Feedback from my tutor suggested that:

Maybe you could have tried to replicate the lighting in the original. Notice the shadow on the original, it helps provide interest, it provides a raw earthy quality to the image.

Looking back at the original image, the shadows are created by the object sitting in a depression created to hold it in place, possibly for security and presentation. This would be tricky to replicate in reality but I had taken a couple of shots that had some shadow detail which I thought was distracting at the time. Looking at them with fresh eyes I might not think of this as distracting. (Contact sheet 6)

Contact sheet 6

I decided to crop to a square format as per the original Japanese image. It makes for a more powerful image. I wanted to remove the sterile feel so added a warm filter to the image.(Fig.7)

Fig.7

The shadow and the square format create a more powerful earthy image.

Brief:

Recreate a well-known image in any of the 4 genres you have explored. Consider the conventions, styles and themes specific to the genre and how the image you choose to re-create speaks to those. You are free to interpret ‘re-creation’ as imaginatively as you like, subverting conventions or adhering to them.

Share

Using the Challenging Genres Forum share your work, including; your image, the image that inspired it and a short paragraph explaining your process.

Reflect

Write up the activity on your learning log. After sharing the image and receiving some feedback, reflect on the experience in a short post on your learning log.

The image I have chosen to “re create” is of a pocket watch belonging to a victim of the Atomic bomb (Little boy) dropped on Hiroshima at 08:15 on the 6th August 1945. (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1

I visited the Peace Museum in Hiroshima several years ago and it had a profound affect on me. There were several time pieces on display but the pocket watch which had stopped at the exact time the bomb hit, was extremely powerful and moving. There were also several photographs of it and other artefacts, and it occurred to me that these must be some of the most meaningful and powerful photographs of all time. I didn’t think of them as “Still Life” photographs, to me they were very much a record of an historical event. At this time in my life the words “still life” brought to mind art, flowers, fruit etc…… certainly not something as profound and important as this or something that had been photographed as part of a historical record.

As a photograph it allows those people who are unable to see it in person, to view it online, or in publications. It is a record of an artefact bearing the scars and damage of one of the worst actions undertaken by humana beings. It acts as a reminder to try and ensure that these types of atrocities never happen again. I also now see it as a very powerful “Still Life” photograph.

The photograph itself had been taken as a record of the artefact, and indeed when viewed in the  A-Bomb database it is very much part of a record. (Fig.2)

Fig. 2

The watch has been photographed on a plain white background, which looks to have some texture. The objects looks like it might be sitting recessed area specifically created to fit it exactly and has been photographed in situ. It is a clear and well exposed image. There are no distractions, with the hands sitting clearly at just past the 08:15 mark on the watch face. The discolouration and marks are also clearly visible. There is no hidden or subtle meaning being hinted at by using more complex backgrounds, light and shade or other codes that are often part of the still life genre. It marks the moment the world changed for tens of thousands of victims and for many other people round the world and does this by the most simple of compositions.

I did a bit of research on the make of watch which is clearly visible on the face and came up with something quite ironic in relation to the shock proofing of this particular make of watch!

The Moeris Watch Factory was established in 1893 in Saint-Imier. The company was a high-volume maker, producing more than 10 million watches by 1957. At that time, the company sold upscale watches with 17 or 25 jewels and Incabloc shock protection.(Foskett, n.d.)

Incabloc is a common shock protection system used in mechanical watches, recognizable due to its lyre-shaped spring.(Foskett, n.d.)

Incabloc was developed in 1933 and introduced in its current form in 1938. It remains one of the most popular shock protection methods.(Foskett, n.d.)

I wanted to re create something that had meaning, that was personal, and would be provoke both sad and pleasant memories and a reminder of times past. I also wanted to mark a very important moment in my life and one that I suspect many people will be able to relate to.

My mum wore wristwatch everyday and it was on the beside table beside her when she died. It was the first thing that I looked at once I realised she had passed away, and remember it clearly showing 1:30 on the dial. It was of course part of the small parcel of possessions that I brought home with me after her death in January 1999. It was a “good” passing it was an expected passing, and although it was a very difficult time and I look back on it now with sadness, I am also very grateful that it was so peaceful. She wrote a diary entry everyday for the last year of her life, the last entry being 27th December 1998, which was about 2 weeks before she died. A few hours after her death I wrote an entry detailing the the date and time of her death which was 1:30am on the 9th of January 1999.

I wanted the image to be a record of that moment but perhaps to be less cold and sterile than the pocket watch “artefact” photograph

I wondered if, rather than having the watch sitting on a plain background, if an image of me wearing it whilst getting on with my life (as such) would make for a more personal image? I still wanted the watch face to be the main focus of the image with the hands and time clearly visible. (Contact sheet 001)

Contact Sheet 1

I feel that the arm, cuff and general background are a bit distracting and although make the images a bit more personal they are taking the focus off the watch face. Image 929 is the least distracting but the arm is not really coming across as an arm/wrist and is a bit distracting for that reason rather than because of the background. Image 931 is the one that appeals to me the most due to the angle of the hand and wrist. The watch is clearly the focus in this image even though there are still some distracting elements.

I realised that my mum wore her watch on her left wrist and I wear mine on my right. I automatically placed her watch on my right wrist. I’m not sure it matters! But I changed it over anyway. A few more shots on my wrist and some with a plain background. (Contact sheet 2)

Contact sheet 2

I am finding the simplicity of the images with the plain background very appealing, particularly image 946, but they are very cold and sterile which is what I said I didn’t want. There is also a strong shadow coming from the left which is distracting and serving no purpose.

… a simple or abstract background gives more focus, quite literally, to the objet itself in the foreground. Taken out of context, an object has more emotive power. The focus on the object gives and informational value (“denotation” in semiotics) to the object” (David Bate, Photography: The Key Concepts, p151)

The next set with a mix of tungsten and tungsten with a bit of natural light (Contact sheet 3)

Contact sheet 3

Much warmer and less sterile. I am finding Images 956 and 953 the most appealing. I also noticed small marks and scratches on the face which I hadn’t seen previously and are definitely adding an extra dimension to the image. (Fig. 3,4)

Although the reflections are helping to highlight the marks and scratches on fig 4, they are making it harder to pick out the detail in the face. It also struck me that at that time of the morning there would have been no natural light so this colour tone, which is more pronounced in fig 3  would be more of a representation of the light at the time.

Fig. 3 Has allowed for space around the object making it very much the focus of the image. There is nothing else to look at. It has a warm feel to it and the hands sitting at 1:30 are prominent. This image feels right from a personal and emotional perspective. It resembles the original pocket watch image more than I imagined it would as I thought it would be hard to get across what I wanted to in such a simple way. However, when I look back at the original image it is clear that sometimes the simpler something is, the more profound and powerful it can be.

Fig. 3

Share

Using the Challenging Genres Forum share your work, including; your image, the image that inspired it and a short paragraph explaining your process.

I pointed people to the blog post which contained all the information relating to my re created image and have started gathering and commenting on the feedback below. I found all the feedback really helpful and interesting.

Feedback:

One piece of feedback from my peers which was really helpful said

“blurring of distinctions between genres. To me this is as much a documentary image as a still life. The way you have identified the personal aspects of the image and linked it into you’re own personal story seems to me to make your image as much a portrait as anything else”

I really hadn’t thought about this at all. I can sometimes get too focused and miss things and I think this might be one of those occasions. I got so involved in creating a still life with some meaning that I didn’t see anything else. It also brought to mind the Introduction section that we were asked to read as part of this project in Bates, The Key Concepts. It states that

“…. in the same way that the film poster image created an expectation of the film, so a genre in photography – portrait, landscape, still-life, documentary, etc. create expectations for the meanings and experience to be derived from that type of picture” (Bate, 2016)

I wonder if because I was working under the heading of “Still Life” that’s all I was seeing when I was looking for and creating an image. The other genres and their particular features had been completely ignored. I was lucky that the feedback was coming from people who were working on genres other than still life, so perhaps the fact that they were focused on their particular genre, made it easier for them to see aspects of it in my image.

Some more feedback

“the lower part of the watch is slightly out of focus – is this intentional?”

…then, followed that up with

“(One could argue that the memory is fading, but with looking at the watch it comes back?)”

I had in fact noticed it and it was due to a shallow depth of field and angle. There was a very strong shadow being thrown onto the image so the angle of the shot was used to eliminate it.  I decided to not to retake it because I quite liked it. At the time I couldn’t say why I liked it, but I think it might give the image a very slight ethereal look without being too “airy fairy”. It moves the image further away from being functional.  I was also pleased and surprised to read that someones own imagination had been sparked by this unintentional “feature”.

One thing that really surprised me was that generally people “Got it” either the way I intended them to or in another more personal way.

Bibliography

Fig1,2
Available at: https://hpmm-db.jp/list/detail/cate=artifact_en&search_type=detail&data_id=23484
[Accessed 21 September 2022].

Bate, D., 2016. Photography. 2nd ed. Abingdon and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, p.5.

Bate, D., 2016. Photography. 2nd ed. Abingdon and New York: Bloomsbury Academic,

Foskett, S., n.d. Moeris [Watch Wiki]. [online] Watch-wiki.net.
Available at: <https://www.watch-wiki.net/doku.php?id=moeris&gt;
[Accessed 21 September 2022].

Brief:

• Read the Introduction from David Bates, Photography: The Key Concepts (2009) Bloomsbury.
• Note down your thoughts in response to this reading.

This book will provide you with further reading throughout this course and you can freely dip into it. There will also be points in the course where you will be directed to particular chapters.

As the book suggests, Genres have very much been a part of film and I would say generally thought about by the majority in terms of film by many (me included). I have thought about them more in photography terms in the last couple of years but it is still a word I link to film theory first. I also think of them in relation to paintings and in particular Still Life and Landscape

The Introduction talks about the predefined “scene” modes in some cameras and this made me realise that I didn’t really know what kind settings these scene modes have. I could guess what some of them might include,  but had never really thought about it. I suspect that when I used a camera that had these scene modes I took it for granted that the camera knew more than I did! My current camera doesn’t have them as such, so maybe I don’t take the quintessential “landscapes” or “portraits” that my old cameras would suggest.  I am certainly going to go and have a look at my “point and shoot” to see what differences these modes create.

The idea that the category or genre applied to a photograph informs the expectation of the viewer is also something I had never consciously thought about, but there is no doubt that it does. I would expect photographs that come into the portrait genre to be more than a physical likeness of a person. I would expect passport photographs to be a physical likeness only. The passport office almost instruct you to create a photo with nothing else but. This got me wondering what I would see (make up in my head) if a was looking at several passport photos in a portrait gallery, without knowing they were passport photos. Would my expectations override the reality. Or is it impossible to hide some parts of the real person or their emotions in a photo?

I found this introduction raised lots of questions  and I always look forward to digging around into ideas that have been raised either through reading, looking at other photographers work or perhaps through film and generally sometimes just “looking” and listening” I did, however get a bit overwhelmed by the last couple of paragraphs and very much wanted it to end on a more simple note. Putting the words semiotics, psychoanalysis, sociology and philosophy all in one sentence is something guaranteed to make me, and I would imagine others, run for the hills!

After running for the hills and coming back again, I think this is going to be a very informative and useful book.