*ooof*: Armitage Times Four

Is one RA ever enough? No, four RAs equal quadruple the fun.

The Armitage Quadruplets
Four times the fun and sexiness
Shot by Sarah Dunn, 2013

And despite the usual grumpy face, this looks to me like a fun shoot. We have seen the first of the four RAs already in the “iconic antics” *ooof* – because this is a montage. Pretty obviously – the world unfortunately only boasts *one* Richard Armitage. So Dunn combined four shots taken in the same series into one image. The set-up of the shots lent itself to that. Like any artist, photographers are influenced by the work of their predecessors. In this particular series of shoots Dunn was taking inspiration from Richard Avedon. That was most obvious from her group shot of the Hobbit cast that featured all main actors in a b/w composite image with Evangeline Lilly in a red gown: The white background devoid of all context and reference is characteristic of Avedon’s work. Avedon, who initially made his name as a fashion photographer but then became one of the foremost portraitists of the 20th century, favoured this purist approach: “I have a white background. I have the person I’m interested in, and the thing that happens between us.” Guylty approves particularly of the last rule – but maybe for less than professional reasons *coughs* He even went further than that and said “No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative.”

That is where Dunn departs, of course, because she lights her shots nicely and she does favour a striking pose, as is evident from this image. Maybe Avedon would have objected to a smouldering look with a simultaneous pelvis tease – but hey, we are the RArmy, so we certainly don’t! I enjoy looking at this image because it takes me right into the photo studio. I imagine RA stood in front of the backdrop (a Lastolite HiLite , by any chance?), opposite Dunn on a ladder with her camera on a tripod. The camera is certainly head-height – and I suspect a woman photographer does not really reach up to Richard’s generous 6’2”. And then click-click-click with the photographer suggesting various poses. “Turn to the side, Richard, *click* and now back. *click* Take a step forward. Hold it. *click* Bring up your hands like this. *click* And now into your hair. *click*”

My personal favourite pose is the one on the extreme right – at least when it comes to the body. Like in the rock’n’roll pose on the left, this pose displays Richard’s body shape to its his advantage – the long, very slim legs, the hint of arse, the lean torso (although obscured by the jacket). I particularly like the locked knees that force the spine into an erect posture with the posterior pushing back and the chest out. Very good direction here by Dunn who has made sure that Armitage’s left arm is slightly pulled back and does not obstruct the view.  Not quite so sure about the action of the right arm, however – while I like a good hair-grab any day (reminiscent of Armitage’s delicious hair acting in TH, drawing attention to the dark curlywurly tresses per se, and possibly evocative of some other scenarios in which the caressing of hair is requisite, ’nuff said), this looks a bit weird. Like a papal skull cap on top of the Armitage crown – and not quite a scratch, but not a sexy hair cuddle either. The pose serves its purpose, though – with the scratch of the head bringing the right arm up, stretching the body and forcing the head down into a smouldering under-brow gaze. It certainly looks more natural than shot three which has nice anatomical symmetry, but again does not quite convince me of the sexiness of the hair grab. I am thinking self-service hair salon here… Not a good look.

While Dunn channelled Avedon for the set-up of the shots, I am faintly reminded of another photographic “great” by virtue of the repetitive composition of the image. Even though there is no logical progression of movement visible in this shot, I am thinking of the pioneering work of Eadweard Muybridge. In the late 1870s Muybridge was tasked to make images of the various movements of a horse galloping. In order to do so he had to invent mechanical shutters that were released by the moving horse and that were capable of shutting at as fast as 1/500 of a second. (Up until then, shutters had been operated by hand and exposure times were several seconds if not minutes! A massive step in the technical development of photography!) He went on to make many such image series that depicted the movements of animals or humans in various activities. Meant for artists as illustrations and templates, he photographed his models in the nude (that is: the models in the nude, not the photographer in the nip!), sometimes engaging in rather awkward activities (a mother spanking a child, anyone?). Dunn has most certainly *not* channelled Muybridge here although part of me wishes she had, if you know what I mean *coughs* but besides taking any excuse for a little excursion into the history of photography, the fact that Muybridge presents his movement series in one final image makes the tentative comparison at least vaaaaguely appropriate.

So. Talking in technical terms, this image is a composite. As the term suggests, it is an image that consists of several visual elements taken from other pictures. Oh, how it pains me to call RA a “visual element” *ouch*. This kind of technique has been made very easy for photographers nowadays as Photoshop provides the tools for cutting and pasting image elements into a new layer. However, compositing is not a new invention of the digital age at all. On the most elemental level, compositing was possible by simply printing more than just one negative onto the same piece of photographic paper, for instance. Theoretically, photographers in the past could blank out parts of the photographic paper, print one image onto the exposed space, and then print the blank parts with another image in a second step. Manipulation of the negative was also possible (especially in the pre-35mm times when negatives were much bigger and could be manipulated more easily than the small 35mm negative.) One such amazing example is the work “The Two Ways of Life” by Oscar Rejlander.  It consists of 32 individually set-up and photographed negatives that were amalgamated into one large print. This was as early 1857! – The dadaists and surrealists at the beginning of the 20th century quickly understood the power of photography as a medium and used its propensities to their advantage (See John Heartfield for some powerful work).

Dunn had it very easy with her composite images. Working from the same white, blown-out background, she could easily crop and combine the full length shots of RA in one image without having to adjust background colours or cutting out the sitter from the background and transposing him onto a new background. It was also made easy by the fact that she has shot her images with the camera static on a tripod. This guarantees the same perspective in all shots of RA and in the finished composite gives the titillating illusion that we are seeing the Armitage Quadruplets and not just “one Armitage times four”. As opposed to that, the initially mentioned Hobbit cast photograph was much harder to combine. We know from Dunn that she shot the sitters individually and not in a group setting. While she was easily able to (re)create the same set-up with all of her sitters, getting the perspective identical is much more difficult. Hence the slightly off feeling in the composite original of Armitage and Luke Evans (which I described somewhere as slightly nauseating – in a cheeky way, no offense, Ms Dunn, I was merely drawing attention to the fact that the perspectives were slightly different between RA and Evans.). And hence maybe also the decision to enhance the images with large format negative frames? They serve to make the whole image look like a composite.

Composites are used in many shapes and forms in photography – they come as montages which are photographic works that are produced by cutting and amalgamating two or more images in order to make up a new image. When using analog photograhy, the resulting image often is photographed in order to receive one seamless image. Another, multi-medium form of a composite involving photography is collage where (parts of) photographic images are cut or cropped and included in a new picture, often combining lettering or even two-dimensional objects. These are art forms in their own right, and with the easy availability of photographs on the internet, montage and collage have become almost something of a regular occurrance in fan circles. A lot of the “edits” and “manips” we are faced with even within our own little fandom can be classed as such. A lot of them show great creative imagination by the (amateur) artist. However, they are so called “derivative works” – they *are* original, but based on the work of art by another. As such the copyright situation with collages and montages is somewhat ambiguous – and that is one of the reasons why I by and large avoid manipulating other photographers’ work, or reblogging and *ooof*ing collages and montages of existing images for my own and the fandom’s enjoyment.

Some of that is down to my own principles and preferences. Like everyone else, I come to the internet with my own set of values and experiences. My persona in RAworld is very closely linked to my work and values as a photographer. As someone who knows how much planning, effort and time it takes to create visual work, I immensely respect the work of others. Personally I adhere to a strict policy of non-intervention – or as little intervention as possible – when it comes to post-producing my work. What I value most about photography is its potential for documentation, hence I do not like interfering with what I have captured on the sensor. (I know that nothing is what it seems when it comes to modern photographic work, but I still think that photography – and  documentary cinematography – *can* be the most life-like representation of an object, subject or situation.) My own images only go through the minimum of post-production – that is cropping, colour adjustments, possibly WB-adjustment, straightening. I occasionally might erase a spot on a picture, but not a spot on a sitter’s face. It’s part of his/her there-and-then, it describes them as they are. I am not God, so I do not erase it. (I will admit, though, that I have the freedom to adhere to my principles because I rarely work as a commercial photographer in the areas of advertising or marketing – where photoshop is the be all and end all.)

This policy of non-intervention also applies to my appreciation of other photographers’ work. I believe that the version of a photograph that a photographer has released to the public is the *definitive* version – the one that the creator wanted. Hence I avoid touching other people’s work in photoshop. Personally, I do this out of respect for their artistic choices and decisions. That is also why I rarely reblog manips where colour casts have been changed, hues adjusted, filters applied. I don’t mind crops, as they leave the source material intact and merely focus our gaze on a detail that can otherwise be overlooked. I do enjoy pastiche, montage or collage where an artist builds on the work of someone else, however – they *re*create so clearly that it is still possible to see where the original work of art ended and the new one starts.

Anyway, time to get off my soap box – the above two paragraphs would probably have sat better as a “disclosure” on my Armitage Weekly Round-up. To make it all up to you, I have a little rather far-fetched story to amuse you with.

He had arrived a day before the event, a Sunday, on his own. Perfect. An opportunity to do some Christmas shopping before the family – professional and private – arrived. He whizzed from the airport to his hotel in the city centre, dumped his bags in his suite – Damn, they don’t do sheets here, I have to sleep under a drafty duvet – quickly changed from his comfy sweater into something slightly more respectable – you never know who might recognise me… it was happening more and more these days – and wandered out into the December day. It was uncharacteristically mild, wasn’t Berlin supposed to be quite far East and therefore bitter cold in winter? Poland, practically? He didn’t even need a coat. He turned right from the hotel entrance and walked down the street.

Rather quiet for a capital city of *this* scale and historical importance, he mused to himself. Where are all the people? He crossed a large road and found himself behind a large, old cathedral-like building. Suddenly he was aware of a faint din, some tinkly Christmas music, and what was that delicious smell? The Germans do sausage pretty well. Wasn’t there some Berlin speciality every visitor was supposed to try? His stomach growled perceptibly. He followed the tempting waft and found himself on a small open space where the path widened to the entrance of a bigger square. Suddenly there were people, all streaming towards an arched gateway into the square. “Vee-nackts Zuber Jen-dar-men-markt”, he read the lit-up lettering above the gateway.A market for men? Bloody foreign customs. A Christmas market by the look of things. Ah, but the Germans did Christmas well, he had heard, he followed the throng of the towards the gate.

Suddenly there were massive crowds. Or should that be ‘Krauts’? He chuckled. Man, it was busy here. This really must be quite something. The Germans, much unlike the English, had evidently not heard of the civilised concept of lining up in an orderly queue in order to get through a bottleneck. When in Rome, he sighed to himself. I’ll do anything to get to that sausage stall. Edging closer to the gate, he felt himself crushed from all sides. Tall Teutons on the left, giant Germans on the right, a high Hun in front of him. Whoops!He jumped. What was that? Had someone just pinched his bottie? He clucked but had no time to think as the crowd was moving in one big wad towards the entrance. There, a gap. Richard saw his chance, pushed and moved forward. He turned his body to the left, balancing on his toes, and tried to squeeze through the opening, his hands held protectively in front of his best bits.

“Halt. Stop. Stehenbleiben.” A booming voice stopped everybody in their tracks. A security guard stomped through the crowd, muscly arm stretched out, a finger pointing at him. “Who? Me?” Richard looked around, a question mark in his eyes, but immediately rooted to the spot by the authoritative tone of the solidly-built guard. “Sie da! Ja, Sie mit den dunklen Locken! Eintrittskarte!” Richard frowned. He had no idea what the burly German had been saying to him. He stopped, shrugged and put as much innocent cluelessness on his face as he could muster. “Sie brauchen eine Eintrittskarte für den Markt”, the guard barked and pointed towards Richard’s hands. “I have no idea what you are saying”, he said calmly and apologetically, watching the security man gesticulating in front of his crotch. “Ein-tritt”, the security man articulated extra loudly and slowly for the benefit of the foreigner, rolling his eyes, and for emphasis he held up his left hand, thumb and index finger, spread apart in a measuring gesture, while his right index finger pointed towards the general direction of Richard’s crotch.

“What the…”, Richard bristled. “How dare you?! My assets are not…”, he copied the guard’s finger gesture and shook his head violently. With a scowl worthy of Guy of Gisborne post-humiliation he took a threatening step towards the security man. “They are more like…”, he huffed and indicated an impressive length between his two hands. The security man looked on in disbelief. “Was?” He stared at Richard. “Ein-tritts-karte, Junge. Du musst hier zahlen!” He didn’t budge a centimetre, and Richard was lost in translation. “What? I don’t understand. Ich sprechen nicht deutsch. Or rather, that’s the only phrase I know…” he trailed off, simultaneously putting both hands in his hair in a universal gesture of despair, still scowling. “Und ich nicht englisch. Zahlen. Geld. Eintrittskarte”, the guard reiterated. Richard was at a loss. He scratched his head with his right hand, now arching his eyebrows in an expression of helplessness. The security guard rolled his eyes. Touristen! “Ticket!”, he forced through clenched teeth with a mirthless smile. Oh for fucks sake! What a stupid muddle. Bloody foreigner himself.

~ by Guylty on January 14, 2014.