Disney and Other Hyenas

I was confused by the title of the current Tate photography show and after my first visit last week I’m thinking I still don’t quite get it. Street and Studio: An Urban History of Photography is actually about portraiture and claims to highlight “…the crossovers between the genres [Street and Studio] and their influence on each other.” So, sounds interesting but women under hypnosis? I’ll need to read the blurb to see where they fit in.

Not that I didn’t enjoy it. There was plenty I hadn’t seen before as well as some old favourites. The picture that had the strongest impact was this one by Pieter Hugo. I’m a little worried that I’m just impressed by the size of the hyena. I thought hyenas were more reasonable, dog-sized creatures (Max agreed and said this was because we’re informed by Disney films). They had the book of Pieter Hugo’s series (I don’t think the web gallery shows them very well) which I just about managed to resist buying. The printing looked great and even the non-hyena pictures seemed to have a strong other-worldly quality.

The show is on until 31 August so plenty of time to revisit.

Looking at a Thing in a Bag

5DWII - day five. So, what have we learned about Landscape this week? “It’s just a medium” [JA] or a vessel that we can pour whatever we want into. I’ve mostly been reminded that it’s just another unhelpful label although I have been enjoying making some bad landscape pictures. As labels go, I certainly prefer the term street photography but that’s because I have a very wide open view of what street photography is and can be, whereas some people think it died with HCB or Winogrand. A term with little or no baggage would be ideal but unlikely. Joining ‘urban’ to ‘landscape’ only makes it worse.