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Alejandro Chaskielberg – The High Tide
Emerging Photographer Fund – FINALIST (number one of eleven)
With my photographs I create fictional scenarios with real people and situations.
I try to explore the limits of documentary photography, using technical processes to transform the natural perception of light, colors and spaces.
I am working on a project about the Paraná River Delta photographed in full moon.
The Paraná River supplies water for more than one hundred million people, including the cities of San Pablo, Buenos Aires and Asunción, Argentina. The whole Paraná basin is one of the principal reserves of sweet water in the world.
My photographs set out to document the life and work of the islanders of the Delta.
Using long-time exposures with full moon, they have allowed me to light part of the landscape artificially and also give the islanders a strange timelessness: an unknown source of light floods the scene with unreality and mysterious.
I think my pictures as slides of unfinished stories, having a script on my head. The images are carefully planned after days of observation, and they only have a body when the large-format camera initiates the slow subordination of the capture. It will take from five to ten minutes until this thick darkness sprouts what was secret.
I am interested in the poetical and visual power of the water, and the relationship of the people and the environment. I think that the health of this resource is a worldwide problematic issue today.
My intention is to work with photography in the border between reality and fiction.
Photography can transform reality and produce a magical view of people and life, and this is a part of its particular language.
Photographs: Alejandro Chaskielberg
Website: www.chaskielberg.com
Hi!
What’s interesting is the insistence on separation.
The essay is no less a document of the environment and it’s inhabitants because of the techniques involved, than if the essay had been comprised of black and white images shot with “f8, don’t be late” as it’s starting point.
What’s important is whether the narrative succeeds in conveying the author’s intent, does it support the ‘argument’.
Photography is difficult because, more often than not, it is both the evidence and the argument simultaneously and style/technique often become (are?) synonymous with intent. When they chime we see, when they do not we look away.
What’s intriguing is that the photographer’s intent to work in the borderland between what we understand to be different, i.e. fiction and reality, has touched a nerve. The discussion wouldn’t be taking place if changes in definitions weren’t necessary and occurring.
Regards,
/R.
I agree that the line between fiction and reality is not a line. It is more like some landscape in which both get mixed. Even in the most “taken from real life” picture there is the imagination of the photographer involved. And even in the most fictional photography there is reality.
It all depends on what you use the pictures for AND what you say about their making. We all know that if we present a picture in a newspaper of Bush kissing Blair on the mouth without telling that this picture went through photoshop, there is a problem.
But I do not see such a problem with Alejandro’s pictures.
But we don’t want viewers to have to parse fiction from reality, to skid along the border between the two. It’s getting hard enough to sort the two anyway, without someone deliberately creating work on that border. This photographer stated up front he was creating fiction, but many here are arguing that it really doesn’t matter to documentary photography whether the work is fiction or fact, only that it be emotive of something. I just don’t buy it.
I totally agree, Robby, it is clear we need changes in definitions and thinking about these issues. And even more make works around that which broaden up the definitions.
What is wrong with pictures taken from real life and let it go together with very personal text, as Depardon does? And what is wrong with set up pictures who clearly state they are set up, as Alejandro and others do?
The EPF stated that “poetical, personal” work is welcome. And that documentary work is welcome. Alejandro is a mix of both. So the better.
JIM
IMO, if it isn’t news/journalism, at some point it is okay to demand something of your audience.
Of course it does matter to photography which is presented as a document, to KNOW wether it is made with pictures taken from real life or with totally set up pictures. With Alejandro we KNOW how he made those pictures.
Jim, do not use what others explain badly to get right on your point please.
VII photogtraphers, publicity photographers and marriage pictures play on emotion. That does not seem the case to me with Alejandro.
Maqroll, you submit that using Photoshop as a means to manipulate images in a bad way, but isn’t manipulating a photograph before the shot just about as bad as manipulating the photograph after the shot? Either way, you are twisting the reality to fit what you want to see.
Of course, there are degrees of this. Using a flash alters just as adjusting levels in PS. My struggle with this still lies with the photographer saying he’s documenting their lives, not just using their lives as a source material. The photographer needs to be honest with himself and understand that this is not documentation, but commentary.
erica, it is a difficult demand to make of viewers. They see images and video every day where it is impossible to tell what is CGI and what is real, or what is Photoshop and what is real. Blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality in work that appears to be documentary is, IMHO, a slippery slope.
Is it possible that some of the confusion may have crept in because the photographer’s first language isn’t English?
Jim
Clearly we do want some level of integrity in journalism, but even in the best scenarios, photojournalism is still subjective. After all, choices have to be made on form, where to stand, what to exclude, etc, all affecting our understanding of the images and events. In addition, scenes have been staged in photojournalism since nearly the founding of the medium, so that’s nothing new.
In this situation, there is some inherent truth to these images. They are real places and the photographer says that there is intent to “document the life and work of the islanders of the Delta,” however, it is a personal perspective, one that is intentionally left open in narrative for the viewer to complete, which to my taste, makes it much more interesting and provocative, so I applaud the challenge to “parse fiction from reality.”
Bob Black:
“…i’m a WORKING photographer and writer…”
I’m happy for you that you are gainfully employed…
JIM…ALL
we know you do not buy it….and nobody would even hint that this work should appear in the daily newspaper as photojournalism which is not the same as documentary anyway…
you are consistent in referring to “readers” as if all viewers of visual media are some mass American audience who must be carefully spoon fed INFORMATION…
yes, this is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY at YOUR NEWSPAPER…i totally respect that of course since you are the news editor ….and i would not publish this essay in your paper either….but, can you not take off your newspaper hat for just a minute and just appreciate something different from what you can appropriately publish in the local paper???
knowing quite a few editors out there, as do you, i think there are two ways editors think about “readers”…one is that readers just are not smart enough to figure things out and need to be “led”…the other is that we maybe should just give readers the benefit of the doubt, show them something that takes them where they have never been before, and just flat out enlighten…of course, i go with the second approach of assuming an intelligent audience and yet using your sensibility of integrity and truth…..i think if an audience is not “lied to” then all kinds of truly interesting possibilities for communication exist for us even in the mass media…..if a set of work is totally explained for what it is (as here), then i think we are moving forward in a more sophisticated way of seeing and of presenting…
i think we both become a bit frustrated with each other…but, please please know that it is nothing personal…we both love photography and the life it has given us…we both believe in the basic tenants of good journalism…i respect what you do….i think where we depart is in the “use” of photography and its myriad possibilities….simply put, i feel there are many ways photography can be used, not just to explain something in a basic journalistic fashion….
i have described you here at times as a genre..of being typical of the crotchety newspapermen i knew at the beginning of my career…..actually, you are not like them at all…not a one of the guys i am remembering would have spent more than 10 seconds on BURN…you are indeed an anomaly …..you are here every day….and while your sometimes curt one liners do indeed rankle many of us, you do take the time to think and to write….your longer more thought out responses often resonate…..you keep the fires burning…good….
now, go take a short siesta and have your wife wake you up for the next finalist…or , are you at the office?? anyway, new work coming soonest…i hope you will see an overall balance of photography when all ten finalists are presented…if not, i am sure you will tell me….
peace, david
p.s. would you be kind enough to skype me?? davidalanharvey
CIARA…ALL
yes, good point..and this will come up more with many of our photographers having English as a second language….
i have tried to contact Alejandro and finally found out that he is totally out of communication until June 4….the boy is lost in his work….
cheers, david
“the boy is lost in his work….”
as the rest of those who keep beating a dead horse should be….
Bob Black
the ugliness that surfaced last year during the EPF was sad and unfortunate
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You meant the ugliness that did not surface, Bob?… ;-)
I do remember that Panos and Rafal went at each other, but, like I said yesterday, the whole Road Trip writership was simply cool with the EPF, as it’s cool with BURN, rain or shine. I do not know where your often renewed appraisal of shortcomings and “too human” behaviour comes from, Bob, I am perplexed when it does, that it is always us being “too human”, never you.
I wonder, could you be a… Bob Black groupie? :-)))
Jim:
David said ¨ you do take the time to think and to write¨..i would like to add, ¨…now more than ever¨..i have been devouring your input lately..i skip over the same old, same old and go straight for the heart of your perspective and i consider every word you write. So please don´t go back to the curt one-liners when you have so much more where that came from!
keep burning!
kat-
Heres a one liner. Are each of the EPF entries going to be up for four days?
I have to say that this set of images are absolutely stunning. I love the texture and the mood it creates. Alejandro was indeed up front with his admission of “creating” the images for what might initially seem to be the contrasting goal of “documenting the life and work of the islanders”.
But perhaps by staging these images he’s done no different than the author who writes a documentary piece about events too long ago to witness. He’s taking what he knows about the river and creating images to convey his perspective on what the river means to the people inhabiting the Delta.
By looking at the images, I believe the viewer is aware in some sense that these are more or less a series of portraits as opposed to candid shots of the river life. I think the argument that they are staged and therefore aren’t documentary isn’t necessarily true at all.
When Walker Evans documented the tenant farmers of the south 70 years ago, he posed the photos, and deliberately shot them to best represent what he saw and experienced.
I think Alejandro has done the same (trying to foist a comparison to the incomparable Evans), with different tools. He knows the Delta life better than we, and he is conveying what he believes is representative of their life and work. He could’ve shot it with a Leica and black and white film, but the method he chose imparts a different mood, and sensibility.
I think they’re beautiful images and work well for what he’s trying to achieve.
But John, what is he trying to achieve? From everything I can read, human impact on the delta is minimal, with populations along it declining. There appears to be little worry about its health. I love the photos. I just can’t figure out what he is saying with them, if anything.
DAH wrote,
“i have tried to contact Alejandro and finally found out that he is totally out of communication until June 4….the boy is lost in his work….”
Actually,he’s probably in the middle of a really long exposure
Since Alejandro has been telling us he is exploring the limits of documentary photography (along with hundred others today, just talking of the published ones), I am not sure why we are arguing over the definition of documentary photography, that is the limits of documentary photography.
Yet, the fact that the medium itself lends itself so well to manipulation, to challenging perceptions, is probably why, even amongst people versed in it and its professionals, the question of veracity, and intentins, is never left to rest.
Also, David, regarding your quote on Crewdson not being a documentary P., in time, work that was not meant or seen/thought as documentary might take on that mantle. Such is the strength, and magic, of photography that any frame with some people, some patches of grass, a house, may tell something of the age, of us, which for being there inside the frame for all to see today, may not reveal all until later.
Something I believe neither literature or painting can achieve. Even movie-making is too self-conscious a process to compete with photography, or at least, without a measure of kitsch, but there is no revealation in kitsch.
I think he’s trying to paint a picture of the relationship the people have with the river. Perhaps the river delta isn’t an eco disaster, but I believe deforestation is a particular problem of the lower delta. On the other side of that is the fact that many people have left the area and the surrounding economy remains stagnant, or is in decline.
So maybe it’s a complex relationship that you see with many places around the world. People want jobs, but what can the environment sustain? There are images of people carrying lumber, and evidence of a surrounding economy (as a bridge in the background). I understand it as a work in progress and having seen the images, I’d love to see what he comes up with.
That being said, maybe I’m seduced by the quality of the images, and I’m looking too far past the content. All I know is that I feel something when I look at the images, and I think that’s a good thing.
JIM..
every essay we have ever published has been up for four days….
cheers, david
so just to clarify, have all of the finalists been notified already?
Thanks,
p
every essay we have ever published has been up for four days….
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And new names have appeared on that fourth day, who had something of value to say. If the concentration on EPF only entries attracts people to join us in commenting, the better for BURN.
I have a feeling the new entry is going to have us making the most of these 4 days again… David, is your Magnum re-loaded? :-)
to Brian Frank: I didn’t say that in general we shouldn’t use photoshop. It all depends what we do with it. Pushing some curves with photoshop to get more contrast or using flash is no manipulation. It is an interpretation. As the film you use is already a choice and therefore an interpretation.
But putting situations together (like Bush and Tatcher kissing on the mouth) and presenting it as if it happened in real time, is a huge lie. It is not interpretation. It is lying.
Alejandro did not lie. He said these images were set up.
And he said these set up images document the way of living of those people. This is an other discussion. I said about that above: maybe in fifty years we will consider and use his pictures as a document about that region (knowing that it is fiction), amongst other documents about that region. But I agree with you: I am unable to see what it documents. And that I can with pictures of the First World War David mentioned.
Wishes
Compliments to Alejandro: he is among the 25 selected by American Photography
http://www.ai-ap.com/cfe/APss/dsp_allimages.cfm?acc=P
and Michael Christopher Brown is in too (do you remember Sakhalin?)
sorry, it’s AP25… the selcted are far more than 25 ;)
BURN rocks, anyway!
Hi Joe,
I know discussion has moved on and sorry for the late response.
regarding “i can’t help but think emotive, story-telling photographers have a command of the same visual vocabulary and if they wish to use the craft to get you to quit smoking through emotive propaganda images or reveal wife beating through emotive documentary images, there is really only a very little change in the author’s creative process, the change is really just taxonomy of the result, more so, just a change to the tag you place on it for your audience.”
I couldn’t agree more with this, the trouble is you have to establish your story telling/photographic skills and style and be true to them and yourself to feel some kind of self worth. The example I gave of myself was I was flickering in the wind bending to my perception of what the client wanted, therefore I felt no pride in the work I was producing with good reason as I was producing nice but bland imagery which left me cold and empty with the work.
There are a number of fairly big hitters out there who are blogging about this at the moment take a look at Chase Jarvis and Doug Menuez, both are commercial shooters who very generously post there inner thoughts online. For me there is a creative itch that needs to be scratched and if that is ignored productivity/creativity/contentment are all compromised.
In fact I am working on a pro bono project at the moment which is allowing me to scratch like mad and it is truly creatively life affirming.
If you have a chance can you drop me a line or skype aitkenimages
cheers
Ian
P.S. Alejandro great job and interesting melding of documentary and creativity, they are in no way exclusive to each other.
The New York Times photoblog Lens has blogged about Alejandro’s High Tide essay…
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/showcase-fictional-photos-real-people/
well done fella
(apologies if someone’s already pointed this out…)
If someone happens to be in Rome this summer, some of Alejandro’s pictures will be on exhibit in Rome, at Palazzo delle Esposizioni, for “Fotografia Festival 2009″ till the beginning of August.
Hi Alejandro,
good stuff and keep up the good work, very interesting.
DAH this site is burning…in a good way.
ozzy al
CONGRATULATIONS ON THE GRANT!!!
Well done Alejandro. We’ll look forward to seeing this project develop.
Just a little consideration cause before I haven’t read all the posts…
I saw that there are peolple complaining or surprised cause a huge percent of the finalists are former students or assistents of David workshops, readers of this blog, people who attens festivals, ecc…
Come on! Din’t you think that this is normal cause most probably also a huge percent of the entrants belong to the same crowd?
This grant is new, so the reason why there are not African or Asian photographers in the finalists is cause probably not so many of tham are already aware of this oportunity so they did not partecipated… Spread the news also to them and you will see that years after years they will be in the finalists too!
In my opinion it wuoldn’t have been nice nor onest to put in the finalists someone from Africa just because he was the only partecipant from there to do “geopolitic”…
I agree that there should be more grants open just to photographers from developing countries but if a grant is not like this, winners have to be choosen from the quality and doesn’t matter if they all come from the same nation…
Sorry I didn’t want to post this staff here but in an othere trade… can someone remouve it?
Congratulations Alejandro,
well deserved for a very creative and intriguing body of work
CONGRATS Alejandro!!!
Fantastic work man…DIFFERENT and INSPIRING
all best,
mike
I don’t like calling this “documentary” or “real”
However:
In my work for higher education, companies, I always try to frame/compose/time the photo so it appears like there are the most number of interested, attentive attendees there. Is that “real” even if it was a sparsely attended event where everyone’s bored and I capture the one moment where people seem interested/happy to be there? What if I color corrected a warm room to a more daylight balanced room? What if I photoshopped more people into the photo?
Obviously I prefer in-camera tricks in my “purist” desires to altering the photograph by adding things that weren’t there/removing. But one could argue they’re all lies/not reality.
HDR from a single image is ok in my book…it’s the same idea as 0-5 split filter printing but thats a different topic.
some would argue Monet’s of the Houses of Parliament for ex is a more “accurate” documentation of it than a photograph of it would be because it “conveys mood better”. Some would argue a writer’s rendition of the event is more accurate. I’ve heard arguments like that before. Don’t necessarily agree but it’s an interesting argument.
Even in camera with different exposure combinations, apertures, shutter speeds, focus points, we’re kinda like writers and painters in that we “convey mood” with an artistic representation of what was going on at that moment.
Very strange and interesting project. I like it a lot. I want to have another look. But later. For now I just think of lots of fiction stories – Gulliver’s Travels, Lost in Space – is that the show with the little people on a planet of giants? Crewdson’s pictures of course. I think playing with notions of fiction and documentary maybe more interesting when the two are brought close together. But on the other hand, maybe not. Now that i think more about it, your telling me you are documenting something is enough to make me think about these pictures as representations of some people’s real lives. Admittedly they are highly interpreted depictions. I think, call it what you want. The issue only really matters when images are used as evidence, and then how. Could you win a court case with these pictures? Could you obtain funding? Could you prove a point about anything? Will anyone find these images persuasive enough as evidence? I think that may be the question here. Certainly for the purpose of entering exhibitions and contests, I have seen this done often enough. All you need do is have an element of the work to call it by that name. I have seen printed machine made fabric called everything from textiles, to photography, to printmaking. Truly, an artist does well these days to work in hybrid forms. Maybe we should just call it all art and be done with it. The good stuff will rise to the top but at least everyone will get a fair bash at highest prize money.