40
B+W
COMMENTHow we use space in our photographs is an important creative decision.
Vicki Painting considers ideas about space – how it’s used and how
theories about it differ in east and west.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE@vickipaintingphotoIn Lee Miller’s photograph Portrait of
Space (1937) we look out on the parched
desert landscape through a hole in a torn
fly screen. It is an image of the land and
there is no human figure present. A small
picture frame hangs above the tear fixed
in portrait orientation. This is perhaps
the only reference to what we might
think constitutes a portrait and although
it might initially seem oblique, within the
context of what we know about Miller’s
background and her roots in surrealismthen perhaps it makes perfect sense.
As a group, the surrealists weren’t that
interested in categories. Iconoclastic, they
actively sought to eradicate or blur the
boundaries between genres. Lee Miller
stuck true to this tradition, and the boundary
between how she lived her life and made
her art are indistinguishable.
Miller also knew how to work space
to great effect in her images. In western
culture space is defined as the area around
everything that exists in all directions and isdefinitely worth special consideration. It is
a word we reference continuously but may
not give it as much importance as we think
we do. Generally, we take it for granted,
preferring to concentrate on what we have
selected as our subject or the thing we
want to focus on in our picture, which we
consider the positive element when we are
constructing an image. How we represent
space is sometimes actively left out of our
decision making altogether as it is often
viewed as the negative part of the image, yet
it is every bit as important as any of the other
elements and when brought to the fore allows
us to raise questions about our environment.
Bringing space into the limelight is most
commonly associated with landscape, where,
generally speaking, space is in abundance.
Of course, a portrait of space could be just
that, but by placing this conundrum before
us we can’t help but scrutinise the landscape
with the expectation that it will reveal a face,
as it surely has to be somewhere in the picture.
In the end, it is just a surreal tease that feeds
into our need to anthropomorphise, even
within the landscape.
Robert Adams says in his essay Truth
and Landscape that landscape images
have to contain the perfect combination
of geography, autobiography and metaphor
(and will fail if any one of these is missing).
If so, then Lee Miller well and truly nails it.Awareness of how we use space
should be carried into other areas
of our picture making, but with
different considerations. I am
currently working with a group on how we
might represent ourselves through different
genres, beginning with still life. We are
conscious that whatever we select as part
of our assemblage and how we place the
objects within space (and specifically the
voids we leave between them) will convey
a particular meaning or emotion; they will
effectively say something about us.
As part of a self-portraiture exercise we
will direct someone else to take our picture
in a way we would like to be portrayed.
Allowing someone into our personal space
means working in collaboration, we will‘MILLER ALSO KNEW HOWTO WORK SPACE TO GREATEFFECT IN HER IMAGES.’