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BAPHOTOGRAPHY2004
SamDrake
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SAM DRAKE

The photographs ability to stand on its own without words or narrative is something that fascinates me; the photograph can offers an apparently simple directness that avoids an explanation. The work of Bernd and Hilla Becher has had a strong influence on my own practice. There is a humbleness about their images; they draw attention to what they show never to themselves.

In Impossible Stories, a talk given at a colloquium on narrative techniques, Wim Wenders states that, "Images are acutely sensitive... they don't have it in them to be carthorses: carrying and transporting messages or significance or intention or moral."

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Carly Beard
Jenny Cooper
Natalie Curtis
Gemma Davis
Sarah Davies
Sam Drake
Amy Dunmore
Andy Ellerby
Jessica Jane Emmett
Lucy Fletcher
Lizzie Flintham
Sarah Genner
Valentina Guarneri
Lesley Hooper
Gregory Howe
Stacey Hubbard
Zoe Humphreys
Katie Jones
Nadia Karmazyn
Gemma Land
Kath Lawrence
Stephaine Lord
Rachel McFarlane
Oona Mae
Clare Massey
Ruth Megitt
Emily Mennerdahl
Jo Mulley
Laura Mulroy
Barnaby Newton
Robert Ng
Rob Parker
Sarah Poynter
Tara Quick
Charlotte Rea
Ellie Rush
Mike Slater
Paul Unsworth
Hannah Cooper Ward
Martin Woodhead
Stephen Zheng Xu

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I feel good photographic images are incredibly sensitive. Within my own work I have tried to adopt a patient, attentive, discreet and almost withdrawn stance. I feel that often if you try and tell a story and direct the viewer too much the image becomes unbalanced and losers subtle tension. An idea and suggestion should be present within the work but I prefer to allow them to be gently revealed. I want the viewer to arrive at them indirectly.

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Framing is still a very important element to my work. Often when entering a building with a past people say, 'if only these walks could talk'. They obviously cannot. They can how ever offer us small clues: the physical dimensions of the room, the décor, the furnishings and the wear received. Sometimes when you are in certain buildings you get the tiniest indication of events that might have happen there. This creates a sense of slight unease. You walk round quietly not making much noise, as if not wanting to disturb the memories that might be there. You what to find out more but the walls cannot tell you. I want to create a similar feeling within my work. I want to create feeling of being almost able to sense some kind of narrative, the sense that something tragic has or is just about to happen. I want to make the viewer feel part of the scene, yet held back, frozen unable to do anything but look on as the light changes; almost as if they were looking from inside the wall.



Being alone within certain spaces makes me more aware of my own presence. This is something that I want to try and make the viewer feel when looking at one of my photographs; I want them to be aware of their own presence. Barthes sums up my sentiments towards photography beautifully when he states in camera Lucida,

"Ultimately photography is subversive not when it frightens, repels and stigmatizes but when it is pensive."

In the Camerawork Essays Jessica Evans references the psychoanalyst and organisational consultant Gordon Lawrence. Lawrence has recently argued that, under conditions of late modernity, tragedy, ranging from disappointment through to loss to death, is seen by people as an intrusion in their lives, an impertinence of fate. We have come to believe that tragedy is not meant to happen and is to be wished away.

This idea of our society not acknowledging tragedy as a part of life is something that fascinates me. While I do not think people should morbidly expect tragedy, I feel that tragedy (disappointment, loss and death) is a part of life. I was reading The Daybooks of Edward Weston, in a section of it Weston talks about the Mexican bullfights,

'Strange humour, living from week to week in the anticipation of the Sunday bullfight, acknowledging its cruelty, shuddering when a mortally gored horse careens across the area with its guts wrapped round its legs, but watching the pageant or orgy, nevertheless, in fascinated horror. The Latins have evolved a sport which symbolizes life, its glorious moments and its sordid ones, its dreams and deliriums- and futility, they can return from such an afternoon to tenderly pet their birds and water their geraniums.'

Roland Bathes in Camera Lucida refers to the photographic image as,

'...never anything but an antiphon of "look", "see".'

This is something that I strongly agree with. I have tried to photograph the animals in an incredible simple and economic way. I do not wish to shock or disgust the viewer, I want to encourage them to notice the stark beauty of the animals. I want to make people stop and observe what the animals really look like: To notice the shape, the intricate detail and the amazing tones and then notice that the animals where dead- I want it to be a gentle realisation.

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