Sunday 27 January 2013

Jack Webb Suspects His Parents

I have spent weeks trying to remember the name of this photographer, I read an article about him last year and I didnt even bother looking at what the magazine was called! I consequently spent every morning in the magazine aisle of the college library for the first month of term, alongside many evenings on google typing in descriptions of his photography, which got me some very strange results but his images never came up. And then finally all my hard work paid off when on Wednesday I found it, it was hiding away in Hotshoe Magazine on the bottom shelf at the very back of the library, you cannot imagine the joy I felt when finding it - thankfully no one was in the library that early to see my celebration dance! But enough about me and my search for this fantastic innovative photographer, I should actually start talking about Jack Webb himself.

His project 'Jack Webb Suspects His Parents' started in 1999 when he began placing ads in British papers and magazines stating;

'Pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher seeks gen­uine cou­ples for art-based project around sex and sex­u­al­ity.’ 

Now many will read this post and instantly think PORN!! or that no one in their right mind would reply to his ads but many did reply, and of those many, five couples were photographed, most inviting Jack into their homes and one to a local reservoir on a freezing November day. Jack Webb said that he was looking for couples who weren't wanting to show off. The results are non-idealized, both raw and astonishingly touching at the same time. "The paradox of these photographs," as Anouchka Grose's text in the book states, "is that they try to document something private, something that is not meant to be seen."

"It took Jack Webb nearly three years to find and shoot his sub­jects. Webb’s images live in a world almost as for­eign to us now as the idea of enter­ing a stranger’s bed­room. Shot on film, the images sit in a world of cel­lu­loid embed­ded with a spe­cific level of trust, but also a sense of dan­ger and the unknown between pho­tog­ra­pher and sub­ject, a rela­tion­ship that has changed so dras­ti­cally with the imme­di­acy of the dig­i­tal image. In addi­tion, Webb found his sub­jects before the height of the Inter­net changed the way we meet, inter­act and address peo­ple. By find­ing these cou­ples through an ad in the news­pa­per Webb’s sub­jects are freed from the instant-fame cul­ture the Inter­net has cre­ated. Instead, they exhibit a rare oppor­tu­nity in today’s world to find true inti­mate moments in a stranger’s world." http://www.laumont.com/news/jack-webb-showing-off-in-private-at-no-10-gallery/

I have emailed Dashwood Books in the US to see if they post to the UK because they are the only place selling his book!! I have not yet heard back but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!
But anyways, if you don't like nudity I suggest you don't scroll down any further and maybe you should Google some pictures of kittens instead....




The photograph that encompasses the cover of the book - it is definately eye catching!


That daring couple on the cold November day!





I hope you haven't been too shocked and traumatised by this post, because I personally think Webb's photography is bloody fantastic!! As a major fan of Nan Goldin's work, there are definately similarities between hers and Webb's work, the raw, unmanipulated images and the subject matter, so I guess that is what drew me in when I first read about his work and why I endeavoured to find that magazine article for over a month!

All images: All rights reserved © 2013 Jack Webb

Saturday 19 January 2013

Mikael Kennedy's Polaroids

I was browsing through some articles on Tribe Magazine's website (www.tribemagazine.org) just checking out work by emerging artists and I came across an interview with Mikael Kennedy, a photographer in New York. He has done a lot of projects using polaroids and reading his responses as to why he used such a dated photographic medium reflected many of my own thoughts. As you can see in my previous post I have delved briefly into the now expensive use of polaroid film, purely for aesthetic reasons.
Mikael's work is, to me, beautifully nostalgic and seems to portray an almost dreamlike world which he discusses further in the interview:

"But let me say this, in some ways I have no interest in reality, I am interested in a vision of a life, a dream I am having. That is how I see this work. The expired film that creates this feel is part of it, but it’s hard to say which came first, the film was what I had available and started using and it always felt right, so maybe I knew what I wanted from the beginning but am only now able to express it verbally." (http://www.tribemagazine.org/mikael.html)

Seeing others work always gives me that little push I sometimes need to produce more of my own - I may even spend the rest of the evening hunting down cheap polaroid film!
Here's some photographs I sourced from Mikael's website that I think sums up the atmosphere of his polaroid work. And don't think he is just a one trick pony, he does commercial work too and also uses other film types - you should check out his Still, Not Dead series he did in 2003 - captivating black and white imagery!



Images: All rights reserved © Mikael Kennedy. Do not use without the artist's permission. 
Images sourced at http://mikaelkennedy.com (where you can see more of his amazing work!)


Wednesday 16 January 2013

Get Your Art on FAD #52

One of my images featured on FAD which is also visible on their home page, facebook, twitter and pinterest!!! Woohoo :) Although they spelt my name wrong!!

http://www.fadwebsite.com/2013/01/09/sara-packer-get-your-art-on-fad-52/