Semester 3 - Images: Disrupting the image making process..
One of the subtexts that is appearing in this project is an old favourite of mine of exploring the image making process, for the purposes of this it’s mainly how the images are made and how it’s viewed.
This subject I’ve aimed to transfer this to this work, something about disrupting the image making process, something i remember HCB saying that you need to do, along with not holding the familiar in contempt.
As I researched the New Topographical, I saw how the photographers of the time were making these images with Baltz using very slow film so he needed a tripod and time to make an image, to thoughts on what the images were that Gohlke thought to the Bechers approaches and images of repetition.
One of the common factors in the New Topographical style and movement is the use of light, still in the shadow and in the overhang from the f64/Sierra club school use of great light to make an image and that you need good light to photograph
The American light is a thing of beauty and it’s beautiful to see in images but it’s not something we get in Britain consistently so we have to use what we can, when we can. If you go out on a specific day and see what you can get rather than when the light is perfect what do the images look like, can they be viewed any differently?
The NT subject matter is usually of something quite bland, the spaces inbetween, the rise of the modern, the effect of this modernity on spaces and the effect of humans. But if you couple this with good light then you arrive at an image that is beautiful to look at, what happens if you don’t do this?
For this FMP I’ve looked at my process and what my process was, plus the process of the NT, I’ve done this I suppose by going back to my roots using film, different types of film as well as digital in different ways by not looking when taking the digital polaroid’s, challenging the ideas of uniformity with repetition as I’ve revisited these places with only a mental sketch of where I took the image from they’ve come out slightly disjointed but not hugely so, going on days rather than when light happened and not looking at making the images perfect amongst other things.
On looking at the images, i can see what and how I’ve done but I wonder if this shows through in the images? Then I think about how I’m going to show these images so people can see that I’ve done this. Think that’s one for audiencing or maybe text or maybe not.
I imagine that if you think about the way you make images, then you can disrupt that process in many different ways from going out when you don’t feel like making images, to going out in the rain, to using a new medium, to thinking about the end result and working backwards to well just about anything.
Good lUck