Photography as practice- Willie Doherty

Following Last weeks lecture with Alison Rowley, we continued to explore the way photography holds its own story and meaning. This is the second of our 3 lectures on photography-based practices.

In todays lecture we are looking at the implications of Willie Doherty's formal decisions to use black and white photography in a modest installation of the past and present in Belfast history. Willie Doherty produced a series of 6 black and white photographs. Similar to last weeks work, in each of the 6 photos, the camera is positioned in the centre of a street, road or walkway for example. All shutters are down on shops, walls were high, blocking out background objects, showing that the exit is unclear.

In 1996 photographs taken by W.A McCutchen in Belfast didn’t include pedestrians or social activity, Doherty’s 'Donegal lane' would not look out of place in this series of photographs. They have a similarity; these photos were representing a history, and how the traditional architecture of the city was starting to disappear, and the building like the one in the picture above is just one example of a threat to the city’s architecture.

Looking at the piece of work below, 'Unseen' the strategy: sever/ isolate work in contrast.

The 'sever' image is cropped, removing any signs of Belfast, however in the isolate image, it’s shown to be Belfast because of the bridge itself and its recognisable qualities. The relationship between word and image is not explicit and anyone can read anything from it.

The isolate image is politically loaded, as are many of the together photographs of Willie Doherty and others, however the footbridge in particular, shows no text other than in the form of graffiti, hidden in the image saying ' is gay and'. The name and the consequence ha been scribbled out. This is relevant because of how gay and lesbians were seen at the time, Seville marriage was not yet in play in Belfast, this can be seen as an indication and a political view, it shows the prejudice remaining.

Looking into this work, it’s important to know where the work that you do sits in arts history, especially when working with visuals to portray messages and language. Some of these photos were taken in 1998 but then not printed until 2008, meanwhile some were shot in 2008 and printed that very same year, however they al seem from the same era.

My first impression of these image were that they meant nothing, they didn’t seem to have any meaning and without backstory they wouldn’t, after it was explained I can see the change in the architecture from the way the buildings change especially in the main square in Belfast. Although the photos look simple to take I admire them, I think the concept it interesting, explaining the changing in architecture by showing the back streets and the unseen versions of the city, using nothing but plain exteriors and un public scenes to avoid objectification.