Inspired by... immediate family

'No!' c. 2003 ©  Lise Utne

(By Lise Utne)

How can we ever say anything truthful about life, except through something of which we have first-hand knowledge? And yet, how can we be certain of our observations? Do we ever know the truth about others, no matter how close to us they may be? Do we even know the truth about ourselves? Is there such a thing as ‘the truth’? If I set out to show something real and truthful, all it will ever present is one tiny aspect of a complex reality. And yet, even that small glimpse may be too much, for how can I be certain that what I see is mine to show if it involves others? Thus, even self-exposure is potentially difficult terrain, since lives are always intertwined.

There are laws regulating these matters, of course, and unwritten codes of conduct accompanied by more or less severe sanctions on different levels. But some well-known photographers seem to have managed to navigate the complex territory of photographing their own family and friends and ‘living to tell the tale’ – to the enrichment of us all.

Nan Goldin’s extensive photographic record of her friends and lovers – her ‘tribe’, as she calls them – is an intimate exposure of a chosen non-conformist lifestyle. While in

From Nan Goldin (2003)  
The Devil's Playground *

some senses continuing the tradition of the family album (she photographs the people close to her over time), Goldin breaks radically with the convention that only the happy moments, the highlights, should be recorded and remembered. Her tender and honest photographic approach takes in the subjects’ ups and downs with the same open gaze – birth, love, sex, intoxication, dependency and death are all allowed into the ‘album’. Sometimes the camera records her parents and other relatives, and she has regularly turned the gaze on herself. ‘Nan after being battered, 1984’ (see The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, 1986; or I'll Be Your Mirror, 1996) was taken in the aftermath of an attack by her then boyfriend to remind her that although she did not want to give up the rewards of her intimacy with him, it would be unwise to go back. Perhaps her entire oeuvre can be a reminder to the rest of us that life is not black or white. Neither is it grey, as testified by Goldin’s often beautiful use of colour.

Richard Billingham’s photographs of what is often described as his ‘dysfunctional family’ were meant as sketches for paintings, but became a book in their own right (Ray’s a Laugh, 1996, an expensive collectors’ item). They are all the more striking for their raw observation of the photographer’s own family members, challenging the myth that family life is necessarily a territory of happiness.

From Sally Mann (1992) 
Immediate Family **

There are others too, of course, but I shall restrict myself to one additional name. Sally Mann's portraits of her own children in Immediate Family were taken with her son and daughters’ collaboration (with a large and cumbersome camera). Above all, they seem to reveal children’s immediate presence in their own bodies and their unconditional trust in those who are close to them – although some may see the beautiful black and white aesthetic qualities linking them to a tradition of art celebrating beauty as an end in itself as more prominent. Injuries and hints at looming dangers widen the catalogue of subjects traditionally addressed in a parent’s photographs of their children. At the same time, taking the immediate family as the subject of self-conscious artistic treatment was not a commonplace approach in the early 1990s. The great controversy accompanying the pictures’ publication, though, seemed to be about the children’s vulnerability, and especially their state of undress in some of the photographs, exposing the photographer to criticism about the ethics of her approach from some quarters.

I admire Sally Mann’s photographs greatly. She brings out the tensions in a seemingly idyllic setting; the fears that something might go wrong: life is unpredictable, and there is only so much we can do to protect our loved ones from harm.

The difficult lifestyles and acute human tensions of the relationships involved in the relationship between photographer and subject in those photographs by Nan Goldin and Richard Billingham make them seem particularly true and honest and open. In addition, the formal qualities of these works make them seem closer to home, both figuratively and literally speaking – although the situations shown are mostly not the stuff of traditional family albums. Nan Goldin’s self-declared aesthetic starting point is the snapshot:  

Fever. 28th August 2007  
©  Lise Utne 

‘My work does come from the snapshot. It’s the form of photography that is most defined by love. People take them out of love, and they take them to remember – people, places, and times. They’re about creating a history by recording a history. And that’s exactly what my work is about. The reason I’ve maintained that “snapshot aesthetic” is because I think the snapshot is one of the highest forms of photography.’ (‘On Acceptance: A Conversation. Nan Goldin talking with David Armstrong and Walter Keller.’ In I'll Be Your Mirror, p. 450.)

I feel enriched by those famous photographers’ courage to show some of the more challenging aspects of human relationships using the aesthetics of the family snapshot, or to treat the seemingly mundane events of family life with all the trappings of an art-photography approach. Nevertheless, some of my happiest photographic moments are spent poring over the family albums, or when I have managed to take what I consider a good snapshot of my own close family or friends (sometimes unwittingly inspired by those great names). But whether truth and honesty come into it at all, I don't know.

* The spread shows the works ‘My father shaving, Swampscott, Massachusetts, 1997’ and ‘My mother doing Tai Chi, Swampscott, Massachusetts, 1997’.
** The work shown here is ‘Last Light, 1990’.

Bibliography:
Richard Billingham (1996) Ray's a Laugh. Zürich/New York/London: Scalo Verlag.
Nan Goldin (2003) The Devil's Playground. New York/London: Phaidon.
Nan Goldin / Elisabeth Sussmann (1996) I'll Be Your Mirror. New York / Zürich: Whitney Museum of American Art / Scalo Verlag.
Nan Goldin (1986) The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. New York: Aperture.
Sally Mann (1992) Immediate Family. London: Phaidon.