My Auntie Annie

On a recent visit to Ireland I met my Auntie Annie for the first time in years.  I think it was about 15 years to be precise.

I always remember when she came from Dublin to visit she always had wonderful presents for me.  Things you wouldn't find in the shops near us.

She hasn't changed too much.  She's still glamorous and attractive and calls herself Auntie Annie.

I got a portrait of her.  A bit rushed but it captures her spirit perfectly.


I'm not sure which I prefer.  The black and white or colour.  They both are appealing in different ways.

Freezing Time: The Autobiography of Eadweard Muybridge

I have just finished reading Freezing Time: The Autobiography of Eadweard Muybridge by Keith Stern.  It wasn't necessarily a book I was dying to read.  I just came across a copy of it and thought I'd give it a go.  The book looks at the lives of four interesting characters that shaped the life and work of the early photographer Eadweard Muybridge.  We have Muybridge himself at the narrator of the story.  His wife Flora who was half his age.  Her lover the con man Larkyns and Senator Leland Stanford the benefactor of Muybridge's work.

It's an interesting read if somewhat strange at times but that in part is due the narrator himself.  I suppose Muybridge is most famous for his work on horses particularly Horse in Motion.  However, the book introduces us to his landscape work at Yosemite, his attempts at photojournalism and the work he did of Chinese workers on the railroads and of the native American people.  The book also introduces us to what became his most important work - the motion picture what was to eventually become the movie.

I think the most striking thing about his photography and his approach to his work is that it is a science and not an art.  This of course opens the old debate of whether photography is art at all.  At the time that he was working photography was very much in its infancy and had limitations, some which he was keen to explore.

I think the most I got out of this books was an insight into the work and commitment of early pioneers of photography.  I think that with modern technology the camera is something we take for granted and few know how it actually works.  I think this is an interesting concept - the idea that people take more pictures that ever before and most have even less control over how they are made.  It also shows the change in the meaning of a photograph.  Muybridge used his images to prove scientific facts and make discoveries.  Today images are used to such a mass extent that their meaning (if there was indeed any in the first place) has been lost.

Muybridge is portrayed as a disturbed genius who led a colourful life.  His legacy can be seen in the work of others like Thomas Eakins, Thomas Edison and Francis Bacon.

Assignment 5

Here are the images that I submitted for Assignment 5.  As I wrote about in my brief this assignment focuses on the Irish in London.

Departure

As we left Dun Laoghaire there was drunkenness. The younger men were drunk - not violently so but tragically so, as I was, to forget the dreadful loneliness of having to leave home... For us, as it was then, it was the brink of hell...

JB Keane Self-Portrait (1964)

Tools of the trade – 1

The first wave of immigrants to reach London worked in the services industry mainly as cobblers and tailors.  They were an essential part of the workforce but survived in hellish conditions. 

Tools of the trade – 2

The Irish are best known for their work in the construction industry.  Over the years, the pub was the place to organise ‘the start’ and a few simple tools either borrowed or begged was enough to secure employment.   

Navvies – Building the waterways

Irish workers were in demand from the late 18^th century during the canal boom.  Using spades and picks each cut or channel was dug by hand.  Today there are 2,200 navigable canals and rivers in the UK.  

 Navvies – The men who built the railway

Tramping from job to job, navvies and their families lived and worked in appalling conditions, often for years on end, in rough timber and turf huts alongside the bridges, tunnels and cuttings that they built. In the 1840s there was no compensation for death or injury, and railway engineers like Brunel resisted all efforts to provide their workers with adequate housing and sanitation, or safe working conditions.

Despite cruel exploitation and extreme deprivation the navvies achieved amazing feats of engineering, equipped with little more than gunpowder, picks and shovels.

An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger)

During The Great Famine (1846-51) the Irish population fell by 25%.  One million people died.  One million people emigrated. 

“The famine was a defining event in the history of Ireland and Britain.  It has left deep scars.  That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today.  Those who governed in London at the time failed their people.”

Tony Blair, British Prime Minister 1997

 Cead mile failte

"The Irish hate our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our pure religion. This wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain and superstitious race have no sympathy with the English character. Their ideal of human felicity is an alternation of clannish broils and coarse idolatry. Their history describes an unbroken circle of bigotry and blood.”

Benjamin Disraeli

 Living conditions

Due to London's high cost of living, many Irish families frequently shared a single room. In 1849 a  house in Saffron Hill was investigated by Thomas Beames where he found 88 men, women and children living in a single five room house.

Fancy a pint?

“Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.”

George Bernard Shaw 

If music be the food of love, play on

“For you can't hear Irish tunes without knowing you're Irish, and wanting to pound that fact into the floor.” 

Jennifer Armstrong, Becoming Mary Mehan

Be fruitful and multiply

The Roman Catholic Church believes that contraception is “intrinsically evil” in itself.  Catholics are only permitted to use natural methods of birth control.  As a result the Irish migrant population continued to grow until the fear of God and the Church diminished.  

Ancestry.com

As part of my research for assignment 5 I have been looking at census records of Irish migrants.  I have to say I never thought that I would become interested in genealogy websites but I am addicted to ancestry.com now.

I find it fascinating that we have so much information about these people from 1841 onwards.  It is interesting to see what they did for a living, where they lived and the families they had.  Many of their occupations are obsolete today.

Although the census data gives you a good insight into the lives of these people it just doesn't go far enough so you find yourself trying to fill in the pieces.  You find yourself wondering what the people were like, what they looked like, did they marry for love or convenience.  Most of this we will never know.

I have enjoyed the research I have done for this assignment.  It has proved to be an eye-opener and also a refresher course for my Irish history.  Who knows I may even find some of my relations??

Alex Boyd - In the Irish Wilderness

I recently came across the work of photographer Alex Boyd when I saw one of his images of Dun Briste on the BBC website.  Dun Briste is a sea stack near where I lived in Ireland.  When I was young I would look at the sea stack every day from the windows at the back of the house so it was interesting to see how he photographed it.

Last summer I spent a few evenings on the edge of the cliff shooting the sea stack and cliffs around there.  I'm not very good with heights so I was keen to get a shot and get out of there as soon as possible.

Dun Briste

My image from last summer

The west of Ireland is a wild wilderness.  The sea is rough and the fog and mist ever present.  This is something that Boyd has captured in his work.  I have found his image of Dun Briste pretty fierce.  It shows the strength of the sea - it is a force to be reckoned with.

Boyd uses a plate camera complete with darkroom equipment and chemicals which he carries up hills and through bog to produce this series of work.  Very different to my shooting conditions.  However, the effects he achieves are quite different - in a good way.

I have found his work on an area that I am familiar with very interesting probably more to do with the familiarity.  It is strange how I have never seen Dun Briste the way he chose to shoot it but yet I know instinctively where and what it is.  I feel that he has very much captured the mood of the place.

For assignment 5 People and Place I am looking to include an image of the Irish coastline as my opening shot.  Boyd's work has given me some food for thought particularly in relation to the way I view the place I lived and what it means to me.  It has also made me think about how I want to show it to other people.

Lewis Hine and his images of child labour

I have come across Lewis Hine before but I found it interesting to see his work at the Print Room at the V&A on a recent study visit.

Hine has been called the father of documentary photography for his work that he did on child labour in the US.  He shamed the American public into action with his hard hitting images of children, some as young as 7 or 8, working in the mines and factories across the country.  The most striking thing about these images is the  size of the children operating the big machines and in relation to mining the sheer number of children working in terrible conditions.

Hine set out to assemble evidence of child labour and present to the public at a time when they had shied about from the fact that it existed in the first place.  His images show the truth o the reality of child labour in America.

Hine however also celebrated the life of the labourer in his series of images of workers on the Empire State building.  These people were to be celebrated for what they were achieving, for the risks they took to their own safety to complete their work.

I found his work on the immigrants at Ellis Island very interesting especially in relation to the work I am doing for my final assignment of this course.  Hine put a human face on the problem of immigration.  He also had a connection with the immigrants which we can see in his images.

I think what we see in Hine's work is factual photographs with a human touch.  We see the emotional alongside the photograph as a document.

Although Hine's work is very different from what I want to achieve with my assignment I have found it interesting to look at the way in which he has tackled the immigration issue.  He is looking at the problem at the time it was happening I am looking back at it which gives two very different viewing perspectives.

Assignment 5: my brief

My client is the London Irish Centre (LIC).  The centre is based in the heart of Camden Town and looks after the welfare needs of new immigrants to London.  Over the years its work has grown and it has become a ‘home from home’ for all things Irish in the capital.  In 2014 LIC will be celebrating its 60^th birthday and as part of those celebrations they have commissioned me to provide images for an exhibition at the centre.  These images will also be published in a 60^th birthday celebration book. 

The purpose of the assignment is primarily educational.  The exhibition needs to explore the Irish people’s contribution to London looking at how and why they came to the city, the work they did and their daily lives.  Is there a lasting legacy from the first migrants to the city? It should also examine how the immigrants became part of their new society and the challenges they often faced – prejudice, poverty and discrimination. 

In keeping with the celebration of LIC’s birthday this piece of work needs to be a celebration of Irishness and the complex history of immigration to London.  The migrant’s story needs to be told – the positives and the negatives.   The story has to be accurate and informative so both Irish and non-Irish will get something from the images. 

It is essential that the images take on a hint of nostalgia and capture some of the essence of what it is like to leave your home and become foreign.  This project is not looking at the state of immigration today but at the history of Irish migration to London. 

Next steps

After reading the brief I started planning the project in more detail and produced a more specific outline for this work.  I made a decision to use text alongside the images to further enhance the concepts I want to communicate to the public. 

These are the themes I set out to explore:

·         The New Departure.  Leaving home, the home that was left behind. 

·         Tools of the trade – tailors and construction workers

·         Building the country’s infrastructure – canals, railways and roads

·         Famine and the potato

·         Drinking culture

·         Music and the craic

·         Prejudice

·         Religion

In addition to the images I decided that text would accompany the images to enhance the narrative.  The text would come from a variety of sources including song lyrics/poetry to political quotations.

 

I chose not to include people themselves as subjects in my images preferring to focus on the aspects of their lives and their belongings.  I felt that this would enable me to build a better picture from an historical perspective.  Without people, there is a sense of timelessness to the images.  They are harder to date.  I also felt that I could focus the viewer’s attention would be distracted by people and modern settings. 

In line with this, I chose to produce a series of black and white images.  I felt that the historical setting I wanted to create would be better achieved in monochrome.  Our history books are full of black and white images and I wanted to copy that effect. 

By avoiding the use of colour I feel that the viewers will be better able to focus on the subjects.  I want to create a dark mood in the images and I feel that black and white will better equip me to do this.  Colour can evoke moods and I wanted the images and the subjects to be able to stand alone and be more hard hitting. 

Another point is that colour fades with time like our memories and when we reflect and look back on our lives we rarely see events clearly with every colourful detail. These images are presented in a form of flashback to the past, the viewer is shown a series of memories from the past.