UNSTAGED — Performance Photography as an Art Form
UNSTAGED is a celebration of the high-pressure, high-stakes world of live performance photography, featuring over 200 high-quality posters of photographs taken by tireless local gig photographers.
1/3 of the proceeds will go directly to supporting these photographers who are present at almost every gig, but often go unpaid.
UNSTAGED hopes to normalize the compensation of gig photographers, and also give them a platform to recognize their work as a respectable art form.
The bassist trembles.
It’s her first-ever show, and she’s never been in front of a real crowd before. Up till this point, it’s only been rehearsals with the band. Not even her own, she’s just ‘sessioning’ for them, their bassist fell ill. What if she isn’t up to scratch? What if she loses count? What if she confuses the others?
Sweat beads above her forehead, and her BB Cream and foundation form a dam above her wrinkles, fighting to hold back the waterworks. She sees her cue, moves on stage, and takes her position.
CLICK! SNAP! A shutter closes as she slaps live for the first time.
And with that shot, she will never forget this day.
Immortalizing such glamourous, candid, and authentic moments is the work of performance photographers, who battle against rapidly changing stage lighting, fast-paced choreography, spontaneous reactions from both performers and fans and much more, to deliver memorable and iconic storytelling images.
Yet despite the high level of skill, tenacity, and range demanded from the job, photographers often get left out of the conversation when the topic of art gets brought up.
Photography has always been a contentious topic within the art world.
In philosopher Roger Scruton’s essay, “Photography and Representation”, he argued that due to the nature of how a photograph was taken, it lacked the intentionality of that of a traditional artist, rather instead capturing what was there already in front of them.
A painter, he believed, could deliberately include influences within his work, that would inspire further thinking, while a photographer, in his model of an ‘ideal photograph’, would find the task impossible.
The capture of a transient moment, the ‘way we would see it’, is missing the essence or underlying meanings that what he considered true art would be able to explore.
In a rather aggressive analogy, he compares photographers and traditional artists to music and recordings. Via a thought experiment, he posited that just like how one would not consider a recording of a water fountain’s noise great music/art, one would similarly not consider an astro-photograph of a starry night a fine arts piece the same way one would Vincent van Gogh’s painting.
Of course, this line of thinking takes a rather crude idea of what photography can be, an opinion that no doubt was colored by the fact that his thoughts were penned in 1983, a time when photographers were significantly more limited in their ability to influence their final product.
Roger Scruton’s idea of photography, that being of a simple reflection of reality as seen, when taken to its extreme conclusion, would probably hold up in the context of performance photography if the photographers were simply holding down their shutter button for the entire duration of the performance.
Roger implies a complete lack of underlying intention that could be derived from a photograph, a mere recording. Perhaps if we lived in a world where photographers simply submitted tens of thousands of photographs taken from every possible angle, he’d be making a strong case.
We do not live in such a world, thankfully.
Say we consider the bar for art the ability to convey the intentionality of the artist’s work, and the audiences’ ability to derive additional meaning beyond just “this is a picture of this thing”.
The average professional snapper doesn’t just click everything in sight. Ask any photographer, and they’d laugh in your face at the idea of infinite storage and time to sort out said infinite storage.
For Alyssa (@alyssarchived on Instagram), one of the photographers exhibiting with UNSTAGED, the act of engaging the shutter is an incredibly deliberate one.
“A large part of the work is anticipation. After you get some experience, you won’t just be ‘spamming’. You start to understand the artist and their music, and get a feeling for when they’ll do certain things, which we then prepare for,” she explains.
American Photo-Secession movement pioneer Alfred Stieglitz argued that photographers could manipulate composition, lighting, and subject matter to create aesthetically pleasing and emotionally evocative images.
In the context of UNSTAGED, performance photographers decide on different focal lengths, exposure settings, and even physical filters, all of which deliberately create differently composed photographs.
“I always try to get to know the stage, the lighting, and where the artist is going to be. I try to position myself such that beam light effects can create leading lines for my composition. Often the stage design and lighting can help me create stories or bring attention to my subjects,” says Qing Hao (@callmeqh on Instagram), another UNSTAGED featured photographer.
“It’s quite dynamic. Exposure on stage changes very quickly, and we have to react to [the changes in lighting] in real-time, and we still need to make sure the final shot is properly composed and tells a story.” Alyssa shares.
The deliberate intentions, anticipations, and conscious compositional choices of the performance photographer are what prove that the work is art, in and of itself, in simpleArte’s eyes. While one may put forth that the photographer’s tool and canvas all lie within the camera and lens he uses, simpleArte puts forward that in addition to that, the very stage and setup, through thoughtful and deliberate positioning and considerations, acts as the artist’s playground for composing his work.
Some writers choose to engage in thought experiments where they put forward that photos don’t represent themselves as a medium, they only represent the subject that they portray. One isn’t interested in the water lilies Monet painted, they say, but rather in the technique and canvas choice involved in the painting. Meanwhile, when one takes a picture of water lilies, the medium is incapable of speaking for itself, for one only cares about the subject, i.e. the water lilies, photographed. They then go on to bring up that perhaps such a shortcoming could be rectified with modifications to the photograph, such as through editing.
This is, to borrow from Gen-Z lingo, a “massive L take.”
The transient nature of photography already brings attention to the medium. A well-exposed and composed photograph of a rock star spitting out water over the crowd mid-jump does not cause the viewer to observe the subject in a vacuum.
The initial awe of the fact that it was a real moment captured draws attention to the piece in a way only a photograph would be able to.
The compositional qualities of said image are now even more appreciable to the audience, with the knowledge that the photographer had a split second to compose the picture. This is the medium speaking for itself, rather than the subject. The fact that it was a photograph augments the artistic compositional merits of the photographer, rather than taking away.
Thaddeus John Szarkowski, New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s director of photography from 1962 to 1991, argued that photography had its own unique visual language and expressive possibilities, distinct from other art forms.
In UNSTAGED, simpleArte gallery spotlights several distinct photography techniques used to create an interesting composition.
UNSTAGED photographers @momofarn and @dzanography utilize long-exposure photography techniques in order to capture motion in their gig images. By leaving their camera shutter open for durations sometimes as long as multiple seconds, they allow the sensor to capture motion blur, which provides an authentic capture of the energy present at the gigs they photograph.
The utilization of 2nd-curtain sync flash, a method where a burst of light is applied just before the camera’s shutter closes after a prolonged period of time, locks in the subjects they wish to show clearly in their photograph amidst the chaotic motion blur.
Performance photographers face the unique challenge of not being able to apply these techniques in a controlled setting, but rather needing to create such imaging live amidst high-energy crowds and rapidly moving performers.
Editing also plays a major role in the work they do.
More than just adjusting color temperature to make an image seem more neutral, photographers often have their own style of editing, with some favoring contrast, some who prefer to always matte their shadows, and some with deliberate color tone choices that define a certain mood that they like.
“It’s easily my favorite part of the work. I try to get to understand the vibe of the musicians, and also try to show the energy of the crowd. I edit all my photos differently because I want them all to feel authentic to the moment. It definitely helps bring across the feelings and vibes to the viewer,” says Alyssa.
“The edit style is actually the easiest way my friends can tell the picture was posted by me.”
Be it intention, deeper meaning, the ability for their media to speak for themselves, distinct techniques unique to the medium, or artistic voice, photographers tick all the checkmarks.
UNSTAGED by simpleArte is an acknowledgement and celebration of the work of performance photographers, which the gallery believes are just as worthy to be exhibited as any other art form.
UNSTAGED runs from June 30th to July 11th 2023, at 27A Arab Street.
Find out more here.
