There seems to be a move back to photography as a document. Perhaps this is a backlash or result of the artifice or rather, the perceived artifice that digital photography and programs like Photoshop can achieve. The odd thing about this (mis)perception is the ready consumption of artificial imagery in advertising and popular media like films. I’m pretty certain the majority of people are completely unaware of just how artificial all the marketing imagery is that they daily consume.
So in photo art we have this extreme opposite trend toward pallid, dry, off colour, dystopic presentations of reality that make me think of the 60’s ektachromes from my family’s photo archive. Alright, I guess. Interesting in their own right, I suppose. But I don’t see them breaking any new ground. And yesss, that’s what I’m trying to do – break new ground. I’m not interested in re-doing something that has already been done.
I’m interested in connecting with the emotion of living – getting to the root of what it feels like in this moment or that moment – in this place or in that place. Presenting that in it’s most raw, uncluttered, elemental form through shapes, colours, sounds, movement – the fundamental symbology of our human existence.
Really I think this is what all photography is striving for at its heart (even all art really) – just using different methodologies. My method currently involves abstraction. The funny thing is I never intended this – never intended to make abstract images. It just kind of happened when I began to think of things – when I began to look for ways to simplify the images – when I began to investigate ways to connect my images to the emotional response of what I was seeing, it just spontaneously emerged.
Its all about the feeling – isn’t that what all art is about? what all creative expression is about?
How it feels?
How it makes you feel?
