IC w1 The here and now
- HildeMaassen
- Feb 2, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 25, 2020
When I started this MA I thought that my photography was not coherent. I just did what I liked and that was fashion one time and plants, infrared portraits or dogs the other day. I need variation. During the first module I learned that there was an overall theme. I am looking to show things, using photography, that others don’t see. Often by creating a new, not excising reality other times by framing reality in other ways. The technical part of the image making is important to me. I love experimenting, searching for transitions, exploring the boundaries of photography and light. A photograph, to me, never is just a representation of nature. The automatic creation of the photographic process is what I find interesting. I try to create circumstances through which the image can make itself arise, but not in a 1:1 realistic matter and where I am often surprised by what appears.
I studied the topic of climate change more in depth and zoomed in on clouds. I used the Christmas holidays to be able to work ahead to free space in my mind to be able to try new things, experiment, take side roads knowing that I have already enough new images to hand in at the end of this block. What I find really hard is to make a selection of the best work. Mainly because I am not entirely sure where I want to go in the end. I didn’t have the problem in the second block where I could combine flower images with landscapes. Does that tell me that I have to add another vision or subject to my project; searching for the sublime? The photograher has a frame but at the moment that frame feels to narrow. I like to break free from it. I also struggle with the language. Not the English reading or listing but the writing down my exact feelings including the nuances for others to understand as I meant them.
The new images made during the Christmas holidays (some are not here)
Do I consider myself a photographer and is photography art?
I think photography is definitely art. But it is not that every photo is art. I consider it art when it has a certain beauty or in a different way disturbs or triggers me. When it was made with a certain skill. When it tries to tell me a story or is made with a purpose. When I look at it and it's just beautiful, it surprises, amazes or makes me curious. I struggle with the term photographer in my own practice, because what I do at the moment I wouldn't subscripe to be photography, although photography is very important in the making process; the pictures could not do without.
Do I consider myself an artist; Yes. I have problems with the name 'artist' when people reuse the images of others. I can understand remaking, but not without more; what is the goal? The usage of other people's photos is often a step too far for me. Although it is certainly an art to make others believe that what you show is art. The installation itself is usually not art for me. I love the Kessels "in almost every picture" book series, with book number 7 of a lady who shoots her picture in a shooting tent being my absolute favorite, but the images are made by others, not by him. (And it says "collected & editten by...." on the Website and in the book. (Kesselskramers publishing: http://www.kesselskramerpublishing.com/catalogue/in-almost-every-picture-7/). Collecting images that you compile in a new way then you are in my opinion a collector, bookmaker or editor when it is about what is going on in the image.
How about skill?
Skill and technique are very important in my own work. The fact that photography is writing with light and uses physical effects is precisely what often triggers me to take experiments. At other times I just walk around with the camera and record what I see, but even then it is of course something I see and what I want the viewer to experience as I it. The composition, the frame, the moment, light, posture and line play are all elements that are examined and strengthend in the post-processing as that improves the image or clarifies the reason why I made the image in the first place.
Is everything already done and nothing unique?
Maybe everything has already been done once and nothing really unique. I went to a Leonardo Davinci "the Genius" exhibition where it turned out that many of his inventions were based on earlier inventions that were created by others but combined or used for another purpose. The twist, the ideas, the reason to make something, the moment you do that, is all unique. Moreover, at the moment that everything has been done before and you do it again, you give it extra importance, that is a new way for me to look at it. The context can also be different. It is important to me that you do not directly copy work from others; that is meaningless.
Sources:
KESSELS, Erik and Joep EIJKERS. 2016. In almost every picture #7. Amsterdam; KesselsKramer Publishing. Available at:http://www.kesselskramerpublishing.com/catalogue/in-almost-every-picture-7/ [accessed 2 February 2020]
DAVINCI the Genius. Website. Available at: http://www.davincithegenius.nl [accessed 2 February 2020]
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