Jack Latham is a documentary photographer based in the UK. He has published multiple photobooks including sugar paper theories, a pink flamingo and parliament of owls. He uses original imagery and existing images to create complex stories. each photo he takes contains a parcel of time which you cant get back. his work captures the concept of reality and questions the foundations of belief and our ability to be decieved.
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This image from parliament of owls is very deliberate in that every angle and the placement of the figure is clearly calculated. the figures left eye is directly at the centre of the image and the objects around them are methodically placed at similar distances to the figure. This strange symmetry adds to the unnerving energy in the image as we are used to non-symmetry and chaos to a certain extent because nature doesn't work in exact measurements.
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Morgan Ashcom:
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Anxieties of the ageThe new articles in slant were initially intended to have a humorous and bizarre feeling to them. By telling these ridiculous stories in such a deadpan and monotone way gave them some sort of meaning: although they were completely unworthy of media, they were printed on a page. However as he began to develop the book more, the meaning began to twist.
Slant tells a story of political and social tension and the double standards of the age through loose and abstract relations between text and photography. The compression of news articles and police reports play a big part in how the photographs are read and allude to the fluidity of media and representation. This idea of political tension is shown in the articles and police reports, some of which have connotations of misogyny, sexism, and xenophobia, and also convey feelings of paranoia. This theme is contextually prevalent when we consider the political climate in the United States in 2016 with the trump administration and social issues which came about following his unexpected rise to power. At this time in America, ideas of marginalisation and discrimination became far more illuminated than before as trumps presidency posed a very real threat to minority groups. And so the idea of the civilised vs the strange and the fear of the unknown became the basis for Schuman's book, trying to seek out the inner goings on of suburban life. Sexuality also played a big role in to book, with many articles referring to "suspicious" sexual and romantic activity. as a result, the book feels somewhat anthropological, as it is an investigation into human behaviour. |
For my project I wanted the incorporate the idea of surveillance and privacy which something I found interesting about the photo books we looked at. I called the series "city thirteen" as a reference to the first line of George Orwell's 1984 which says "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." This is possibly one of the most resonant lines in the book and conveys the same idea of surrealism and how absurd things can have a strange and unnerving feeling to them when said with such conviction. I wanted to convey these feelings through my images, with photos of mysterious and suspicious objects, along with cameras and megaphones, which have implications of surveillance and perpetuate the profoundly invasive, yet strangely familiar society which we live in. |