I’m a techie… I’m also a Trekie, but that’s an issue for another Blog. I can’t help but see photographs as technical pieces, I can’t help but to try an analyse the technique involved in any picture I see…
Last week I went to see an exhibition at Contretype, an art photography center here in Brussels. Very nice place, beautiful setting, worth the visit if you ever swing by Brussels.
The photographs were interesting, but were very technical. Meaning that they were interesting to me because of the technical aspects of their creation, not necessarly because of the quality, universality or beautifulness of the images. And I still find it amazing that some photographers seem to rely entirely on their medium, and not on their images (this goes one step further that my “Image of the image maker” thingy…) themselves. One of the photographers presented has a series of images (which were not on the walls for this exhibit, but which were in a book at the gallery’s shop…) which are blank mirrors.
Those images are refered to as “self-portraits as a vampire”… very clever, I like the idea, and my gamer (and slightly goth) soul relates to the vampire and to the not casting an image in mirrors part of the vampire legend. Now, in the book the photographer states “these were made through a technique that I will keep secret” or something like that. Why ? Does keeping the secret make the images better ?
The secret is simple : with a view camera, you just have to shift the lens to one side to eliminate your own reflection in a mirror taken straight on… Architechtural photographers do it all the time. It’s by no way magical and by no way secret and arcane.
I guess that photographers tend to hold on to techniques that makes their images seem unusual. But usually those techniques are not necessairly at the reach of the general public, so what are they afraid of ? Making an image with a click of the shutter is not art, so they have to rely on technical artifices to convince themselves, gallery owners and the public that they are making art ?
I don’t know the photographer personally, i haven’t spoken to him, so what I’m saying here probably doesn’t apply, and is just my own perception of things. I’m just a cynic, you should have gotten that by now from my other postings…
Anyhow, more later…
