Abstract:

Photographers in the “Post-Photographic era” (Wombell, 1991) now have the ability through mobile technology and digital software; to control, reconstruct and fabricate imagery, therefore manipulate narrative and control time? This argument of course is open to conjecture and interpretation, yet it would appear this interpretation has some form of substance? As we understand photography, memory and time are inextricability linked, although most viewers only associate time with a photograph when it becomes a past event, therefore, a memory.

Time is the true essence of photographic substance; yet, it is the missing or over looked element from the presented image at first glance, as addressed by Berger in classic essays “The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time.”(Trachtenberg, 1980) It can be said the rational for Berger’s observation, is an ascertainment which its’ self has been eclipsed by time in this age of digital intervention or interference therefore I would suggest it must be re-considered and, or re-evaluated. This statement in turn directs my current research themes.

Fine art works such as “Narcissus Narcosis” (McMillan, 2002) consider similar themes; displacement, memory, time and narrative. A found photograph of a surfer on Bondi Beach re-enacted in fine detail on St. Andrews beach. Reconstructed digitally to provide a perfect match and displayed as large works opposite each other in a gallery space.

There are questions raised and generated in the production of such fine art works; “Circumstance”: destination of social development dictates accepted habits and skills; “Displacement”: the transfer of an emotion through a found image from its original focus to another person, or situation; “Memory”: the establishment of an associated memory from a photograph (the image was passed onto to the artist by a friend); “Time”: the re-enactment through performance to generate imagery relating to a different time and place?

Berger’s initial analysis of the ambiguity of the photograph concerns the single photograph. The wealth of it’s meanings is proportional to the length – breadth might have been clearer, since time is not involved – of its quotation from appearances, the number of cross-connections and correspondences its constituents generate, not only among themselves, but also intertextually. This purely synchronic coherence, which makes a virtue of the image’s discontinuity, has as its outcome a general but complex idea. In other words, single photographs, do not narrate; they instigate ideas. (Scott, 1999) This informs my Fine-Art practice, habit, repetition, the way people carry out their lives.

References:

Trachtenberg, A. ed. “Classic Essays On Photography” Connecticut. Leete’s Island Books, New Haven. 1980:

Lyons, Nathan ed. “Photographers on Photography”. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966: (TR185.L9)

Wombell, P. (1991) PhotoVideo: Photography in the Age of Computer, London: Rivers Oram Press

Scott, C., “The Spoken Image – Photography and Language”. London, Reakiton Books Limited, Guilford, London. 1999:

McMillan, D., “Narcissus Narcosis” – Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews, 2002

http://www.fcac.co.uk/pdfs/fcac_archive_2000s.pdf

The Found Image

I view myself as a scavenger of the visual world. I find images as much as construct them. The accidental, the awkward, or badly composed are as much part of my work as the subject itself.

I believe as an artist that the banal can be elevated, the discarded can be recovered, and the commonplace can be dramatised. My documented conceptual performance works attempt to embed photographic imagery with text; to extrapolate unseen narratives and circumstances. Both the photograph and the remembered depend upon and equally oppose the passing of time.

The work places the beholder in the moment, their moment, prompting narratives relating to self-position and previously embedded relevant events.

Composition

"Good composition is only the strongest way of seeing the subject. It cannot be taught because, like all creative effort, it is a matter of personal growth. In common with other artists the photographer wants his finished print to convey to others his own response to his subject. In the fulfillment of this aim, his greatest asset is the directness of the process he employs. But this advantage can only be retained if he simplifies his equipment and technique to the minimum necessary, and keeps his approach free from all formula, art-dogma, rules and taboos. Only then can he be free to put his photographic sight to use in discovering and revealing the nature of the world he lives in."

Edward Weston, Seeing Photgraphically

Artistic Practice

You can very often destroy the experience of something you create by describing it too accurately. By understanding the work you destroy the part the process of discovering the system inside the work. I resist the temptation to define my work; it is not possible to translate every point behind my work into language. It is not a matter for myself to define the terms of my work; I wish to communicate the source and inspiration behind the work.

My works deal with the study of memory. The relationship between human beings and objects, the connection from one to another. As an artist I believe it is my role to question and interpret the actuality of these moments. To communicate the facts, to gauge the emotional impact my work will have on the viewer. What is becoming apparent through my research and within my practice is an interest in rhythm, repetition and movement. Self-position, the space surrounding the individual.

Memories, absence and fleeting presence intrigue me. These moments are important everyday occurrences that mould the individual. I am interested in the point at which the awareness of others is reciprocated. Where memory becomes self-recognition to a sequence of unfolding events. I am trying to work with ideas that can be communicated on the basis that we use mass culture information stored in our memory to interpret our own position in the present. In my current work, I set-out to question people, habits and repetition by combining works of photography, language and documentation.

Outside The Frame

My research project considers the role photography and the photographic image; (digital or analogue) plays in everyday life and how we engage or interact with these ‘images’.

The idea of the single image commanding our attention has faded away. It seems as if we need to be distracted in order to concentrate. As if we are living in this new kind of space, the space of information. The experience of the discordance between an image and a moving image can leave the viewer with an overwhelming sense that, there is more they are than meets the eyes. The framed image itself is, as we know, a capsule containing memory, time & narrative, one that can be communicated, presented and re-presented across global platforms. The decisive moment as understood in photographic terms, where composition, narrative and time converge to the form an image of captured reality disguises the fact there are dark passages of narrative content hidden, undisclosed, yet they remain intrinsically linked to the final presented images.

We are surrounded today, everywhere, all the time by arrays of multiple, simultaneous, images. In the streets, airports and shopping centres, our computers and television sets, mobile devices, surveillance cameras. This new media documents transient movements, evidence, and imagery. This recorded data will be stored, viewed, the imagery interpreted, the visual content explored. The flow of images and specifically the space between the images, contain a wealth of information not directly presented by any given media viewing application. This state of perception seems to have been replaced by a new form of distraction, or a new form of attention. We now look and see many juxtaposed moving images, more than we can possibly synthesize or reduce to a single impression. These visual streaming moments dictate how we view and interface with narrative. The point of change where the narrative converges allowing an interpretation of the story to be presented as the intended, yet the interpretation of the final presented image can be completely misread by only interpreting the presented moment without the information of the hidden moment.

The themes of visual narrative have provided a powerful means of exploring the ‘self’ as an ongoing process of construction in time and place through the operation of memory. The 'still image' contains a set of repre­sentations of embodiment that is grounded in the recognition that we are made through our own and others histories. The narratives presented to the viewer first mean nothing more than what they seem. That is precisely what makes the art of photography so uni­versal and far-reaching. The viewer first brings their own associations and memories into play and recog­nises this fact through their own need to interact with the imagery. This viewer interaction gives a practical perspective that is oriented to the accept­ed reality of the place. They reinterpret these inherited memories into a new context.

The idea of the photographic image as a ‘film still’ from a potential home-movie is an interesting concept, again changing the genre the ‘still image’ exists. Film stills are a particular aspect of our culture. They do not have much in common with films themselves. A film still is an incredibly short moment, frozen and extended to eternity. Within a film itself, the moment passes nearly unnoticed. It only has sense in its connection with the previous and later moments. We can draw similar conclusions regarding the position and our perception of individual memories within the continuum of time itself. Once an image is taken out of this continuum, once it is still and motionless, we perceive gestures, expressions on faces, and details of the setting. We also perceive their combination and meaningful interaction within the frozen moment. In spite of their name, however, film stills are not really still. They have lost their context, and with it, their explanation. Nevertheless, they refer emphatically to action, emotion and movement, sometimes even more than a photograph of a real event.

The photograph in contrast, as naturalistic as it pretends to be, never presents the world as it really is. It always uses a system of signs and conventions, which represent the world: a system of narratives aiming to be in a sense more real than the real world itself. Once these narratives have lost their natural context, they become transposed and they are filled-up with mystery. We can read tension in them. We know that something just happened and that something is about to happen but we do not know what it is. In short, a photograph is an arrangement of strongly evocative signs, which lack any definite reference. Therefore, I would suggest a photograph contains not only something present, something given but it also essentially includes the absent, the hidden, the untold. This raises questions surrounding ‘identity’ and/or ‘ownership’ of these moments and the power of visual propaganda to manipulate the voyeur.

Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire

I believe that photography contains an element of reportage that is dissimilar to other forms of artistic media. The photograph or still image without hesitation induces the practitioner to engage in a relationship with a medium that documents and isolates subject matter. What is interesting is that it would seam there is no specific way to come into that relationship. I have recently started documenting penny arcades and bingo halls. The project continues the theme, people, environment, social standing and habit that recent works have touched upon. The old adage of getting yourself into the correct area to take the photograph rings very true with such projects and methods of research. To engage with this type of work it is clear that you must touch and be touched by people. Could it be characters desire to contact and clutch a relationship with the camera and likewise the documentary photographer?

Nikon F3

This is my new baby, a Nikon F3, Robust, really tough and so, so Funky.  Without doubt the best 35mm SLR ever made. 

Fag Polaroids

Fag Polariods

My current project 'Fag Polariods' observes, isolates and reveals a fragmented study of smoking. I set-out to question habits and repetition and the condition in which somebody lives their life (smoking; home; position; available space) attempting at some kind of reference of documented growth; spiritual, social and personal conflict. These moments are important everyday occurrences which mould the individual. I am interested in the point at which the awareness of others is reciprocated, where memory becomes self-recognition to a sequence of unfolding events. I am trying to work with ideas, that can be communicated on the basis that we use mass culture information stored in our memory to interpret our own position in the present.

Hidden Narrative

Hidden Narrative

The idea of the single image commanding our attention has faded away. It seems as if we need to be distracted in order to concentrate. As if we are living in this new kind of space, the space of information. The experience of the discordance between an image and a moving image can leave the viewer with an overwhelming sense that, there is more they are than meets the eyes. The framed image itself is, as we know, a capsule containing memory, time & narrative, one that can be communicated, presented and re-presented across global platforms. The decisive moment as understood in photographic terms, where composition, narrative and time converge to the form an image of captured reality disguises the fact there are dark passages of narrative content hidden, undisclosed, yet they remain intrinsically linked to the final presented images.