About Stuart Clarke Life, work & Aspirations
An exploration into the work of Stuart Clarke
By Simon Thie
1. graphics versus telling the truth
With an interest in photography as a creative platform in its own right and as a means to record my observations within my graphics studies, I am split in my affections between the evident styles of two very different approaches. I love the graphic photographs of Man Ray, but even more I am drawn to what might be called the humanist photographers like Cartier Bresson, Lartigue, Erwitt, Penn and such. What this group of photographers tend to have in common is the suppression of the gaudy appeal of colour, and strong artistic and moral roots, which surmount to powerful ways of handling what they see. The power of a photograph is that you are taken straight into a time and place and in viewing the works you are instantly there, the photograph seemingly telling the absolute truth. Although Stuart Clarke was also making the world appear how he wanted it to be – people tend to think of his work as ‘real’ photography but there is no such thing, photographers are constantly editing, and choosing which photographs to take, print, exhibit and publish.
2. compassion & beauty in the everyday
Clarke by the use of his eloquent lens tells us, always compassionately, about an experience so regularly shared, so seldom vocalised by all of us who watch, play or simply live in the vicinity of football. Stuart Clarke is famous for his graphic style photographic images of football, a niche subject some may think but to be honest if you look at the nation as a whole football comes pretty close to being on a par with such necessities as religion or the NHS, I can see why football is so important, I can appreciate why it is so vastly popular, because of its intrinsic worth of the sport and the beauty of the game. Clarke sets out to show us how simple football is, yet it gives many of us a very profound feeling for and understanding of life. Whilst choosing a career path the Falklands war was at its peak, and Clarke had tired of this, he started hitch-hiking knowing that the milk of human kindness was out there, in various guises. In the cab of a lorry, or in the passenger seat of a car, he found the one same starting point to most conversation: the town you come from and the fate of its football team. He realised that football in a sense was more powerful than war.
3. freeze-frame the unfamous
Clarke employed photography as it was a way of collecting moments knowing that time would pass, he wanted to freeze moments knowing they would not be repeated.
The photographs Clarke take state with great authority ‘This is the vital moment’, whilst often taking a moment when nothing much is happening and there is no ‘star’ apparent. People say that the ordinary people, the fans, are his stars. His photographs have a lot of mystery about them as what we witness are images of nameless people; it’s kind of nice they remain ‘unknown’, for the moment, one starts thrusting them into the spotlight they might become less the unsuspecting stars and more the show stealers. He tries to take every photo without getting noticed, though this is hard when he only uses a ‘standard lens’ he likes the intimacy of having to get up close and personal with someone to fill the frame with their presence. If you attract ones attention it changes the fundamental scenario of the image, in a way the image becomes void. Whilst his work evidently captures the spirit of the nation through referencing to the game of football, where images are charged with reality and passion, I am drawn to his early black & white imagery due to my own interests and its ability to capture the changing nature of society through harsh graphic images. Though renowned for his football work I went back 25 years to look at the start of his career.
4. before he went all football
Clarke uses his camera as though he is a poet, attentive to the act of love made with each photograph, and this is where the genius is revealed. Amplified and enriched, the work of Clarke is revealed in all its grandeur. From a desired distance, we discover simultaneously the geographer, who analyses the permanence or vulnerability of cultures; the ethnographer, who captures gestures of work and rituals of religion; the anthropologist, who reflects the spectrum of emotions; and the sociologist, who reveals the development of destinies and histories. Throughout his career, he has upheld his own philosophy of individuality and spontaneity in the photographic process. He feels that "you have to be yourself and you have to forget yourself" in order to discover the exact instant and position from which the photographer extracts a moment of meaning from ongoing existence, thus resulting in a style rooted in the own photographer's personality and commentary.
5. social commentary
Clarke was interested in showing the social commentary of our time and this is evident in his black and white works. His pictures show the new-found mobility and versatility of the camera; he makes you want to go out and take pictures. Photography was still in its age of innocence. The camera was not yet seen as political. Actually it was long since new , long since not-so-innocent, and long since political. But not in the way we see it now. The goalposts have moved...
If I did now, what he used to do, roving the streets taking pictures, I would be arrested. When he pointed the camera at people, they were willing to be photographed. Now they would want to know what you were taking it for and where it was going to be used. Taking photographs then was seen as positive. When Clarke took pictures of people in run-down areas, he was demonstrating their strength, nobility and humanity. Now every picture comes with a political subtext. Stuart Clarke set out to show the beauty of a nation, even if a lot of what its people say and do is not beautiful.
6. balancing act
For Clarke, human life is a precarious balancing act between two worlds: the one inside us and the one outside. And his photographs, he says, are instant drawings of that act, no more, no less. This is why his works still burst with a vitality and visual honesty that are so lacking in today’s mannered style. In photography, you must always be disposable, open, mentally and physically, and Clarke has shown that he is. And what still distinguishes his pictures - after two generations of new technology and colour photography, (photographers have tried to copy them) - is that they retain the energy of a casual snapshot and at the same time contain, formally and intellectually, so many complex and apparently chance inter-relationships that, in the mixture of the ordinary and the mysterious, seem to suggest something of what it is to be alive. Photography has to be purely intuitive. Photography, for me, is a spontaneous impulse, the result of a constant awareness, which captures both a moment and eternity. A photograph has to be definitive because you can't erase it. One of the qualities - not necessarily advantages - of living for a long time must be that you see all too clearly the cultural shifts a society makes as it evolves and analysis of works by Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Stuart Clarke enables me as a relatively young individual to witness how its value-systems change and to consider the changes in societies equilibrium.
7. out of darkness cometh light
The extreme social contrast, during the years before the war, was visually very inspiring for a lot of photographers and artists and this enriching visual world was captured through a different subject matter by Clarke when Thatcher came to power.
Clarke’s black and white photographs were taken in the early 1980’s at a time when the English landscape was very grey and bleak, the main industries were rundown and abandoned and the economic and financial instability lead to the workforces protesting and campaigning for their future. Clarke used this time of unrest and the subject of striking miners to project his own views of the state of society. His somewhat sinister images are injected with humour in an attempt to combat and counter balance what was actually going on at the time, this concept is often one overlooked by the viewer. He also wanted to shock people into accepting the reality of the situation and depression, strife and poorness is emitted through his choice of subject in ‘Blastie, Stealing coal.’ County Durham England 1984.
Almost a political statement, this image was conceived when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and Clarke was not a supporter of her party or her beliefs. In March 1984, one of the longest and possibly most damaging industrial disputes in British history began. The year-long action was marred by violent confrontations at the picket lines and the great hardship within mining communities was reported repeatedly in the media. With affection based on admiration for the people of England, Clarke strove to capture their anonymous existence in his work. Whilst in County Durham he saw this repeated action of people ‘stealing coal’, though in effect they were not really stealing it, they were allowed to take as much as they could carry and whilst generous it was in a sense a compromise because if they had put the coal into their car they would have been stealing it. ‘Blastie’ pushing this laden bag stacked with coal along this train track back to the town in essence captures pictorially the condition of the north east, where the effects of the Depression and the closure of ship-building yards had resulted in 80% unemployment: 'The whole town looked as if it had entered a perpetual penniless bleak Sabbath. The men wore the drawn masks of prisoners of war', so it was said of the time. As with all of Clarke’s images I feel as though I am transported into the image and I feel as if I could be this thing or person that the Blastie is looking at. The sweeping mud track pulls the viewer into the distance, arriving at mining works rising from the coal smoke. Clarke carefully documented coal-searching - the retrieval of small lumps of coal from spoil heaps - and the domestic life of miners. Clarke’s images give vivid portrayals of life back in the 80’s. The tonal quality and variations of contrast give his images a real sense of depth and form that make me feel I can walk into them, if I saw these images on a large scale I feel as though I would be able to step into the picture.
8. inbetween events
Not big on ‘events’ Clarke tried to focus on ‘in between events’, which surmounts to everyday life-where apparently ‘nothing’ was happening and whilst he focuses on the ordinary he actually needed big events to do this and this concept can be seen in ‘Charles and Diana to marry in the morning’ 1981 Buckingham Palace, England. Unlike many, Clarke did not see this as an opportunity to capture the happy couple driving down to Buckingham Palace; he wanted to preserve peoples feelings of this historic event and he does so with a huge amount of elegance through his subject matter - a man smartly dressed standing outside Buckingham Palace at 4am on the morning of the wedding. Uninterested in showing the pomp of the regal nation Clarke as always was looking for everyday people and their reaction to probably the most famous wedding ever. The lone sharp figure of a man dominates the picture yet the scale of the event is evident by the background with large groups of people appearing out of focus, standing on mass awaiting their opportunity to witness this event. Every thing in the photo looks very flat and it is the relationship between the man in the foreground and Buckingham Palace in the distance that immerses us into this image, the inter-relationship of these two parts of the image enables me to imagine walking around the figure, wandering perhaps aimlessly in the depth of the field.
This reflective style can also be seen in ‘Protest outside Chinese embassy’ London, England 1989, which recorded the feelings and reaction to the Tiananmen Square massacre, which happened on the other side of the world. This photograph shows two people tightly holding hands outside the Chinese embassy protesting for democracy. Just by looking at the image feelings of hurt and sadness are instantly evoked and Clarke’s use of framing, a powerful tool in photography, enables the raw emotion to be felt by people who didn’t witness the event.
9. standard lens / standard vision
Using a standard lens means the images are ‘life size’ and Clarke’s adopted methodology enables us to see what he saw the instant he pressed the shutter release. The use of Telephoto lenses in photography changes the dynamics of the picture and in a way the resultant image would not be true to the situation. However the images appear to be very soft but we are awoken by the boldness and harshness of the newspaper headline, which suspended from this act of unity, serves to draw us into the image with a sense of unease. I’m sure that people who witnessed this would be instantly shunted back into a place where they can vividly remember reading this very headline. When viewing this image I feel as though I could even pick this image out of the photograph due to the intense depth and its harsh reality. When I first saw this image I didn't particularly like it, but the more that I looked at it the more I enjoyed the provocation that it gave to a whole number of trains of thought. The image makes one think about an encounter with one's own death or mortality and as this is unveiled in our perception the strength of the image increases.
10. not so standard after all
Nearly all of Clarke’s works carry hidden messages and aesthetically they entice the viewer to look deeper in to the image, raising questions as to what is lurking beneath the surface and the image ‘Diving for dear life’ France 1989 carries a strong subtext. The man throwing himself off the cliff and the woman down below represent something much different to Clarke, this image explore mans descent into the unknown and women always having to pick up the pieces.
My eyes are instantly drawn to the lady in white at the bottom of the picture; this Florence nightingale figure leads the viewer into the water. The contrasting tones of the cliff face lead your eyes up to these figures who are throwing themselves into the black mass of motionless water. Looking at the picture I feel I am witnessing this very act; I can feel the roughness of the rocks on my feet, I can picture the vivid tones of rock and smell the saltiness of the sea hitting the back of my throat, with me choking on every breath. I feel I have been here before yet I know I have not.
This almost philosophical response to life exists in tandem with Clarke’s response to events from the mass media and in many ways the extrinsic and intrinsic is afforded the same treatment in terms of visual metaphors, there are however images that lessen this divide and Clarke’s own expressions come to fruition within his responses. This can be seen in ‘Glastonbury Girl’ Glastonbury, England 1988, which was made in response to first hand experience and whilst his other works have been born out of experience this image seems to move his status beyond that of an onlooker.
11. just an onlooker?
Clarke suggests that this was the most amazing festival he had ever been too, and more so ever will. He says it is not a festival or a gig but an actual lifestyle, and he presents his image of a lone girl standing amongst the destruction and debris, which are remnants of what had gone on before, perhaps you can’t tell but this picture was taken at 4.20am on the morning of the longest day, and this absence of visual clues to the time forces us to question whether the image holds a subtext. Are we meant to feel something else when we look at this image, or is it special to the photographer? It shows this girl in a contemplative situation strewn with mixed emotions, happiness is evident through her presence at this festival, but the sadness is emitted part when we survey the scene witnessing the debris and total destruction that lay all around, it also shows loneliness in the crowd. At the time of taking this picture Clarke had in mind other photographs he had taken previously, he wanted to show contrasting environments. I find it really evocative emotionally and totally full of atmosphere. The mystery Clarke tells of makes me want to know more about this “amazing experience”. To me it looks as though this girl has appeared out of no where though she is clearly on course towards the photographer, she has stopped momentarily with the sun just coming up behind. There are factors in the image that allow me to feel that I can ponder and imagine what happened next and my own suggestion would be that this girl ambles forward past the photographer and walks on, into the horizon. Being the longest day could this lady in fact be a pagan figure come to bless this event, these are all questions left by the photographer for us to interpret how we wish and I wonder whether the concept of unanswered questions is in fact what makes a good photograph.
12. not merely but also
The use of metaphor is a concept used repeatedly by Clarke and this transcends all his subject matters and “Cat & Dog”, Northern Ireland presents Clarke’s thoughts on the happenings in Northern Ireland. Catholics and Protestants chase each other around like cat and dog and Clarke uses a direct representation of this analogy. His choice of subject matter can be read on a number of different levels and we are questioned with our own thinking on what we take from the image Clarke presents us.
I believe that the perspective and the construction of the image is what makes it work so well. The cat is bigger than the dog though I must add that this is an illusion, we know this is not true but we are lead to believe otherwise. In Clarke’s eyes the cat symbolised the Protestants, the underdog coming out in a sense ‘on top’, of perhaps a losing battle with the IRA and Catholics symbolised here with the dog, or was it vice versa? Who is on top?
13. organising confusion
Despite his open use of metaphor there are some photographs where Clarke fails to disclose his meaning and he leaves the viewer to contemplate the imagery to construct their own meaning and in “Hound dogs Protest Against The Protesters” Coniston, England 1987 the huntsman hold up the protestors sign which the hound dogs have just previously urinated over. The huntsman presents this to the rest of the meet and they all laugh about the irony of the event, – the dogs in reality have no idea of what is going on. We can relate these sorts of images today with the ban on hunting in place, 18 years on, history repeats itself.
Clarke changed his direction in the 1980’s after moving to Cumbria and in touch with nature he broke out of ‘street photography’ and turned out this set of mystical work he calls the ‘Secret Garden Collection’.
14. into the secret garden
To me “Umbilical Tree” Cumbria, England 1989 is one of Clarke’s most pleasing images. It restores a sense of mystery and beauty about this country in which we live. It offers reference to a truly magical place, with the soft leading lines of the tree trunk enticing us to the bright sunlight that streams through the branches. The ghostly figure entering the trunk is almost invisible as when you first view it the figure does not immediately capture the viewer’s attention, though on further inspection it becomes apparent, which to me raises many questions, who is this person? Are they male or female? Is it in fact the photographer? What are they doing, firstly being naked and secondly entering this tree?
15. late st-art-er
I would not be surprised that if later in life Clarke abandoned photography for art, because in truth he is an artist, and he has been all of his life. The painterly nature of his work was always in evidence, in its studied perfection and obsession with form. Nobody is allowed to crop a Stuart Clarke picture as he felt that he got it right in the camera the first time. His framing was utterly precise and his generation of photographers grew up with that notion of getting it right, no Photoshop then, rejecting the idea of manual or digital manipulation it is evident that if he had just moved the camera a touch to the left or right, up or down, each image would have appeared to be very different. The whole of the history recorded would have been different. I think of Clarke principally as a great chronicler of the streets, but he was also a wonderful portraitist. His photographs are perfect, but they can also feel cold and controlled. They have the same heart-on-their-sleeve humanity of Robert Doisneau, but they are also perfectly formed and highly atmospheric, each of there photographs irrespective of subject contain an element of mystery. There is a feeling that the picture is part of a story, like a single still from a film, and they leave you wanting to know more.
There are few photographers whose style is instantly recognisable, like that of a great painter or film director, after looking at Stuart Clarke’s work I feel he undoubtedly should fall into this category. Stuart Clarke’s best pictures count as works of art because, in spite of their astonishing accuracy, they call their subjects into question and leave us with the task of coming up with answers.
