IPA Single Image Award 'Surreal and Disturbing'

Michelle Sank, Man Asleep on the Golden Mile, Durban, South Africa

Congratulations to Michelle Sank, who has won the Single Image Category in the British Journal of Photography's International Photography Awards, with this shot of a man sleeping on the grass...

...Wait, what?

This shot? Really? Maybe I should go skim that article again...let's see...powerful shot...surreal and disturbing...picked out from 338 other entries...microcosm of South Africa...wins a Sigma DP2s...right, 'kay, guess that's right then.

I'd like to humbly suggest we stage our own contest. The TOP Post-Exposure Reconceptualization Processor Award for the person who can come up with the invented caption that manages to make this nondescript picture interesting. I'll kick things off with two attempts of my own:

"M'bato Ngyui of South Africa demonstrates his celebrated divining technique. He presses his left ear to the ground for several hours and then advises villages where to dig their wells. He is paid in bread."

"The Monstunto Corporation, reacting to charges that it cares little for the welfare of farmers, has responded by developing a genetically modified turf that is comfortable for unemployed homeless farmers to sleep on. It drains well when wet and is said to be 'delightfully spongy.' "

(Note also the comments under the original article....)

Mike
(Thanks to Hilton)

UPDATE: I contacted Diane Smyth, the BJP Deputy Editor who wrote the article. She confirmed that the article was not a spoof and that the shot really is the winner (I wasn't 100% sure).

UPDATE #2: As a further indictment of the choice, the prize-winning image is entirely uncharacteristic of the work of Michelle Sank, who is a portraitist with a very definite style (usually full body or three-quarter-length, head-on color environmental portraits of one or two people, usually using light fill flash, sometimes a little foreground-heavy)—and one who very distinctly works in terms of groupings of pictures organized around sociological concerns. (I.e., not in single images.)

Here's a characteristic Michelle Sank shot from her website:

It's from a set called "Into the Arms of Babes." In describing the project she is characterically blunt about her intent: "England has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe and this statistic is of growing concern. In this project I am exploring the current phenomenon of teenage mothers, and in some cases, teenage parents. Essentially these parents feel like children themselves, and it is this vulnerability that I am trying to convey. I am also interested in showing the relationship and bonding that exists between young parent and child as well as revealing the dynamics that are apparent between the mother, her partner and the extended family."

And finally, we need to retain a sense of perspective here: saying a picture isn't a standout single image worthy of an award isn't the same thing as saying the picture is totally worthless or that it doesn't have any meaning for anybody. The prizewinner here just isn't special. Fail. I think "period," although I sort of admire those with sufficient confidence to disagree.

Send this post to a friend

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Caption by John Krumm: "A contestant participates in the annual 'worm whispering' derby. Earthworms are most active at night and can be lured to the surface with the proper call."

Caption by Judith W.: "After 37 years of her nagging him to tie his shoelaces, Samir suddenly realized what a smart woman his mother actually was."

Caption by Ned: "Trapped coal miners encouraged by voice from above."

Featured Comment by Ed Hawco: "Nice capture! ;-)"

Featured Comment by David S.: "The comments on this post remind me of the reaction when William Eggleston had his first exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art: 'It's a picture of a tricycle!  My kid could have taken it!'

"Your first mistake is to confuse technique with meaning. Perhaps you would have preferred a nice HDR photo of a sunset?

"Art is not about technique. The fact that it's a photograph most of you would never have even bothered taking doesn't invalidate it. It just means the photographer saw something you were incapable of seeing.

"Photography is not a 'difficult' medium. All photographs are, by definition, 'easy' to make—you just push a button. The value of the medium lies in the photographer's calling a moment in time to our attention—a moment we might otherwise have missed—and saying 'this is important.' It takes something simple and fleeting and turns it into something emblematic.

"Art is not about pretty pictures.  It is first and foremost about the human condition.

"The photograph is about murder. It's about latent violence, and the brutal, animal nature of human existence. Dostoyevsky would have loved it. Weegee would have loved it. It demands the viewer's active participation in parsing out its meaning and its narrative. The picture might as well have been taken 50,000 years ago—a photograph of a man and his most basic tool, a blunt instrument of violence."  

Featured Comment by Nick: "P.S. It's a loaf of bread, not a brick."

Featured Comment by Daniel: "What a crock of sh*t! I know many have commented already, but here's my local take on this image, considering I'm based in Durban and a photographer. This gentleman is most likely not poor; it's actually very common to see people taking a quick nap on the grass during the day. It doesn't mean they have no-where to sleep, they are just having a siesta.

"Seriously gobsmacked...."

Featured Comment by Andrew: "I live in Durban and often photograph on the Golden Mile. To suggest that this photograph is 'a microcosm of South Africa' is ludicrous. South Africa is a complex multi-cultural society historically burdened with extremes of wealth and poverty. This image represents none of that. He is not the epitome of 'poor' in South African terms—he has servicable clothes and a loaf of bread. If you want 'poor' then photograph the AIDS orphens living at rubbish dumps, but for God's sake give them a loaf of bread, they desperately need it. There is no sense of place, juxtaposition of cultures or fortunes or personal story. It's a sad reflection on the BJP."

Featured Comment by Mike Chisholm: "Mike, I'm not immediately impressed by this image myself, but aren't you—as a professional contrarian—even a little bothered by the strength and unanimity of the negative response to it?

"Think back to the reactions to f64, New Topographics, John Gossage, Paul Graham, Alec Soth...almost always 'Why, these aren't proper photographs! They're so banal!!'

"For sure, I'm not saying this is an outstanding photograph—it looks very ill-considered to my 56-year-old eyes—but it is very typical of what some thoughtful young photographers are producing, perhaps in reaction to what us oldies hold dear about our photographs.

"I think it's wise to try to stay open to the 'Hendrix Moment' ('Coltrane Moment,' if you prefer)—when something new arrives that trashes certain expectations of a previous generation. This may or may not be such a moment.

"I hope not, personally, but I'm reserving judgement until I understand what is really going on. I don't know about you, but my instinct is always to head in the other direction to the baying of the Flickr crowd...."

Mike replies: Mike, I'm secure enough to accept being part of the reactionary crowd if that's to be my role here. I feel I'm reasonably open to exploring how photographs work, and to engaging with work that doesn't immediately appeal to me.

Still, I'm a middle aged white man, for better or worse. Heck, I don't like piercings or tattoos either for that matter. That marks me as part of my generation and social class, but the fact remains that I am indeed part of my generation and social class. So, so be it. That's not going to make me pretend to like tattoos.

Back to the picture: sometimes bad is good, but, to quote a song of our generation, sometimes bad is bad.

Featured Comment by Stan B.: "I've finally gotten off the initial 'high' this photo first inspired. Michelle Sank (you wouldn't know it from this photo) is a very gifted portraitist. And while I can see some of the things this photo almost has going for it (e.g., the shape of the shirt, the disembodied hand, the muted color palette, the contrasting patches of grass, and the extraterrestrial loaf of bread)—it's still an 'almost' shot, one ascended from two of photography's laziest beginner genres, the sleeping student on the lawn, and the down-and-out guy. Do we really need yet another picture of a down-and-out person of color—even if supposedly operating within the realm of 'Fine Art?'

"I hope Ms. Sank uses the money to produce more of the fine photography she is so capable of...the kind that may not win her this prize, but that does both her and her subject matter justice."

Featured Comment by Lynn Burdekin: " 'Man Asleep on the Golden Mile.' I beg to differ. He is obviously just loafing."

Featured Comment by Craig Lee: "In the end, any contest comes down to the opinion of the judge/judges. Theirs is the only one that really matters.

"I myself was recently in a local photography competition where the 'Best in Show' was generally regarded as a snapshot by most of the visitors to the gallery. When I mention being in this particular contest and show to other area photographers, the first question I get is 'What did you think about the winner?' The next few minutes are descriptions of the photograph that are very similar to most of the reactions in this thread to this particular image.

"My response is that it was just one person's opinion and not something that I'll loose sleep over. There were many beautiful photographs in the contest's show that I would never have seen before, and I've met several local photographers that I would not have know before. Besides, the judge had to know what he was doing since I placed third in one of the categories.  ;-)

"A judge's opinion just doesn't raise my blood pressure all that much. Different images will speak to different people in different ways. I am constantly surprised when someone likes a photograph of mine which I thought was a reject. They see something that I captured, yet didn't notice myself. That is something that, to me at least, makes photography a most surprising art form."

Mike replies: That last paragraph is a great insight. A classmate of mine, Pam West, found a shot of mine on my contact sheets and convinced me to print it. I had ignored it completely. Yet if I end up printing a 'best of' portfolio of my own 35mm work in my new darkroom, that picture will make the cut.

Very interesting. Very mysterious.

Comments

[Mike Johnston]

Joe,
I accept that this post is somewhat mean-spirited compared to our usual fare. But I would disagree with some of your points:

First, I don't think I'm a pied piper here. I think people are agreeing with me because they agree with me. When readers disagree with me, my experience has been that they're not afraid to say so. A good example is that when I wrote a strong condemnation of the looting of the Barnes Collection by the PTB of Philadelphia, many people disagreed with me...even though I was completely right and they were completely wrong. :-D

Second, I don't think I was primarily criticizing Michelle Sank. I think I'm primarily criticizing the BJP judges. I'm saying they blew it.

Third, you imply that the image is a "difficult" image. I don't think it's difficult at all. I think exactly the opposite--that AS A SINGLE IMAGE it's trite, cliched, overly simple, obvious, and devoid of any of the semi-accidental grace, whimsy, mystery or meaning that characterize single photographs when they "work." It might work in the context of a larger series of pictures, but that's not what it won an award for.

And although this doesn't speak to any of your points, I would go further and say the judges have done a disservice to Michelle Sank. She's obviously a photographer who chooses NOT to work in single images. She makes that very clear on her website, verbally, visually, and organizationally. Not only have they picked an image that's uncharacteristic of most of her work, which is a bit insulting in itself, but associating her with a single-image prize is something of a slap in the face to the way she clearly wants her work to function, or so I would think.

I wonder what she thinks of all this? (I guess she might not answer if I asked, which brings me back to your final point, and to where I started in this reply....)

Mike

[Jim]

I want to know what camera she used, because then I will surely take award winning photos as well, regardless of content, image, composition, art, etc.

[Till Scheel]

I kind of like the picture. It's not a brillant one, but I don't get tired looking at it. Whereas I don't like the strange portrait of the teenage-mother and her baby.

[Mark Walker]

Is the subject matter of a photo, if it is in the area of social concern/inequality, simply enough to make it interesting and worthy of public debate ? Does this picture really say something, or is it just posing a contrived question with no context ?
The insights I have read don't seem to have much convincing propositions for this work and I would say that pictures like this are not at all ground breaking or original. For me there is a lack of grit or empathy, as if the photographer has made a void for comment, rather than providing one (if thats it, so what, that's not difficult). I'm floundering here, trying to see perhaps something that can't be seen because only the photographer knows and the rest is supposition: it's not that interesting, it fits a current genre.
Shoot me down but I'm not praising mediocrity.

[Crabby Umbo]

I, also, thought this was a joke when I first saw it. I thought: "Mike, you little Imp!". But, it's real, alas. I also went to the photographers web-site and moused through a lot of her work, and found this image to be the weakest thing of anything she shows. It's a puzzlement...

BTW Mike, when you're comments said that she uses a little light flash fill, sometimes foreground heavy, I guess what you meant to say was that she lazily uses a flash on camera in the old synchro-sunlight mode.

Having worked with a lot of college kids, I have to say that her "artistic rationalization statement" for the teen mothers thing is dead on to what they teach in American institutions for all art classes, with the possible exceptions that she didn't use the words "context", "contextual", or the phrase "man's inhumanity to man", in anything I read...yet...or maybe that's passe this year..oy, who can keep track!

But seriously folks, getting your undies in a bundle over this is so much wasted energy. The older I get, the more I realize that everything changes, as well as every generations viewpoint. It's amazing to me when the "youngsters" trot out some new, hip, amazing, image to show, only to have me realize it's been done before, and better. The generation X'ers and Y'ers to me, seem to be the generations that have reviled their elders more than any other, including my own; but at least we did the study and research to know what came before, while they're always reinventing the wheel and wanting a pat on the back for it. Hence some of the comments on this image.

Man, I would like to see an ink-blot test result for some of those art rationalizers that wrote those long winded positive comments, I bet it would be striking!

BTW, for some reason, Eggleston's been back in the news recently, and someone mentioned him earlier in these posts. Because he's been in the ether lately, a few old photo pals of mine and I were talking about him, and we STILL don't get it. After watching some of the recent documentaries about him, well, I'll just quote a Southern Gal Pal of mine about him: "That is one weak, drunken, Southern trust-fund baby that's never done an honest day of work in his life!".

[Mike Johnston]

"That is one weak, drunken, Southern trust-fund baby that's never done an honest day of work in his life!".

Probably a fairly accurate appraisal, actually. I'm not sure he'd take it as an insult, though.

Mike

[James.M]

Whoa, whoa, whoa... nice shootin', Tex. Easy now people. How about a bit of graciousness and respect for a fellow photographer? For what it's worth, the photo is kind of growing on me. Here are two good things we can say about it, for starters: it avoids cliche, and it's making me think. No small feat, either of those things.

(I'm happy to admit that the context of the photo may be a big part of what's making me think. It's not just the photo itself, but the fact that someone is putting it forward and saying: "Look at this. This is worth your time and the attention". But lots of art works like this, doesn't it? Intent and context can matter as much as the intrinsic features of the art object.)

[Morgan Jones]

Mike,

I'm a big fan of your site which I find stimulating and fun and return to most days.

I'm also a big fan of this photo which has been on my mind since you published it the other day, and I agree wholeheartedly with the comments by David S, Joe, JohnMFLores, Gregory Clementes and (a few) others.

To me Ms. Sank's picture is enigmatic, thought provoking, subtle and exquisitely poised, in both form and content.

A refreshing competition winner, in my humble opinion, and not in the least stereotypical: as evidenced by the numerous divergent descriptions of this scene by commentators.

A brick wrapped in a bread bag wrapped in a mystery...who ever heard of such a thing, and yet here it is!?!

I looked up 'nondescript', incidentally, on dictionary.com.
"-adjective
1. of no recognized, definite, or particular type or kind: a nondescript novel; a nondescript color.
2. undistinguished or uninteresting; dull or insipid: The private detective deliberately wore nondescript clothes."

The first one, definitely the first one!!

[Zalman Stern]

The only way this discussion could get better is if it came to light that Michelle Sank inserted the loaf of bread using Photoshop.

-Z-

[Dave Kee]

Second prize was two Sigma DP2s.

[paul logins]

1.The winning photo is boring
2.The photo of Michelle is more interesting
3.Majority of photo contests suck

[David Nicol]

"Not only have they picked an image that's uncharacteristic of most of her work, which is a bit insulting in itself, but associating her with a single-image prize is something of a slap in the face to the way she clearly wants her work to function, or so I would think."

Except that the single image category was entirely separate from the body of work one, different online entry form and separate entry fee, so the photographer must have specifically entered this image on its own.

[MarcW]

Nathan: Actually, it's the other way round. 90% of everything is crap. It's just that we spend a lot of time arguing about the 10%.

While I still like my caption, to seriously address the work, this is a purely contextual photograph. (As opposed, to me, to an esthetic work which is just attractive and/or technically admirable in its own right. Not that a photograph with serious context can't also be technically proficient.) If you have a mental context that it fits into which you find intriguing, you will find it intriguing. If you don't, you will not. The trick with contextual work if you want it to succeed is to find a mental context which your selected audience will have and find intriguing.

Obviously she hit what she was aiming at, which was the mental context space of the judges of the competition. It's their competition: who am I to take them to task? If I were asked to submit to this competition, I would not do so, nor would I support it with time or money, but I have absolutely no quarrel with it. I, like most photographers, have certainly created photographs with a particular audience in mind and which people not having the characteristics of that audience at best wouldn't be particularly interested in (and at worst would find, frankly, quite horrific.) De gustibus, non disputandum.

I personally do not care for this kind of work, mainly because one of my strongest mental contexts is that if I can't tell a photograph from a random mediocre snapshot, I am not inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. I am quite aware and do not dispute that purposely creating an image in the style of a random mediocre snapshot can be a valid artistic choice. It is just not a choice I usually find compelling.

[Ed Gaillard]

Mike, I found this curious: "As a further indictment of the choice, the prize-winning image is entirely uncharacteristic of the work of Michelle Sank"...

I don't understand why that's an indictment. Is it supposed to be impossible that an artist produce good work outside her normal area?

Also--I don't know how these competitions work; surely the judges did not know whose photographs they were looking at when they made their decision? If they didn't know, it seems immaterial whether the work is outside Sank's usual range. If they did know, that sounds like very bad methodology.

[Mark Norman]

If you think the photo contest "system" has it's many aspects, then you should submit you work to a gallery for consideration
Always a pleasure to be deconstructed.

[Mikey]

rotate it 90 degrees clockwise and call it "Man Leaning on Mother Earth", throw in some comments about "surreal existentialism", "intriguing juxtaposition of compositional effectiveness" and "emotional ambivalence" and I think you'll have a modern art masterpiece on your hands there.

[Crabby Umbo]

Hey Marc W.

Thanks for using the word "context" or "contextual", six times, thereby proving my point about "art speak" rationalizations!

[Poagao]

Due to all the attention paid to this image, I've been looking at it for a couple of days, and damnit if it isn't growing on me. Looking purely at the shapes and colors, it is actually quite well-composed, and the book in the hand lends something to it I can't quite explain. It is a challenging photo, IMHO, in that it is easily dismissible according to current photographic contest-winning chestnuts, but I do think it rewards some patient examination, and though brilliance escapes my vocabulary at this time in describing it, doing the above is no easy task.

For the record, I also love Eggleston.

[Andrew Niemann]

To not like someone elses art and to critique it, even strongly, is one thing - totally acceptable, expected and even desired. But to make fun of it and ridicule it endlessly - sorry - I find that totally unacceptable.

Andy