I researched Wentworth after finding him within the course texts.  The images that I could find online piqued my interest in the way that he has used considerable attention to detail in isolating small pieces of reality to create interesting, sometimes amusing, images.  I decided to purchase the book Making Do and Getting By which contains hundreds if not thousands of his images (Wentworth and Obrist, 2015).

In his book he has collected images that are “chance encounters of oddities and discrepancies in the modern landscape” (Richard Wentworth (artist), 2020).  I found the book fascinating in the main because it lays to rest any idea that to take interesting images, it is necessary to be in an interesting place.  Almost every image in the book represents something that could be found in an area close to home but Wentworth’s skill is in spotting these chance scenes and isolating them in a manner that makes them interesting.  

Wentworth’s origins were in sculpture which necessitates attention to form and this focus shows in a number of his images.  Fig. 1 is an example of this which is simply the shadow of a railing on a wall. It is the shadows created by the railing that the image majors on and one realises that these are temporary, only there because of the way the light happens to be shining at that particular time; this is what Wentworth has isolated rather than the railing itself.

Fig. 2 is another example of this.  The image is simply railings with some wire and ROPE?? tied to them.  One has to decide, are we looking at the individual items, or the shapes made between the items as they interact with each other, or all of these things as the same time.  This images is an excellent example of how pretty much anything can be polysemic – even if the image itself does not lead to many interpretations, we can still wonder what it was about the contents of the image that attracted the photographer.

Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 are examples of Wentworth to capture amusing scenes.  In the interview at the front of the book he says “I like these little circumstantial geometries or comedies” (Wentworth and Obrist, 2015:8).  In Fig. 3 the arrows from the road sign are sprayed with grey paint but the painter has covered them so accurately, that the sign still essentially acts as the sign did before being painted; this is an example of just the object itself being amusing.  In Fig. 4, it is the juxtaposition of the sculptures with the posters of people’s faces above the shop window that is amusing, almost as if the two rows are both shop windows of equal status.   Two different ways in which Wentworth has found humour. 

The presentation of the images throughout the whole book is interesting.  Images are collected onto pages with no apprarent ordering.  Fig. 5 is an example page taken from the book (Wentworth and Obrist, 2015:256).   I think Wentworth has taken care not to have images that are too similar on the same page, each image on the page is differently framed, some relate to the shapes within the image and others for comedy value.  In the page shown in Fig. 5, the bottom left image of the chair propping open the window seems to be there for amusement, it makes me smile at least, whereas the image above that of an empty sandwich box along with a bottle and a can seems to be there for its geometric juxtapositions. 

Reflection and Relation to my Photography

I found the images in the book interesting each in their own right, but also in how they build to a substantial body of work.  Wentworth himself said “I had probably taken indifferent pictures for four or five years, and I started to notice there was a little thread I could pull out … its pretty hard to say what the thread is” (Wentworth and Obrist, 2015:7) and I think this is where my photography is at right now.   I am doing this piece of research almost at the end of my first complete level in my OCA studies and although I feel that my photography has advanced considerably over this time, I also feel that I have taken lots of images but struggled to identify what type of genre interests me the most.   This book probably comes the closest to what does interest me, small observations over time that by themselves are not particularly identifiable as a theme or genre but, when edited and presented as a set, do start to come together as a cohesive body of work.   It is an approach that is also apparent in Stephen Shore’s work that I will also write a research piece for.

Over the course of my studies I had actually stopped taking photographs like these as individually, I had felt that they were lacking in purpose or meaning.  This book has shown me how they can build into a body of work and, of edited less randomly than Wentworth, could give a view, an almost satirical view, on life that does in itself have meaning.  This appeals to me.

Bibliography

Wentworth, R. and Obrist, H., 2015. Making Do And Getting By. London: Koenig Books.

En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Richard Wentworth (Artist). [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wentworth_(artist)> [Accessed 26 July 2020].

Figures

Figure 1. Wentworth, R., (2006) Barnsbury [photograph] In: Wentworth, R. (2015) Making Do and Getting By. Page 19. London:Koenig Books Ltd.

Figure 2. Wentworth, R., (2006) Istanbul [photograph] In: Wentworth, R. (2015) Making Do and Getting By. Page 27. London:Koenig Books Ltd.

Figure 3. Wentworth, R., (2006) Oxford [photograph] In: Wentworth, R. (2015) Making Do and Getting By. Page 23. London:Koenig Books Ltd.

Figure 4. Wentworth, R., (2006) Istanbul [photograph] In: Wentworth, R. (2015) Making Do and Getting By. Page 30. London:Koenig Books Ltd.

Figure 5. Wentworth, R., (2015) Taken from Page 256 [collage] In: Wentworth, R. (2015) Making Do and Getting By. Page 256. London:Koenig Books Ltd.