"Circumstances Alter Photographs" - the first known combat photographs

Two cannons fire on Batoche during the shelling that began the battle.

In last Saturday's Globe & Mail I came across a new book called Circumstances Alter Photographs (Talon Books) abut the photographs taken by Captain James Peters during the 1885 North-West Resistance/Rebellion in Canada's West. (Be sure to check out the G&M link as it may disappear behind a pay-per-view firewall)

Funnily enough I had come across these photographs a couple of years ago while researching the Metis and the Battle of Batoche and while I found them interesting I didn't twig to their wider place in photographic history (Doh - damn you tunnel vision and deadlines...).

The book is by Michael Barnholden and appears to be an extension of a thesis he wrote at Simon Fraser University.

I find these pictures fascinating for several reasons. The main one being that as far as I am aware these are the first extant photographs taken during actual combat. Unlike the earlier war photography of Fenton and the Crimea or Brady et al and the American Civil War these were taken as the fighting took place and the bullets and canon-balls were actually flying past rather than during the aftermath of battle.

A house in Batoche burns after being hit by cannon fire.

Those earlier war photographers were limited by the cameras and film of the mid 1850's to taking pictures of static scenes - soldiers at rest in camp or of the dead on the battlefield after the battle was over. Of course some of this was very effective and lasting photography having eventually become iconic - Fenton's Valley of the Shadow of Death or Or Gardener's The home of a Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg. But until cameras become somewhat smaller and more portable and film improved, photographing during battle was virtually impossible.

Captain James Peters with his camera

By the time Captain Peters rode into battle as part of the North West Field Force in 1885 in what is now the province of Saskatchewan, cameras and film had reached that point, just - his photographs clearly suffer from being taken hand-held, often from the saddle. And it seems that from both inexperience as well as the heat of battle Peter's admits to not being bothered too much by getting the correct exposures... Peters used a "Naturalist' Twin-Lens Camera" such as made by Rowland Ward & Co. London. But even so, these photographs show a unique aspect of what was both something of a turning point in both modern warfare and the history of Canada.

Peters was a Captain and Battery Commander in the Royal Canadian Artillery and also acted as a correspondent for the Quebec Morning Chronicle (Peters was a Militia officer) during the course of the campaign:

"On Friday, April 24, 1885, Captain James Peters took the world’s first battlefield photographs under fire at the battle of Fish Creek in the Canadian Northwest Territory of Saskatchewan. As Captain of the Royal Canadian Artillery’s “A” Battery—part of the North West Field Force—he subsequently managed to expose over seventy glass plates for
the duration of the battles at Duck Lake and Batoche as well, many of them again during combat with the enemy, both on the ground and on horseback. In addition to his photographic documentation of the “Northwest Rebellion” he was also a war correspondent for the Quebec Morning Chronicle. His regular dispatches, together with his images,serve as a pioneering addition to the history of war correspondents and are presented here for the first time in their entirety.

This watershed in the documentation of history was created by photographic technology, advanced to the point where “naturalist” or “detective” cameras, which came on the market in 1883, could be carried slung over the shoulder. Their faster shutter speed now allowed for hand-held photography. These cameras used coated plates that did not require preparation and could be stored for later development. Suddenly, the only restriction on any photographer was access to the action.

Neglected for over 120 years, these images literally shine new light on the War of 1885—particularly the second part of the campaign against the Indiansunder Big Bear, Poundmaker and Miserable Man. They are frankly astonishing in both their eerily haunting visual impact and as much by the mere fact that they even still exist." (From Talon Books)

James Peters' first photograph of battle action at Fish Creek: He shot it from his horse as bullets whizzed around him.

The North-West Rebellion (or Resistance as it is now more often described) may not be quite so well known outside Canada, but was significant for several reasons. It was the point at which the new country of Canada decided to impose it's will on the still developing western prairies, using military force to do so. This led to the effective repression of the long established Metis (mixed raced) people of the West as a homogeneous group or people along with their established (and in many ways unique) ideas for nationhood, law and settlement. It also paved the way for the removal of the aboriginal peoples from their land and into small reservations, opening up he West to much grater settlement and as destination for immigrants.

In military terms it was a fairly short, though not initially decisive, campaign. Despite their superior numbers and equipment the Canadian force came off worse in some of the initial engagements (losing the Battle of Fish Creek) and the Metis showed themselves as effective and tough guerrilla fighters. But as the Canadian Dominion government and forces manged to effectively prevent the wider spread of the Resistance and it came to a final conflict around the community of Batoche. But even then it was no sure thing and the battle lasted for four brutal days until the Metis were defeated and their leader - Louis Riel - captured, later to be hanged.

Notable in helping turn the fight in this final battle, aside from the overwhelming numbers of Dominion troops (about 250 Metis held out against about 1,000 Canadian troops) - was he experimental use of the Gatling Gun on loan from the US Army. While it's use alone may not have been completely decisive in the battle it showed how highly effective the rapid firing weapon was, heralding the arrival of modern warfare as it moved from slow single fire weapons to such highly devastating rapid fire weapons.

Louis Riel in custody after the Battle of Batoche.

The North-West Resistance - with the added impact of these photographs - is actually a fascinating look at the development of the North American Western Prairies and has everything a good (but sadly futile) story needs: a tragic but charismatic visionary leader - part poet, part mystic, part political genius; a blinkered "colonial' judiciary; a quietly brilliant guerrilla leader; a possibly crazy yet brilliant young Anglo idealist; a weak government and a Prime Minister who gives in to saving his own butt and to the power of big money; double crossing priests, deception and double agents. Ultimately, political weakness, the power of that big money - and the overwhelming power of the Canad in Pacific Railway - led to the crushing of a dream that may well have produced a very different country had it been nurtured instead of destroyed.

Finally, returning to the photographs, Barnholden takes the tittle of his book - and as the core of the ideas he develops about photography - from words Captain Peters wrote for and article in the Canadian Militia Magazine called "Photographs Taken Under Fire":

"I am convinced of one fact, and that is that no tripod instrument would for a moment survive such a trip; nor would it do for taking pictures in action, for I found that the rebel marksmen of the far West did not give an amateur photographer much time with his 'quickest shutter', and I tremble to think of the fate of the artist who would attempt to erect his tripod where the enemy possessed such a large number of 'spotters', as they call the expert riflemen of the plains. Some of them were vain enough to allow me an occasional instantaneous snap; but their desire never went so far as to allow the planting of the three sticks or the focussing with a black cloth. I marked the sighting or focus on the side for two distances, one at twelve paces (which it is needless to state was only for dead men). For the live rebels, I generally, for fear of fogging, took them from a distance, as far and as quickly as possible. All these little contrivances, and many more are necessary when one is trying to take a portrait of an ungrateful enemy. Numbers of my plates are under timed; but I am not particular. Those taken when the enemy had surrendered, and were unarmed, made better negatives, but 'circumstances alter photographs"'. (The Canadian Militia Gazette Vol I, No. 32 p252 15 December 1885)

I think the book includes a number of Peter's dispatched and letters which are in themselves quite fascinating, especially when he talks about his photography. A pdf of the earlier, thesis version of Barnholden's book can be found at the Simon Fraser University Library and includes many of Peter's dispatches as well as copies of many more of his photographs.

(btw, I haven't actually had chance yet to read the book itself - though I have looked at a number of the photographs - I'm waiting for it from the University Library here)

Basia Bulat

Just came across Basia Bulat - a young Canadian indie singer (learn more at the CBC) - and her new release A Heart of My Own.

Love it. Full of vibrant energy, lightens and cheers the spirit. She seems to be able to move from a sound that is Renaissance chamber music to deep in the ancient Polish forest to folk/country/indie to almost, but not quite, Celtic all in one song.

Listen to tracks below plus a video (Link to her label Rough Trade here).

Bulat is on tour in Canada and the US right now.

The autoharp... who knew! (and my guess is that the album cover photo shows some of the beautiful landscape of the Yukon Territory around Dawson, heart of the Gold Rush??)

(you have to actually click on the watch "Gold Rush" link above to see it.

Interesting - "Copycat or Not" - Burdeny vs. Leong

Well I must say this is interesting. From PDN Pulse - Copycat or Not? Photographer Challenged Over Look-Alike Work with an important follow up here: Copycat or Not, Part II: A Case of Nothing New Under the Sun? - about Daivid Burdeny and Sze Tsung Leong (and to some degree, Elger Esser who, as far as I am aware, is essentially the progenitor of this sort of work).

According to PDN Pulse Leong and gallerist Yosi Milo have come out and essentially seem to have accused Burdeny of plagiarism:

“These [Burdeny] works are identical [to Leong’s], particularly the pyramid [image],” says Leong’s New York gallerist, Yossi Milo. “The scale, the feel, the look—the similarities are quite alarming.” Milo says he learned of Burdeny’s work earlier this month after it went on exhibit at the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery in Vancouver. Milo notified Leong, who contacted his lawyer.

while

"Burdeny denies it, saying the similarities arose because he happened to shoot from some of the same tourist spots. And, he added, photographers--even famous ones--often mimic each other's work. So why single out Burdeny?"

Sze Tsung Leong, Seine I, 2006.

David Burdeny, River Seine II, Paris, 2009.

Sze Tsung Leong's "Horizons" exhibit, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, April 2008.

David Burdeny's "Sacred and Secular" exhibit, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver, January 2010.

See the PDN Pulse articles above for a full range of examples

I talked about Burdeny not very long ago and mentioned that stylistically the work reminded me of Elger Essers work. As well as general "style" I was also thinking of the particular Esser picture that is very similar to the Paris/Seine photograph as the PDN piece shows (note that the Esser photograph isn't soft focus, it's just a poor quality jpg).

With hindsight I realise that the other chord being struck was indeed that of Leong's work. But as I'd only ever looked at maybe two or three of Leong's photographs - and never seen how they were sequenced - I hadn't caught all the correspondences.

So, what do you think? Copycat? Or as Burdeny seems to be arguing (and as PDN puts it with a little help from Ecclesiastes) nothing new under the sun? Everyone just happened to be photographing the same well know scenes from the same Kodak Viewpoint?

As a postscript I find that neither Burdeny's work (nor Leong's for that matter) comes close to Esser's.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed Shortly

Due to a couple of technological meltdowns, posts to Musings have been somewhat delayed.

This has also delayed the print exchange which should now run during March (see 2. below).

1. My old Windows 2000 PC finally began gasping its last... and so I was busy making sure everything was safely back up. And we are now running as iMusings... having moved to Snow Leopard/Mac.

2. I discovered where the gerbil spent part of his recent few hours on the lam - apparently living inside my printer! So I'm seeing if various wiring can be replaced and chewed plastic ignored or a replacement is called for :-(

So hopefully more posts soon

2009 Photobooks pt. II

(Photo: Karin Apollonia Müller)

Here are another couple of photobooks from last year that I think are worth a look at.

The first one is On Edge by Karin Apollonia Müller. I wrote quite a bit about it earlier this year. Needless to say it is still at the top of my list of photobooks from 2009. If Müller's first book is anything to go by, it may also be hard to get hold of (and rather expensive) when the first edition goes out of print (thankfully now reprinted), so if it appeals to you, you might want to grab a copy while you can...

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The other book is Cover by Canadian photographer Lynne Cohen. I've talked about Cohen before a few times and she is still a photographer whose work I look to for nurturing my own thoughts and ideas.

Cover is a very good overview of much of her work and definitely worth trying to get hold of. There is also a very good online interview Cohen by George Slade:

"I have to admit I've never been much taken by technology. While it is true that many of my pictures touch on the technological world — military installations and scientific laboratories for example—I'm more interested in how aspects of this world look more like a children's toys or old fashioned game boards. For some people this might be comforting, for others the camouflage might make it seem still more disturbing. But there is another way of interpreting your question. In the late 1980's in a short review of a show I did in NYC, a critic seemed to think I had constructed the interiors that I photograph in my studio, at least introduced objects I brought with me into them. Admittedly, this was a post-modern moment when artists were constructing models in their studios to photograph. But what I photograph is a chunk of the world as I find it (with a few assists). It strikes me that if what I photograph were not more or less true, it would lose an important edge. I am not the first to find reality stranger than fiction. But I have to say that I quite like the idea that there is a question about the truth of what I photograph, that there is the sense that what I am photographing could not be true, that it must be constructed. An interesting example is a picture of an acoustic laboratory that I made the same year as Thomas Demand constructed one. If you look at our pictures next to each other, I am pretty sure you'll think the laboratory in Demand's picture looks more real than the laboratory in mine even though his is entirely hand-made in his studio and mine a photograph of a real acoustic laboratory that I came upon in England. Trying to figure out why his photograph looks more real than mine, it struck me that he makes all sorts of small corrections when building his models. He must step back to look at them, make changes, have another look, make more changes and so on, before taking a picture. In my case I set up a view camera in front of the actual site and make a photograph because I am intrigued by the many ways things in the world look off. In the case of the laboratory, I remember thinking that everything is the wrong size, the light is strange—hot and cold—that the androgynous dummy looks larger than life and has a bizarre red stopper stuck in its mouth and that the acoustic panels look hairy. Demand seems interested in getting everything to look right and making it believable while I'm interested in the many ways the world looks so wrong and unbelievable..." More here

(Photo: Lynne Cohen)

Print Exchange - heads up

Just a quick note to keep your eyes open early next week for information about a print exchange I will be launching.

I've been thinking about a print exchange for a while, and while I'm still not completely convinced it's a good idea - my two biggest worries being a. pessimistic: nobody will be bothered; or b. optimistic: I will get so many responses I'll be printing for months - I've decided to go ahead with it...

Anyway, it will most likely run for the month of February and full details and information should be posted early next week.

Darling Days - iO Tillet Wright

I like this girl. One of the main things I use Facebook for is networking with photographers and artists of all types - from the high and mighty to the just out of school and wet behind the ears to the on the ground and running in Haiti/Afghanistan/Gaza.

Anyway, I think iO Tillet Wright was a friend of a friend (or possibly a friend of a friend of a friend...). Either way I think she is someone to keep an eye on.

For starters, I wish more photographers could be as down to earth in their "ABOUT ME" descriptions:

I have been taking pictures, making films, mugging it for cameras, and writing about it since I can remember. Whatever inspired me, I felt compelled to document and disseminate.

There have been some wildly inspirational characters and places in and out of my world in the last few years, since I discovered film photography and dove deeper into writing, so I humbly hope that, herewith, I can bring you a taste of what I see and feel when I'm with them.

But most of all of course it's her work that grabs me. iO seems the antithesis of the young woman straight out of Bard or Yale or Sarah Lawrence with her fresh MFA, full of enthusiasm and newly inspired by her well known New Topographics, New Colour, old friend of Walker Evans/Lee Friedlander/William Eggleston, Professor while also trying to photograph a concept with her digicam (I know - someone is going to point out she actually went to Yale or wherever; which, of course, doesn't change my point at all)

From the work I've seen, she seems able to take today's (and yesterday's) flavour of the month cliché art photographs and make them her own (or avoid them altogether). That is, the sort of photographs I've grown tired of (and to tell the truth, never liked that much) - the un-ironic ironic girl and/or boy portraits of the unshaven scrawny young guy asleep on a rumpled bed/smoking in a grimy apartment. Or a young McGinleyesque nymph naked or in her cute knickers cycling in soft hazy sunlight or hanging out in the back of a truck. Or the deadpan unreal realist "I'm too hip/mentally challenged/poor to smile" portraits etc. (okay rant over...).

She's obviously at ease in a world which isn't mine (I'm more of a Berlin when it still had an East or the grey North of England in it's doomed resistance to Margaret Thatcher kind of guy, not NYC/Jersey/Brooklyn etc.). And thankfully she hasn't fallen into a Nan Goldin style grim self-absorption.

iO seems to draw elements from all of these approaches and places and then transform them into something else (for one thing, she doesn't seem afraid of feelings and humour). Her black and white work has great style and skill as does her colour work. Among other things, she has mastered the classic tri-x and harsh flash NYC look and she also seems to be able to out-Parr Parr, but she isn't stuck in trying to be the next Parr or Eggleston, Winogrand or Klein.

Best of all is that she seems able combine both black & white and colour almost seamlessly and without jarring contradiction. Something few photographers have been or are able to do. The pairing of work in either different styles (harsh/gritty + soft/"human") or in b&w/colour are some of her best work that I've seen. I think that despite the obvious surface differences in the type of media or style there is something deeper and more personal that runs through all her work and makes connections.

In her about me above she writes that she "discovered film", which I must say is both slightly depressing and a little scary... film really is a historic process now - she could just as well have said she discovered tintypes. What's great is what she seems to be learning and discovering in the process (mind you, I'm not sure if the dust spots on some of her pictures are an homage to and signifier of this old medium or simply that she hasn't managed to find a musty old book in secondhand bookstore on "The Art of Print Spotting" [found alongside "Coat Your Own Albumen Paper"]) :-)

Tillet Wright mentions that she spent some time last summer travelling Europe and took 46 rolls of film with her - what wonderful optimism. Going on travels in the days of film I would easily pack 100 or 150 or so rolls. But her attitude rather contradicts the old grumps sat around in the pub dripping beer on their Leicas and complaining how these folks with digital cameras just take thousands of shots until they get it right - "it's just luck" - not like the old days... bah, humbug.

I think (and hope) iO Tillet Wright will be someone to watch, so I hope she finds ways to continue making her work and staying excited about it (btw, she also has a blog). Oh, and did I mention she can write too. So someone out there give her a grant or a residency or some assignments or a fellowship to help her broaden her range and experience - you might be happily surprised by what come out of it...

(All photographs by and © iO Tillet Wright)

David Burdeny

Macon, Loire Valley, France

(All photographs by and © David Burdeny)

I'd be interested to see what people feel about the photography of David Burdeny. I've been getting updates about his work off Facebook and have gradually found myself getting more and more interested in it.

Some of his subjects don't really draw me in. Icebergs for instance. I know they are very popular and his photographs are quite stunning - but icebergs just don't do it for me - it's a personal things. And some of them, especially some of the black and white work, comes a touch to close to Michael Kenna territory. Technically and compositionally perfect, eye catching at first glance, but all beauty and no truth. In a way I find them too perfect. In such pictures I find I need some imperfections, some imbalance, more of the sublime - the sublime of the Romantics - awe, a touch of fear, the possibly being overwhelmed - tremendum et fascinans.

Uummannaq, Greenland

But it's the pictures on the front page of his website that are getting me (I believe the project is Sacred & Secular?), especially the series of horizontal sea and riverscapes. I certainly find them beautiful, but there's also a lack of absolute perfection in them. You can't control the skyline of a city so easily and in this form, even Venice doesn't quite look like "Venice". And there is a strange but, in a way, quite obvious linkage between Uummannaq and Venice and Dubai.

Dubai I, Persian Gulf, UAE

This aspect of Burdeny's work reminds me a bit of Elger Esser's work, although Burdeny stays within the accepted limits of the photographic process, not experimenting with colour in the way Esser often does for example.

Oh and if you are in British Columbia he has work up at the Jennifer Kostiuk Gallery in Vancouver at the end of February I believe (So I guess if you are going to the Winter Olympics, you should be able to catch the show around the time of the Olympics Closing Ceremony...)


But over to you - any thoughts?

Grand Canal II, Venezia, Italy

(All photographs by and © David Burdeny)

Werner Herzog Reads Curious George

I just had to share this. Werner Herzog Reads Curious George (or possibly someone doing a pretty good impersonation - though personally I hope it really is Herzog).

I now keep having flashbacks where I seem to realise Curious George played a part in Fitzcarraldo...

Werner Herzog Reads Curious George

Photo Books 2009

(Photo:Bertrand Fleuret)

I just noticed that Photoeye has their list of the best photo books of 2009 up. Seeing as they do such a comprehensive job with a large list of "photo luminaries" choosing them, I'm just going to pick and chose a few from the list over the next few days and possibly add in any I think they have missed (one thing about their list is that I enjoy seeing who picked which books).

Before I pick books for today, just a couple of thought. First, it seemed very noticeable how many of the books are from small presses. In many cases they are either done through some form of self-publication by the photographer - though often the photographer has already made a practice of doing this and they are on book number three or four. Or there is a sort of small collective attelier where four or five photographers seem to be "self"-publishing their work together (presumably this helps with leveling out the costs among other things?) through their own small scale imprint. And then there are a few smallish publishers who seem to have grown from a sort of self-publishing project to now being a photographer who (I'm guessing?) has more fun being a publisher. Whichever way, there seemed to be many more of these books around over 2009, and many of them seem to have made their way to the "best of" lists for the year, simply because many of them are just so damned good.

The other thing I noticed has been discussions about the future of the photobook and/or the publishing of photography books in general. This has often mirrored similar discussions in the broader publishing industry (though usually with nowhere near as much paranoia and angst - in fact such discussions are much more likely to be positive). A couple of examples, out of many, can be found here and here.

So on to books. The first pick is Landmasses and Railways by Bertrand Fleuret. This is a great book. I hadn't encountered Fleuret before, but this book which has the size and heft and feel of a good 200 page novel, is one of my real favourites from the last year. And it isn't just that the physical book itself resembles a novel, but that is also the sense I get from the contents as well - albeit a surrealist or magical realist novel. It's also the nearest I've seen to date of a completely visual, photographic version of one of W.G. Sebald's novels or books:

"Bertrand Fleuret’s Landmasses and Railways is a photographic travelogue to our interior, or perhaps an exploration outwards, to the encircling spheres above. Divided into five sections – I. The Melancholy of Departure, II. Approaching the City, III. Inside The Walls, IV. An Empty Building, and V. The Garden – the book takes us on a winding journey through a strange but familiar world. It seems appropriate that Fleuret begins our trip with a cryptic photograph of an antique booth . . . or is it some ancient space-pod? No time for questions. We quickly crash down into the ocean. Past the swarming jellyfish, we scramble for land, gasping for breath before safely making it ashore..."

(Photos:Bertrand Fleuret)

The quote is from Adam Bell's review of Landmasses and Railways at Ahorn Magazine. The book is published by J&L books where Jason Fulford is, to my mind, one of the most imaginative photo book publishers out there.

Another book from a fairly new publisher (but by a well known photographer) is New Mexico by Lee Friedlander. In many ways this is classic Friedlander - which is just fine by me. So many of his great earlier books are out of print and now virtually impossible to afford, so as far as I'm concerned I try and grab any new publications by him as they come out... and while I can still afford them. The book was also the catalogue for an exhibition of the same title at the Andrew Smith Gallery in Santa Fe.

(Photo: Lee Friedlander)

"Friedlander has been visiting Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and northern New Mexico since the late60s. This new volume of work presents a sequence of images made during his travels in these regions between 1995 and the present. Armed with his signature Hasselblad camera and wandering the back roads in an assortment of rental cars, Friedlander has journeyed from the Plaza of Santa Fe to adobe strewn neighborhood barrios and into the gorgeous, high-altitude desert. In Lee Friedlander: New Mexico, we see the same attentive curiosity that we’ve come to expect. He is a master of creating unity out of diverse shapes and complex tones in the two dimensional picture plan"

(Photo: Lee Friedlander)

This book was published with Darius Himes and others at Radius Books in Santa Fe (ha - I just realised Radius is an anagram of Darius!) and it's beautifully put together. Considering they are a pretty new publisher they already have a fine catalogue.

That's it for today. I hope to get another post or two up soon with some of the other books.

Well...2010

Two thousand and ten - or is it twenty ten? - anyway, I was "chatting" (via Facebook) last night with an old photographer friend who lives in the beautiful city of Barcelona and I realised that not only had I been neglecting this blog, but that I also hadn't done much photography of my own for some time.

So as much as I hate resolutions, it's definitely time to catch up with some photography (as well as finish scanning the pile of 6x6 negs I have) and add some new posts to the blog.

Mind you, it's also time to find a real day job for a while and keeping Churchill's black dog at bay has taken some effort recently.

Oh, and I also figured it's time to try writing a novel... (and which isn't the "highbrow" detective novel I'd always imagined it would be if I ever got around to writing one). Goodness knows where that will end up, but nothing like being at least a bit ambitious. So we'll have to see how it all goes.

Other than that, a good 2010 to one and all.

(All images ©2009 Timothy Atherton)