Getting influenced by books

For one of our assignments we had to read Chapter 2 - once upon a time from the book 'the photograph as contemporary art'.
I found this very interesting to read and i have almost seen a different side to Tableau photography. I like the way Jeff Wall in particular stages his photographs to look as though they havn't been thought about, as though the scenes have really happened and they are real life situations. For example 'insomnia', this could be a situation where a man has either collapsed from exhaustion or many he could have been taking drugs from the open cupboard which could maybe suggest thats where he got the drugs from. From the titile 'insomnia' the first example of collapsion from exhaustion this could be what Jeff Wall was trying to put over to the audience. He has staged the scene very well, with the position of the chair on the left, the table and door and cupboard where they are almost directing our eyes to the man on the floor. This is when compostion of the scene comes into play. 'The layout of the interior acts as a set of clues to the events that could have led up to this moment', I like this quote as it almost explains the photo and yet doesn't give away the meaning of it or what has actually happened. The lack of homely possesions and the cold colours that have been chosen for this photograph almost tell us the charatcer of the man layed on the floor. It's as though we are watching a play and yet have missed out the start and ending of it, we are just surrounded and almost possessed by this moment. We begin to have feelings and emotions towards the photo and the man now in his insomniac state. We want to know what has happened to him and what will happen to him after this freeze frame of the 'play'.

Moving on from Jeff Wall you begin to understand the ideas and the time that these photographer's have to make such a realistic and meaningful scene and photo in which we can relate to and have emotions for because these scene are everyday living of a normal down-to-earth person. Thats what I love about Tableau photography.

Christopher Stewart

Thomas Demand

Eventhough I liked Tableau Photography, I didn't really like Thomas Demand's photographs as I find them very unpleasing as I like the idea of the staged photographs to look as though they have been taken on the off chance and so they give you a story behind them, like that of documentry photographs, whereas Thomas Demand changes the whole idea of scened photography in how he makes them very obvious that they have been staged, for example, in the photo above he has left the toilet roll present within the photo in which shows people thatthe photo has been staged. In my opinion Tableau Photography should look as though the photos are documentry photographs. I don't like the way in which he works as I find it makes scened photography unworthy as he shows people how Tableau photography is made to look like documentry photos.