trying to convince each and every one of us we are professional photographers. Taking 2,000 pictures in a day and doing what i call 'playing the numbers'. Take as many photographs as that and the chances are you'll get a nice looking one to put on the fridge. This is not what i am interested in.

(Also, a quick note for those of you interested in the Photography night out that i have been coerced into planning: A couple of us went out on that night and think it will probably be best to go for a drink at Ride and then head to Coco Tang. As for fancy dress, something low key would probably be best. I thought a pair of 'geek' glasses that you can put on inside Coco Tang would be enough to distinguish the photography students apart from everyone else.)

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 2ND

Nothing much happened on this day. I was just doing book work and sorting out ideas for my next shoot. I had a thought that i might make a huge mind-map on my wall in my room to try and get half the things i think of out of my head, for a time at least. So far, this hasn't materialised.

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 3RD

This was a great day. Absolutely fantastic! I attended a guest lecture taken by a Lei Cox and was astounded by his work. His conceptual mind is brilliant. I just can't get over how he's gone about his work. I've often wondered how to portray certain historic events and been caught up in small details, only grasping them for a while until they slip out of my hands due to my own flawed perfectionism. Lei, however seems to think then do. It highlighted to me how my way of working is flawed, i think and then rethink, then rethink and then do a bit before rethinking. I think the lesson i learnt here is that anything is achievable and persistence is key (although i don't think i'll be making a mayday landing on an american monument in a microlite any time soon.)

I got home after going for a coffee and getting some social prints developed from the weekend at about 3pm. I remembered Ross talking the other day about a photographer who was looking for an assistant in London to show him around. A fairly vague job description so i applied for it anyway. Basically, to cut a long story short within two hours Paul Mobley had e-mailed me back giving me details of what he wanted me to do. He wants to take as many portraits of English people as he can while he's over here for 3 or 4 days. He said he'd call me tomorrow or friday to discuss. I was beside myself with excitement considering what i had been thinking during fridays lecture.

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 4TH

The lecture today was pretty interesting (although it didn't feel like a lecture, it was more of a screening.) We watched a few foreign language films including L'avventura and Fear Eats the Soul. I found them really interesting, not that this surprised me because i've always liked foreign language films (see 'Die Welle' a.k.a. 'The Wave' as soon as humanly possible!) One part that i especially liked was in L'avventura, when a woman escaped a street full of men gazing at her. She fled into a paint shop and to stay sheltered she asked the assistant to get a tin of navy blue paint for her. I found this odd because the film was shot in black and white. This is another idea that could be fun for a moving image project which i could come back to.

Film Still from L'avventura, 1960
(L'avventura on IMDB)


Film Still from Fear Eats the Soul, 1974
(Fear Eats the Soul on IMDB)

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5TH

I hadn't received a phone call from Paul Mobley as of yet. I had told him that i was free after 12:45 so i could get on the train home and get settled. After working through some problems with international calling I finally got talking to Paul. He explained things about the trip in a little bit more detail, citing what kind of things he was looking for and what kind of equipment would be involved. I told him that i was going to try and set up a shoot with some rugby players at practice and some school pupils in uniform. The latter may be a bit difficult because of certain laws, so if they're under 18 their parents will have to co-sign any model release forms i think. Hopefully i'll be able to get in contact with my old photography teacher and he might be able to get some year 10 or 11 students to take part in the shoot in exchange for a half hour talk to the students or something along those lines (hopefully going under the headteacher who i am, to put it politely, not a fan of.)

Then Paul said something along the lines of: "Okay. If you give me a ring in the next week when you've had a talk to these rugby guys and have found out more about it and set up a shoot. Then I'll book my plane tickets over to the UK." This surprised me because i was on the train home, half of which the reason was going home for this job. I had been informed that the job was from the 8th to the 11th of Novemeber, which was in just a few days time. I called him on it and he explained that because it had been such a last minuite response he wasn't going to come over for the original dates as he was booking the tickets using air-miles. This kind of disappointed me because i had been telling everyone that it was this week and i've been pretty excited about it so while it's all going on, it's all very embarrassing now. He has assured me that he'll be over before christmas so hopefully in a couple of weeks he'll be over and i'll be assisting a successful independent photographer.

So thats pretty much it for that week. A lot has happened. A lot of great stuff, but its a shame it ended in disappointment. I'm looking forward to my next blog which i promise will include some of my work, most likely being work from my current project and possibly work that i produce this weekend (I'm down in London so i might as well make the most of it!) 

Here are some links for people that have been featured in this blog:

Ross Brind- http://photography-at-ntu.blogspot.com/

Paul Mobley- http://www.paulmobleystudio.com/

Lei Cox (Top google hit)- http://imaging.dundee.ac.uk/people/lcox/home.html

So I Have a Blog Now...

It's about time i started a blog. So thats what i'm doing.

I don't really know how to go about starting anything like this but i've been saying i'd set up a blog to an awful lot of people for an awful long time. So apologies to those people who have been waiting a while for me to set this up. I've had a lot going on recently, not least of which is organising a Photography meet and greet for our course. Anyway, it's time to follow through with this blog malarky.

The problem is with things like this is that you should start at the beginning. Unfortunately i'm in the middle of it. Well, hopefully not in the middle. That would make for an illustrious nine year photography career, and i'm hoping to be around a bit longer than that.

I suppose i should introduce myself. I'm JoNathan Murphy. I'm studying Photography at Nottingham Trent University and I'm in the second year of my course. My photography is primarily concerned with cognitive processes, or the act of thought. This would seem to pigeonhole me as a conceptual photographer, a label i'm more than happy to bear. Thought and cognitive processes covers almost everything. Which, i would imagine, drew me to it so strongly. It can span from small scale behavioural studies of individuals right up to using my work to influence social and political reform (both of which i have done in the past)

I am originally from London, of Irish Catholic descent which played a strong part in my stance now as an atheist. I tend not to align myself with any political party, instead preferring to choose the best option at the time (which people seem to have forgotten, is their right to do.) I started studying photography for A-level receiving an impressive C grade, and a distinction at Art Foundation (both of which i will hopefully get around to discussing.) 

Some people might be confused as to why i am telling everyone this. And the answer is thus. I invite everyone and anyone who reads this blog to examine my character and see they can spot why i do things as my work has sometimes been described as 'opaque'. But hopefully i will explain my work sufficiently enough to give an insight into exactly why my work has been created while, at the same time, leaving it open enough to encourage individual thought and interpretation as it is often the case that the creator cannot see what he/she has really created.

Because I have started this blog in a rather awkward place i would expect it to bounce around a lot, one entry being a thought that i have had earlier that day, while the next could just as easily be digging up old work from A level or foundation, so i apologise in advance and will endeavour to make it clear when im talking about past work and current work. Hopefully this won't last for too long as i will catch up with myself eventually.

So that's it. Thats an introduction to me and my work. I find it helps when work is viewed in context of the author and that's what I have tried to do here.