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November 07, 2005
The art of photography
In an article in the Guardian this weekend, American photographer Katy Grannan talks about her photography, which is essentially portraiture, but portraiture with an edge. The sort of thing I look for in my paintings. The search for the person behind the image.
“There's a rich Puritan ethos there [Massachusetts], a paranoia about nudity and pornography. Going into these girls' homes felt so familiar to me, and I understood their reasons for wanting to be photographed. There's that feeling of, 'I've just moved back in with my parents, I feel suffocated, but I'm not ready to be an adult. I want to do something my parents might disapprove of. I want to be paid attention to.' ”
Even so, Grannan's subjects have to meet her more than half way. She remembers going to photograph a blond girl at her mother's house and not knowing where to start because the girl wanted to take over and already had the shot figured out. "She was a conventionally pretty cheerleader-type, sitting in a pink living room, which happened to be just like my mother's, and I was thinking, what can I do that hasn't already been done? She said she wanted to wear her underwear but 'no genitals' - I friggin' hate that word - and then she was kneeling in her own little world and the string of her tampon fell down. Suddenly the picture became much more complex, through this one little indication of vulnerability.
I think that's why so many portraits work when they're difficult: we believe we're presenting ourselves one way, but the camera always reveals something more vulnerable, despite our best efforts."
Katy Grannan - on photography, by Melissa Denes, in the Guardian.
Certainly sitting for me isn’t always easy. I don’t just want someone plonked down in front of me like you might get in an art class. I demand a lot more from the model. It isn’t something I know about when I start a painting, it’s something that becomes more apparent as the painting progresses perhaps. Or rather it is something that becomes apparent as the drawing and studies progress before the painting begins.
That’s why I work from life, so I can engage with the sitter, talk with them, find the edge.
In fact I’ve been working with photography more and more recently, the results of which will be coming to a website, near you, soon.
Katy Grannan’s book: Model Americans
Posted by john at November 7, 2005 09:27 PM