Artist Statement
I am interested in the prototypical photograph, which in its image shows how it was made. Both my photograms and my pinhole photographs stress the material processes of photography.
I am particularly concerned with making these physical photographs, where the viewer can experience the materiality of the photographic process and at the same time, the intimacy of my experience creating an image.
Pinhole Photography
Pinhole photography varies greatly from traditional photography. In English we often refer to photographing a subject as "taking" a picture; a single 'click' captures a brief moment in time and records it as an image. Cartier-Bresson is famous for his exemplary use of this concept in his photographs that show this brief moment of decisive action.
On the other hand, pinhole photography is, by nature, the antithesis of this concept. In order to record an image, the photographic material must be exposed for an extended period of time, from several seconds to several hours, days, weeks or even years. The pinhole camera has the capability to record the passage of time and traces of the subject’s movement during exposure.
Photograms
Photograms use photographic techniques to create images without the use of a camera. However, my photograms employ any combination of negatives, objects, and different light filtration exposures to produce images on photo-sensitive paper. Making photograms is like painting with light.
Contained within each of my photograms is a unique landscape of traces taken from the world. The meaning of each piece rests in the relationships among the images created by the negatives, by the shadows of objects placed on the paper, and by pure color light filtrations.