Exercise - Daniel Meadows Video

Video


http://vimeo.com/28349336



http://www.oca-student.com/resource-type/meadowsguylane


Then read the essay 'The Photographer as the Recorder'  By Guy Lane.



I listened to Daniel Meadows video on the link above he is a photographer and takes documentary photos but he sees himself as a documenturist, someone who is interested in people and their stories, not just his pictures. He is interested in their tales.

He was from an all male school and environment, everyone of a similar class.  He was curious of the world and wanted to experience all things he hadn't seen - ethnics and women. etc.

He left school in 1970 when the vietnam war was on and the student riots in Paris.  There was lots of things to explore and experience.

He didn't want to take nice portraits of people and he was not interested in fashion or advertising.  He listened to peoples tales and took the photographs to express these. He liked the engagement with people and saw himself as a mediator for them.

He learnt lots of new skills along the way and when the digital age came along he was ready to flourish further.   At his workshops he had images of the 1970 of people on the streets who had been happy to pose etc.. right up to the present day when people were making two minute video or documentary photos.  All being peoples histories.  He thinks we all live in awe of people on the TV, so now we can make our own media so it give us our own power - the power has shifted.
He looks forward to the time when we can all be on the TV or stage.



IMAGES FOR DANIEL MEADOWS 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=daniel+meadows+photographer&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=zoigUtLOJqqu7Aas2YGAAg&ved=0CDwQsAQ


DANIEL MEADOWS - THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS RECORDER


Daniel Meadows embarked on a journey around England on a double decker bus to complete a photographic survey of the English people. Especially those who he believed to be under threat. The project was called The Free Photographic Omnibus.  Free because he proposed to give away portraits along the way.  He set off in his bus living upstairs and having his studio and darkroom downstairs. Both  his exhibition and book were called 'Living like this'.
Today, the Free Photographic Omnibus is remembered not for its spirited defence of livelihoods, but for its portraiture.  Meadows free pictures were only meant to entice people to take part, an introduction to the real documentary photos but they have taken over the documentary photos.
( the bait on my photographic hook turned out to be the big fish )
When a subsection of his work was exhibited in 1997,  it was noted that of the 41 pictures 34 of them were people standing in front of a blank wall.  A contrast to the original 'Living like this' - where more than 150 pictures, the minority were portraits and only four were against the wall.

His flyer said of his ambitions, the nature of his concerns and his attempts to engage.  His intentions were to photograph people who's quality of life was threatened, wanting a complete cross section of the English people, at various events and places where people go for entertainment and relaxation.
The only qualification I have for undertaking this work is that I am interested. ( I like this saying )
He started off in a small photographic studio where people could go in and have their portrait taken for free, it was an excellent way of collecting pictures. It was a pilot scheme for the Free Photographic Bus.

Discursive Practice - surfaces of Emergence - Archive

The bus statement features a black and white photograph of its author, Meadows, probably a self portrait, its an unremarkable image and is deliberately so.  The photography was neither professional, commercial or amateur but shows 'youth'.  In and editorial, Bill Jay advises, "produce your own heart felt photographs for a client and you will probably starve - and, if not, the pressure to compromise will drain your energies, dull your sensibility and dilute the quality of your work." Dont sell out .. produce your own personal pictures in your own way to satisfy yourself.

Meadows wanted to produce a "straight" record of events.  A statement signifies that Meadows was an "alternative" practice uncontaminated by mercenary imperatives or the constraints of commissioned work .. while the properties of the adorned "straight" record signified truthfulness, humanity and sincerity.

The bus statement can be found in the archives of the Arts Council held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  This location reveals something of the nature of the changes that photography underwent in this period.  Barry Lane was the first officer of the newly formed Photography committee.  He wrote we are now committed to supporting photography as an art.  He said that photographers themselves need assistance .. they ought to opt a more active role in the production of work - unlike painters photographers have to work on location.  Despite being the media for creative expression, he wrote there is very little income for photographers.  The Arts council remained - slightly hostile art dept reluctant to recognise the upstart (photography ) in its midst.
The rapidly expanding network of galleries were opening.

Meadows statement was to persuade a lot of people to contribute just a little towards his project.

Archive - Meadows wanted to photograph people who he believed were endangered by the apparent necessity for social change, the intention to record lives blighted by the process of modernity.  A race to record life before destruction.
He photographed a black boy on Moss side - Amongst those most directly effected by the construction of new high rise housing was one of the oldest black communities in the country - that of Moss Side.

Meadows identified social change, over population and pollution.  Meadows text moves, in the space of a few lines, from threatened lives and global problems to a Conker Championships and Blackpool Beach. ( all tempered by a comedic register ).   This urge to document calendrical events discloses a desire for stability, the definition of Englishness.