Week 4 invited us to consider our relationship with our chosen apparatus and why it might be beneficial to interrogate the camera and question the way in which we use it. The last few years have seen me broaden my knowledge and use of a variety of cameras, including 35mm film and medium format film cameras. I mainly use black and white film as I can develop that at home and make my own prints. I became more interested in film-based photography because I felt I was becoming rather reliant on the speed and simplicity of both my DSLR and editing software, and was not taking the time to really think through shots. I wanted to slow myself down and think a bit deeper.
One idea covered in the presentations this week was that of post-photography, what Batchen describes as “work that reflects on the “objectness” of the photograph.” (Batchen 2002 p.109) Batchen describes potential issues photography faces, pointing out that “The suggestion is that a diminution of our collective faith in the photograph’s indexical relationship to the real will inevitably lead to the death of photography as an autonomous medium.” (ibid.) Batchen puts into words better than I do one of the reasons I began photographing more and more in film. I felt that I had become so intent on producing ‘stunning’ images, that I had strayed too far from the indexical truth of photography.
In the last module I attempted to regain the indexicality of my photography by using a medium format film camera, and developing the film and prints myself. This tactile reacquaintance with photography gave me a strong sense of the indexical truth of the images I was producing. However, I became so intent upon democratising all the images in the series that I ended up shaving the emotion off them, and the final images produced were a little cold in terms of emotion, and lacking somewhat in depth. I would like to address this aspect in my current project, and feel that experimenting more with a variety of photograph-making techniques will help. Through experimentation and ‘play’ I would like to produce images with more of a sense of place to them.
The first way I have worked on this is through pinhole photography, which I did as part of our week 4 activity that asked us to photograph with an apparatus we were not familiar with. I produced 5 pinhole images from a camera I made. I was happy with both the negative images and their positive counterparts, and felt they began to have more depth in terms of emotion, particularly the upright images.
I am wary of becoming too concerned with the technical side of photography. I felt in the last module that I was becoming more concerned with the camera, film and development process than the actual finished product. There is a tendency for some to somewhat fetishises photography – what lens was used, what was the f/stop, how did you develop the film, how long was the exposure? And I certainly have a strong inkling in this direction. However, I worry that too much focus on the technical process diverts focus from the finished product. Of course the process is an important part of the artistry, but it is more impactful if it actually adds in a real way to the final product. By this I mean that knowing how the image was made deepens the image’s rhetoric or message.
A distinction between how the image was made and why the image was made that way needs to be made, I feel. How isn’t necessarily integral to a finished image. Why is incredibly important.
One example of this, and an example of a practitioner working in a camera-less way and thus interrogating the need/worth of a camera in making photographic images, is a fellow MA student, Josie Purcell. Josie’s work aims to investigate the global sand crisis. Her cyanotype images are made in situ (at the beach) and use both sand and sometimes seawater in the making of them. The images are haunting and beautiful on their own, but understanding the process and why that process was used and how it has effected the final images is a key part of experiencing this work. Josie herself makes that clear on her website by positioning explanatory text alongside the images. She also includes a video of the process at the bottom of the page. Josie’s environmental message is greatly heightened by knowing about the process, but more to understand why the images were made in this way, not only how.
I now need to consider my own work and methods of production in relation to the project’s message/aim. I need to focus on the message of my work, and make sure that the methods I use contribute to that message. As Batchen says that post-photography takes as a given, “That photography is now a message rather than a medium, a message that can be conveyed and endlessly repeated even in the absence of any actual photograph.” (Batchen 2002 p.124)
I would like to continue to experiment with pinhole cameras, and with cyanotype images, to see how alternatively processes can aid the project and its message. The project is about the home, so using cyanotypes to capture the actual light within the home feels like a real, tactile process to me. Experimentation is important for me at this stage in the project, and feels very freeing (a great opposite to the constrictions I placed on myself in the last module).
More on pinholes in my next blog, Pinhole Imagery.
References:
BATCHEN, GEOFFREY. 2002. Each wild idea: writing, photography, history. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.
Harena Now, Josie Purcell, https://www.josiepurcellphotography.com/#/harenanow/
Jo Salomon CRJ 