Photography: Honorable Mention

Liz Darlington
Savannah College of Art & Design

Exposed

Objective: At first glance, these images are black and white and out of focus. They appear to be borrowing from the aesthetic of 19th C daguerreotypes. However, on closer inspection you become aware of a modern, digital process behind the images, creating an interplay between the traditional and the technological. On reflection, these portraits are reminiscent of old photographs that are lacking in discernable detail. Through their enlargement, we become drawn towards the missing features. In the portraits, we see the black holes of the eye sockets appear devoid of sight. The usual characteristics that enable us to judge emotion, personality and a presence in time and space are absent. There is an absence of essence or life within the expressions. One begins to feel that they are standing in a room full of spirits. There is an ethereal and fleeting nature to these images that can be seen through the transient quality of their projected surface. This series is a collection of images that explores the contemporary view of nostalgic longing and creates interplay between the real and the superimposed. As we seek to discover the essence of an object or person over time, ultimately all we see is degradation and loss. The shadowy trace of the image becomes nothing more than a mirage, a falsehood. My intention was to use representative imagery of people and places. My memories are imprinted with chance encounters, indistinct faces and landscapes from more than 30 countries over a life span of 34 years. These memories of people and places don’t exist in memory in any chronological system. These memories are not timeless. It is more relevant to consider them in terms of temporality. The imagery is generic, often banal and the subject matter is undefined. Many of the portraits and places are unrecognizable, reflecting only a broken surface and shadow trace that hints at the undocumentable and the ahistoric. These images question the function of the ability of photography to counter this degradation. Rather than capturing the definitive moment or the decisive look, they record the transient quality of time. It is a deconstructive approach to photography, a layering of time that breaks down the look of the posed to that of the ex-posed. Our nostalgic view of self is always undefined. It becomes an amalgam of events, people, places, thoughts and ideas. Our memories result in little more than the white noise that forms a partial but unrealistic image of who we believe we are. We become only a trace of that reality. The absence of information instills in us the need to bring definition and order to the images. We fill in the gaps.

Tools used: Both the portraits and the landscapes are shot with a lens less camera called a zone plate. This is similar to a pinhole camera but instead of a pinhole, a small piece of film with concentric circles exposed onto the film base covers the lens. This is what gives the images the look of 19thC daguerreotypes. The final digital photographs are made up of the superimposition of individual 120mm photographs printed as contact sheets. The contact sheets are then scanned, and each photo is overlaid in Adobe® Photoshop® to form a composite using a variety of layer blends. The more photos are overlaid, the more burned the images appear. The final part of the process is to output the images using a piezographic print onto digital film and mounting it with a 5mm lift from the back board. This enables gallery lighting to shine through and cast a shadow or trace of the original image that appears on the backing board. The landscapes comprise a variety of geographic features and seascapes from various parts of the eastern United States and also overlaid and composited in Photoshop to form a generic counterpart. The degradation and destruction of the surface of the image is bought about by the non-removal of external noise, dust and scratches from the contact printer frame and the scanner that suggests the distortion of time and memory.