Assumptions

 

A camera is a device for trapping light. It comes with a lens, a shutter and a number of assumptions.

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A photograph is the trace left by a camera.

 

A photograph is transparent. Unlike a painting, it’s surface has no inherent texture. It appears to be a window on the world. The boundary separating here from there (and now from then) is invisible.

 

A photograph is an illusion, the performing of a cunning trick. Perfectly camouflaged, it's the ultimate vanishing act. The allure of a photograph lies in it’s artlessness, the easy realism. A photograph doesn't draw attention to itself.  

 

As an activity, photography is so reasonable, so self-assured, it seems churlish to question its orthodoxy.  The shooter has an inordinate amount of faith in both weapon and target; the trophy feels inevitable.

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Photographing something establishes an implicit power relationship; it is owned.

 

What a photograph is of is assumed to be what it's about -though no-one believed Cezanne painted apples because he wanted to be a grocer. 

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I work with the tensions which arise from these assumptions and with a machine which wants to see only surface and now.

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