A prize-winning image?
Man asleep on the Golden Mile, Durban, South Africa. Image copyright Michelle Sank
The single image winner of BJP's International Photography Award generated an unprecedented response this year, much of it questioning why the shot was chosen. Here Nick Galvin, archive manager of Magnum London and one of the judges, gives his thoughts
Author: Nick Galvin
27 Oct 2010 Tags: IpaDocumentaryExhibitions
Why pick the Michelle Sank image as an award winner? It’s a good question. Just what makes for a typical award-winning photograph? Another good question and one obviously open to debate as everyone will have favourites and conceptions about what the favourites might be.
The answer will always be evaluative and personal, so by choosing this I was not saying this is the best image in the world - it is not. It does however have a subtle quality. A cursory glance might dismiss it and those who are looking for the romantic ideal of a muscular photojournalism are unlikely to find it rewarding. It is not really a journalistic image, and should not be judged as such. As a single image it becomes isolated, it loses context and without such context the image itself does not really dictate to the viewer what it is about; possibly it has nothing profound to say about the world beyond that the fact the photographer took a picture of a man who was using a bag of bread to shield his face as he slept.
The image however does force questions. Another cursory glance could say it is an image of poverty, however it isn’t; its visual clues of poverty such as the dirty hoodie butt up against its other clues, the rolled up magazine in the back pocket and the bagged bread. The picture does not give up an easy answer; its meaning is unresolved which makes for uncomfortable viewing, so uncomfortable as to be easily dismissed out of hand. When this image was first suggested I dismissed it – I didn’t like it, but it grew on me. Why is this? I could drone on about abstracted formal qualities, colour and textual relationships and the like but that wouldn’t answer it. I liked this image because it challenged me – challenged my assumptions about photography in ways the other images in the award didn’t. Whilst most were technically proficient, and many were good photographs, many were derivative with familiar subjects; they simply looked like other peoples work. This is a problem.
The problem is that there is no one photography but many photographies; reportage, wedding, fashion, advertising, and art. In other words photography is a medium with many messages; each is not simple and discrete but concurrent, and increasingly the edges blur. The BJP award has to take this into consideration, and the work has to be judged with this in mind. Michelle Sank’s image is one such image that defies simple photographic convention.
Saying all this there is, of course, a place for the traditional humanistic view of photojournalism but this is not to say that all photography should follow some proscriptive type, as the danger exists that it will become ossified in its own academic structures as the culture shifts, to become desiccated and remote as any bunch of dusty academic paintings which now lie forgotten. Sometimes photographers have to take risks – not just in photographing a subject, but to take risks with the image itself. As culture shifts photography has to move with it, to change and challenge if it is to remain vital. Good photography should challenge, otherwise it could so easily be ignored.
Comments
Will I still be looking at it 100 years from now?
Does this photo have the potential to last? I don't know. Right now I find it intriguing because I don't understand it. But will I slowly lose interest in it? I think so. Perhaps this photo is better as a portfolio? I think so - then I would have understood the right context to place this photo in and make sense of it.
That hole you,re digging is getting deeper by the minute.
You can drone on about abstracted formal qualities, colour and textual relationships, all you like, the fact is that anyone with a camera could have taken that picture, The fact that this was even chosen says more about the BJP than the picture says about , well, anything really.
Brilliant, I love it... and especially because of the last paragraph, I agree that "Good photography should challenge, otherwise it could so easily be ignored." I think this is so important for photography today and irrelevant to whether you like the image or not I think this photo certainly achieves this.
That's the problem with contests
Art is a very subjective thing and even the most expert opinion is just that. Many photo competitions use ONE judge, which further invalidates the concept. I personally think these contests are a money-making racket designed to further enrich the players in the system that already hold too much of the power.
What's right and what's wrong?
Without seeing what the shortlists are, its difficult to make a judgment as to whether this is the best image to be awarded the top prize. Is this what contemporary photography means? ie. the banality of imagery. That the judges have to justify their choice and define what good photography means?
While there's merit to some of Nick Galvins comments, fact is that for me the image just isn't strong enough to score a big hit on it's own; it may work within a wider set but will still be weak. I've never really bought the "because it hasn't been done before" argument; inevitably many images have a resemblance to others that have gone before (with or without the photographers knowledge), but that doesn't necessarily invalidate them as good or even great images. Equally, just because something hasn't been done doesn't necessarily mean it should be. Many of the images in this months "art" issue strike me as distinctly dull and mechanical, as, shorn of context, does this image as a competition winner.
Perhaps because we are meant to want to like it.. to be with the Professional In crowd. I don't get.
I wonder why I've not seen similar pictures from Cartier-Bresson, Avedon, even David Bailey, etc., etc?
IMHO, a good picture immediately grabs your attention - and holds it. You can marvel at clever use of repeated patterns and the design involved, etc.
I can't see anything of real merit in the winning pic. And I don't think paragraphs of waffle, a typical 'art' academic's response, is going to turn a poor picture into a good one...
Ask the wrong question, and you'll get a stupid answer
This is why photography contests, in general, are quite stupid. The judgements that matter are totally subjective. On the one hand you get judges who get their jollies from picking bland and impenetrable pictures and on the other, literalist morons (see this comment thread) who can understand postcard shots but not much more. In the end, no one comes out ahead.
Did Nick Galvin really look at the photo??
He writes: "a man who was using a bag of bread to shield his face as he slept."
This is not the case. He is lying on his left shoulder and his face is looking away from the camera.
On the other hand I think I begin to like the photo. It would have been even better if we didn't know what is was about and still gotten this award. I like awkward photos (which anyone can take). Not all of them have the intriguing qualities of this one. I don't care how of by whom a photo was taken. If it was easy or hard. If the person was a Magnum photographer of my next door neighbor with his $100 compact. i don't care if it doesn't fit the rules or the current photographic style.
Hmm, I don't know what to think of this picture, it doesn't really strike me to be honest, and you can say that it's out of context without the rest of the set, but correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a single image award? It shouldn't need the rest of the series to make it work.
"Whilst most were technically proficient, and many were good photographs, many were derivative with familiar subjects; they simply looked like other peoples work."
And, unfortunately, so does this. Put it in the context of Paul Graham's work 'shimmer of possibility' and it wouldn't look out of place. Same subject, similar palette. Not to knock Michelle Sank - I like her other work which is, in a lot of ways, less derivative than this. Perhaps the judges were trying just a bit too hard and the winning image says more about them than the photographer.
So, if I understand correctly this is a winning photo because it has no qualities that attract people to look at it. It challenges the viewer to find some reason to like it enough to take the time to look at it. It offers so little in terms of information that it challenges the viewer to figure out why the photographer took the shot or if she simply hit the button by mistake.
Whatever happened to the concept that images communicate, "a picture is worth a thousand words" and all that? I guess photography is devalued in the current recession and it is now only worth a few letters, not even a whole word.
Oh dearie me - why don't the judges just admit it - they was pissed, wore blindfolds, and used darts.
A agree 100% with the judges' choice, and the rancor and cry that it has inspired only reinforces the notion that photography runs the risk of becoming predictable and uninspiring if those that still worship at the altar of HCB have their way.
HCB, as brilliant as a photographer that he was, is dead. Much of his most iconic work is decades old; it's time for new voices.
It is so obvious really, a crap image, justified by pseudo art talk. A classic case of the emperor's new clothes, only here just about everyone can see that there is nothing there!
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