J H Engstrom – “The Photograph as Document”

When first looking for inspiration for the first project given to us for “The photograph as Document” I came across this photographer J H Engstrom who takes images almost in the style of snapshots. I looked at his book “Trying to dance (2004)” in particular. What I found interesting about this photographer was that there wasn’t really any consistency within his work, the images seemed quite random. There were a few of people standing in the nude which I felt stood out as they appeared to be more staged rather than an act of impulse. I liked this idea of taking images on impulse rather than having to set up the images and really think about it. This was an under current theme within my own project.

I also found inspiration from this photographer as it was looking through his book “Trying to dance” that I became aware of how much I liked seeing this style of images within a book form. For my own project I created a hand made book containing my own images and (though it had some flaws) I thought it worked quite successfully. I also Like how Engstrom is not afraid to mix black and white images with colour pieces, this creates an odd feeling of surrealism within the book as some images are straight forward shots but certain, more abstract, pieces in black and white spotted randomly in the images make the viewer question what it is in the series they are truly looking at, which makes them begin to look for something that is not there.