Lecture Notes.
“Not just about the aesthetic- there should be something more that the visual. Exempla of aesthetic beauty and investigation with photography as research.”
Artist, writer, educator.
Anthony Luvera asked these questions:
What is collaboration?
Who is it for?? (agency, organisation, funders, photographers, sitters)
Are we using or seducing the subject?
What is the idea of artist, context, what doe the atist put forward?
Empowering individuals through transformative power of art.
Before, during and after – how the sitter changes with their experience with the artist, but who is empowered and shown. How does the artist product? How can it be measured?
Doesn’t want a therapeutic effect on the people Luvera works with- primary interest is presenting the viewpoints of himself and the people…
What does the artist do with the photograph?!
Dialogue, exchange, trust.
Practice of representation that is framed or contained.
Authorship can only be filtered by artist or organisation
Unachievable idea that we can put power in the hands of the powerless because we have the power to allow them to start.
More about Anthony
2001- came to London from Australia as fashion photographer. Worked with ‘Crisis over Christmas’. Facilities made for a week around xmas for homeless. Felt uneasy about taking photographs of the event. Year after, after getting thousands of pounds worth of disposable cameras, and gave them to the homeless so they could do as they wished. 96 homeless people came- asked questions of his intentions…
Preconceptions of the homeless was constantly challenged the more he worked with them.
Work he created with the homeless was eventually exhibition in the London Underground, Zones 1 and 2 in 12 stations, 2006. A suitable setting for the context of the subject matter, as opposed to being in an exclusive gallery.
With Belfast Exposed, Luvera worked in Ireland
The sitters wanted to dicate their representation; interested more about their position now and the future, over why they are homeless from the past.
Critique and feedback
In the group critique, Anthony Luvera firstly told me that I do not shoot enough of the same situation. Although I can agree that the more the merrier when it comes down to a final edit with less chance of disappointment, I would like to think that I previsualise my ideas before shooting. He said that the least we can do as photographers is to get a great photograph especially from a stranger. Yet, at the same time, we don’t want to be holding up these people from their daily lives. When I told him about my project he thought that my subjects did not seem that uncomfortable; he told me to look at other photographers, such as Bettina Von Swehl’s ‘Alina’ where she sat her subjects in a dark room with a piece of music, then she uses flash photography to capture their true emotions.
I has made me think about how to make people look uncomfortable, or do I even want them to look uncomfortable?!
In a one to one tutorial, Luvera said that he likes my work so far, but what he suggested, I already knew- I should seriously consider having a perfect-visioned assistant to make sure that I am completely in focus (because my eyes fail me). But, I think for him he would like to see a lot more before coming to a better conclusion about my work.
KateGreenPhotography 