Analog

In yet another attempt to produce work alongside students, this was from a session that introduced them to 35mm analog (using centre point manual focus and exposing the image using the internal light meter - using the indisputable King of analog cameras the Pentax K1000, where it all started for me). The aim of the session was to investigate the following statement by Aleksander Rodchenko the Russian Constructivist Artist and Photographer who wrote in an open letter to Boris Kushner in which he claimed that, “the most interesting viewpoints, [are] from above down and from below up…. [and that photography] should surely undertake to show the world from all vantage points, and to develop people’s capacity to see from all sides.”

The session discussed if photography can be abstract or devoid of objectivity. The discussion continued from previous themes (from other sessions) that debated the notion that photography borrows from painting. The work discussed Abstract Expressionist Painters such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, alongside Rodchenko and other photographers including, Aaron Siskind, Edward Weston, Peter Keetman and Harry Callaghan.

The one observation about the ‘2020 Lockdown’ is that using a scanner is not as interesting as being in the darkroom producing silver-based images in the traditional manner, sorry for sounding like a Luddite, I’m not honest and this was only scanning in a contact sheet.

These images are presented as a contact sheet, for a number of reasons. The first is that the presentation adds to the abstract and (possible) disorientation nature of the images. I also like the idea that a photographic image is not three-demential object (although it may appear in this manner), and by including the edges (the sprocket holes and numbers) it defuncts the whole idea of purpose of photography perhaps untricking (if that is a word) the human eye (yes it is just a piece of paper)? The other most simple reason is that I can remember (a long time ago) producing a full contact sheet with 36 even exposure, oh, the sense of achievement…