Sylvie Goy - Photographer - BLOG

Theatre of Dunes

When I first came across this shot of my great-grandfather (left), grandfather (right) and great aunt Blanche (who undoubtedly had just stepped out of the kitchen for the picture) staged against a white backdrop of snow, it immediately conjured up (admittedly in a bit of a far-fetched way) the sparse compositions and quaint surrealism of Japanese photographer Shoji Ueda (1913-2000).

Although he hardly ever left his native Tottori region (all throughout his career, he showed undeniable "Atgetian" humility and continued to describe himself as a "rural, amateur photographer"), Ueda became familiar with European avant-garde photographic developments of the 1930s and started to explore new technical and aesthetic ideas in his personal work. Drawing from the familiar, he staged friends and relatives in his native Tottori, creating curious settings in which characters are carefully arranged in a landscape of beach and sand dunes. Against the bare natural backdrop, these mannered and artificial poses convey a sense of theatricality and one could say, poetry and humour. The initial series was fittingly entitled "Theatre of Dunes" (1945-1951) and Ueda revisited the same concept at the end of his career with "Going back to the Dunes" (1980-1999). In this last series, Ueda structures his images differently and as the end of his life draws near, his compositions appear to increasingly drift away from the dunes towards the sea.

http://www.shojiueda.com/eng/profile/index.html

Counting the pennies

Snapshots from an Era long Gone - Killing the Pig

In rural Switzerland as in many other European countries, slaughtering the pig was a winter ritual (a tradition now on its way out). It used to start early morning and go on until the night; friends and family would gather together for a long day of fresh-meat cutting, curing, salting and sausage–making (accompanied by much food and drink!). Here a picture from the 1920s depicts my great-grandparents, neighbours and friends as they toast to the sizeable catch. Note how the animal’s weight (275kg) was dutifully recorded on the pig's body, directly etched onto the photograph.

Foxtrot

Snapshots from an Era Long Gone - The Swiss Archers

A family group portrait from circa 1919 depicting my ancestors posing in soiled clothes and pitchfork in hand, which suggests it was taken after a day of hard labour harvesting the fields nearby. A typical portrait of early 20th century farming life with garments and large-brimmed hats strangely reminiscent of the Ingalls family’s wardrobe (from late 19th century American West). The young girl with her head tilted to one side and an air of utter exasperation is my grandmother.

Unveiling

Dear friends from around the world and beyond,

Welcome to my blog.

This little space of mine will be used as a platform in which to record and share my daily interactions with photography.

A scrapbook in which I will stick fragments of reality, figments of imagination, quirky finds and anything that is remotely connected to photography (or not) that I usually collect but never show outside the confines of my studio. An informal digital "pinboard" in which I will post snapshots and disparate odds and ends that I accumulate alongside other long-term projects.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any comments or suggestions or if you want to send in your own little findings!

Until the next time,

Best wishes to all

Sylvie

Snapshots from an Era Long Gone - "Cartolina Postale"

I have recently unearthed some early snapshots from the family's treasure chest. I will be posting more of these in days to come.

First, a postcard sent by my great-great aunt to her sister in late 1903. The latter was paying a visit to her young son (afflicted by life-long tuberculosis, he eventually died of the disease) in the "Asile populaire des enfants" in Leysin, one of the first state-funded sanatorium in the Swiss French Alps. The same year witnessed the arrival of Dr Auguste Rollier who carried out medical experiments on children and developed "heliotherapy", a new "cutting-edge" therapy which consisted of exposing TB patients to hours of sunshine in the pure Alpine air. This type of treatment was first devised by Dr Oscar Bernhard, a medical researcher from the Grisons who, inspired by local farmers' traditional method of preparing "air-cured mountain ham" (Grischuna Huusschinken), decided to apply a similar "curing" technique to patients suffering from lung disease.

The image on the postcard takes us away from Alpine tops to the Jura in western Switzerland and depicts a street scene from my ancestors' village. Did the photographer truly capture the village scene as it naturally unfolded before his eyes or did he painstakingly stage the various characters (at equal distance from each other!) to create the "ideal" Swiss rural scene? Is the young girl standing on the left longingly expecting a letter to be delivered? The way the postman strides towards her clutching his satchel certainly suggests so... Further afield, a woman contemplates the scene from her window. Opposite, a young woman sits on a stone bollard, arms firmly clenched against her bust, staring defiantly at school girls huddling together.

A truly charming little tableau of pastoral life.

Winter Wonders

Some selected shots I took in Dulwich Park following fresh snowfall last week. The two images by the lake were taken at nightfall using an improvised tripod built out of snow. London skylights reflected back on the vast stretches of snow in the park, turning the whole scene into a surreal orange-tinted light spectacle.

Dulwich Fellows & Lice

"...ssport ...graph of ...be af...ed ... the ...ng... 6/10/73"

Passport size photograph found on Dulwich Park football ground.

The photograph is perforated with a date and bears what looks like a an "official" description on the back. Yet it depicts two jolly happy-looking fellows in uniforms posing in a seemingly informal fashion. If anyone can throw some light on this intriguing picture and/or identify their type of uniforms, please let me know!

Spotted the lice yet?