'Tract Houses' Finals & Brief Breakdown

"...Baltz turned his camera on the virtually featureless built environment of California, the nether places of new suburbs and the anonymous ambiguity of ordinary places, finding forms that presented anomie and boredom and the insidious inertness of a voracious consumerism.

He published his compositions to an astringent minimum, and proceeded to explore photographic style as on operation - as a conceptual and critical practice."

- Sheryl Conkelton

These are my two final images for presentation. I tried to work from the above quote from the back of 'The Tract Houses'. I'm not sure I have really achieved images that could fit seamlessly into Baltz's book, even with the allowance of location and time differences.

One thing that irritates me about these images is that there is no true white. However this is not just me being crap, in many of the images in 'The Tract Houses' there is no true white. Instead the images look quite dirty.

Title:

• Simply states what the work is. Refective of work in that it is what it is

Layout:

• Laid out like a gallery - plain white pages with a single image
• Images on the right handside (the flat side when the book's on a table) with the infomation on the left hand page
• Nothing to detract the eye from the work
• The book reflects the images?? Stark. Truthful.
• Essay at the front to introduce the work, and a biographical essay at the back including quotes from Baltz
• Also everything is in German, as it was published there - is this something to do with the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf??
• Tract = expanse of land. Refers to the extent of the space
• Realism??
• After WWII there was a push for normality... does it reflect this? Maybe not. More so the vast growth
• Narrative-Documents
• Viewer interpreations...?

Context

• Would aid yo in seeing depth in images
• Set in context of time

Reccuring Themes and Ideas:

• Very Stark
• A lot of texture (although the images are often quite plain)
• Abstract?
• Gives glimpses of 'reality' (life)
• Occasional representations of people living in the houses (see above)
• Repetition of windows and doors - WHY? Do they mean something?
• Mostly very 'plain' images
• Bleak... Depressing..?

Sequencing

• I can't see a clear theme that determines the sequencing of the images
• A mix of very straight, close ups of walls as well as pulled back images of whole houses at angles as well as the odd interior

'Tract Houses' Fifth and Sixth Shoots

These are the final two shoots I under took for the Mishka Henner Brief. As I wasn't finding the results I was after having trawled through most of the new housing developments in Blackpool I turned to a couple of sites in York I knew were still being worked on.

These estates provided me with exactly what I was originally looking for, empty brand new houses built en mass (for England).

The first of these two was comprised mostly of terraced town houses and a few smaller detached houses. Although I photographed both, I feel the detached houses provided better aesthetics. (See second and Third images).

These images are not strictly of houses, but flats and maisonette's. With their blank walls they provided much more of what I was looking for. The accessible part of the development was particularly small and so I could only capture a small variety of images which was a shame. But I think what I did get wasn't half bad. It's a shame no matter how I shot the bottom one it wouldn't be straight (Road curved down a hill and the pipe wasn't straight!).

'Tract Houses' Fourth Shoot

Again shot in Blackpool in these images I tried to focus more on details of the houses rather than more pulled back views of them.

They're still a bit crap but I guess they're getting better.

The first (kind of) and the fourth (a little) shots are probably more what I'm looking for.

'Tract Houses' Second and Third Shoots

These two images are from my second shoot, again in Blackpool. I have decided to stop worrying so much about whether the houses are lived in or not (Baltz, upon closer inspection, did shoot houses that were lived in as well as the un-lived in ones.)

I really don't like these images. I think the composition is off and the style does not fit. Particularly the second image. I need to find some plainer buildings and focus more on details I think.

These next houses are slightly better approached. I think these are beginging to become a bit stronger as images. I think the closest to a final I have shot so far would be the second of these. I also think the last one is getting a little closer to what it should be.

I think the fact there is less overt brick work also helps in making these work better.

'Tract Houses' First Shoot

These are the first images for my chosen book, Lewis Baltz - Tract Houses.

There are obvious differences in the brick and overall designs of the houses as well as their surroundings.

My major problem with these houses is although they are all on ongoing developments, they are all liven in and undeniably lived in. Although there are several housing developments in operation in the Blackpool are at the moment, I fear I will be hard done by to find an un-lived in house as due to the recession many developments are just starting back up, and many are only doing so with guaranteed buyers.

Aside from the final image I think the style of the images is coming on a little. I would like to find some plainer designed houses. Although the difference between the two could be seen in an interesting light with regards to America-UK and 1970/1-2010.

Lewis Baltz

So maybe I declared I was going to focus on David Bailey's NW1 for the M.H.B. However upon further advice ive looked more into the monographs of Robert Adams, Joel Sternfeld and Lewis Baltz. Whilst the Adams books we're ones I would like to pursue, the Sternfeld book i felt would not be a good choice because there is something so American about the photographs and plasticaised almost in parts (I've been studying 'American Prospects') I dont think it deserves to be tainted by myself.

The Tract Houses on the otherhand, one of the Baltz books I've been looking at I feel would be interesting to explore.

Tract Houses are a very American invention, the major developments with only a few variations in structure and design. The obvious English equivalent is the council house, but what about private developers? David Wilson, for example, use the same basic structure for a number of housing developments in different areas at the same time. So although not strictly a tract house in that the size of the developments are much smaller, it is part of a repetitive design. Below is 'Carron' this is style and very similiar ones are all the range right now at David Wilson. I'd count how many times the designs used but theres 143 developments across the UK

Tract House # 1

Tract House # 10

Tract House # 11

Tract House # 15

Tract House # 20

Robert Frank + Bernard Plossu

Robert Frank.

Iconic.

Topographer.

Denver.

I've never seen much of Robert Franks 'Denver' but what I have is quite beautiful.

"In Adams' words he "wanted to explore whether a romantic view of Denver and the American West was entirely wrong." In 93 photographs he presented his critique of America's poor stewardship of the land with rapid expansion of housing and obsessive consumption." (5b4.blogspot.com)

Is romantasing a place necessarily a bad thing?

It's much more aesthetically pleasing. Which is always nice.

Denver is very polished. Although not all nice new subjects, nothing is overly 'dirty' so to speak. I think b&w has a part to play in this to some extent. Most things look nicer (in this style, subject matter) in b&w to an extent. Straight lines are very important.

Bernard Plossu.

Stumbled by him by accident. Although the websites I have been looking at tend to be in French I know he is a documentary photographer alleged to have 'bridged the gap' between American and European photography in the 70's and 80's.

Although I'm not entirely sure what this works about its entitled "Plossu couleur Fresson" It's Plossu's first (published/shown?) colour photographs, prior to this he was know exclusively for his b&w photos. This work is printed on Charcol paper, hence the inclusion of 'Fresson' in the title.

the images themselves date from 1965-2005. Theres no logical correlation and yet the images fit together. They create a questioning audience.

Californie 1974

Mexico 1966

Mexique 1966

Roads, Monument Valley 1982

Santa-Fe Nouveau Mexique

Sofa rouge de Carlos Serrano, Madrid 1975

Taos, Mexique 1979

John Humble + NW1 + M.H.B.

John Humble.

This is the Los Angeles that John Humble loves... this is the Los Angeles that John Humble photographs. From the roof view of his 1970's van (John built a platform on his van's roof to accommodate his large-format camera and provide a better view for recording the street and its context), from the freeway overpasses, from the water... his handiwork and craftsmanship... what he makes... serves as a window into this feeling of "L.A.". It is a certain and loving view into its character, into its beauty. Like Eggleston with his beloved South, this is a personal diary into the sprawl, a look at the skin of the city… a view into the vast ocean of concrete ugliness… no, a celebration of the ugliness... a beauty that is this concrete ugliness, an ugliness that is beauty. In the concrete and in the metal, in the waterways (In the late 1990s Humble began documenting the Los Angeles River, charting its 51-mile course from the headlands in Canoga Park to its mouth in Long Beach) and in the electric towers, in the foliage and in the steel bars... in the man made, in the man-nature and in the feeling that comes in viewing these things... in the lives that live amongst these things, amongst this concrete... this is a living monolith.

Doug Rickard (American Suburb X).

I never photograph the places I love the most. WHY. Because I think they loose all of their meanings when I photograph them. Like I cant capture what they mean to me. I dont feel I've done them justice. Saying that, how many places could I photograph as truly meaningful? My images strip away something, they're not de-humanised per se as the whole point of many of them (aside being documents) is to show the human impact..?! maybe. Atget has always been my photographic hero. Humble has been doing a similiar thing (well, so has Eggleston, Sally Mann, Richard Billingham etc etc etc) documenting something that means alot to him. I cant make that connection. I need new places, new things to photograph. without any memories. does this affect my work? how? for better.. or for worse...

For the Mishka Henner brief (M.H.B.) I've initially chosen David Baileys NW1. I like it's simplicity and its intimacy. The simplicity? Yes. I can manage this. The intimacy? PROBLEM. Do I engage with the subject?