In frustration

The worst thing about failing is the fear of failing. The thought that three months, or maybe I could even say years, work will have been in vain. All of those hours spent thinking, writing, reading, reasoning, gluing, cutting, photographing, editing, discussing would have not tended up in a product. A thing which has a value and a meaning.

Being creative is an ever lasting roller-coaster of ups and downs (or perhaps that is just my life, with or without creativity). I left Maidstone last thursday feeling like I had worked out a solution, all of those hours had finally paid off and I had the resolution to my project. I was going to display the work in a way that felt meaningful to me and I felt that I was on my way to making the kind of work that I find interesting when visiting galleries. Images packed with a depth of history and I felt strongly that the work was relevant and that it could give me a voice. So what has changed in four days? Files have gone from digital form to printed form, dragged through a critique. Far from being useful it feels like the experience has thrown me of path back into the “resolving” phase which is very slippery and close to failing. Because what if you can't resolve it in time what if your final major piece isn't finished by the approaching deadline. And it is these kinds of fear that tempts me to giving up, because what is fun about fearing to fail? And the fear isn't made up, it is real and perhaps sprung out of my hight expectations.

So what was wrong?

The amount of images there were too many, too different, too varying and hard to read. Basically committing every crime in the photographers manual of doing something right. So a lot of work to do there.

Also, the framing that I had in mind was not right as another type of framing was suggested along with a trip to Tate modern to study framing (despite that I had been to a framing shop on Friday to look at framing options).

On top of this it seemed that the title I had in mind was too complex.

This was the feedback I received from the tutors in the crit and one might wonder why I care when I originally felt that I was on to a good solution with the work.

Art is personal and … So what. Get on with it!

Some ideas for titles that might create a narrative:

I wish I could visit you, but you are dead

I wish I hadn't given you the idea that you could rape me

I wish I had never left my home because now I can't find one

I wish I had a place that I could call home

I wish I could know everything there is to know in the whole world

I wish I was better at everything that I do

I wish that I could do all of those things I dreamt of doing

I wish that you would see me when I cry, but you never see my tears

I wish that you could hear me when I dream, but you never have time to listen

I wish that you were still my best friend

Why do I feel like my life is slipping through my fingers?

Into this space life will come

I have started thinking about the display of my final project. I think I have nailed what images and sizes I want to I got thinking about the curation of it. I regard them as a triptych, two diptychs and a single image. The idea is that there is a relationship between the "series" in the project and that those images tell a story which then is a part of a bigger story.

Using blue sensitive x-ray film

After spending a few days trying different techniques to getting a descent exposure on the x-ray film I finally solved it. At ISO 100, ID 11 1:1 7 minutes, stop 30 sec fix for 5 min then wash wash wash. I really like the tones, not quite black and white.. And the good thing is I have at least 80 sheets of film left and each sheet gives 4 5'4' images so lots and lots to go.  Now I have cracked the method I can come back and work with it fr a future project. I would still like to photograph the cinemas, John Maltby style. Will see if I'll have time for that before the end of May, if not, then a later date will be just as good I guess.

The Idea

During the final year of three at the Swedish equivalent to Upper Secondary school I collaborated with a friend to put together a photo exhibition. Our idea was to travel to Paris to photograph the life of the city of light. Novices as we were, we managed to ruin the film and the trip became more about the three French men we met and tried our first ever spliff with. We were 19 and completely new to photography as an art medium. We had read somewhere, that an artist that I now have forgotten the name of, once said that you should always reject the first seven ideas as these are likely to be copies of work that you have previously seen or simply just rubbish. To make original work you need to start at the eight idea. We took this very literary and ended up with a triptych of the inside of a festival toilet in juxtaposition with a grid of dogs with their owners, thrown in was also some black and white nudes, elderly couples kissing as well as a gay person in a nun outfit.

We sourced the lobby of an estate agent as our exhibiting space and opened with a speech, canapes and sparkling wine. I even think we sold some prints.

Looking back it is easy to see that neither of these vastly different body's of works were resolved, as we had stuck with the eight idea concept and moved on after each idea was “completed” until we reached our designated deadline.

With a few more years experience I can start to see what this unknown artist meant in his approach to originality. Making considered and resolved work is not jumping from one idea to the other but rather to rework the idea in question until a resolution is found. For the lucky ones this happens at first attempt but for some it might take a few twists of the angle to see the final resolution. In my current project these probably exceeds the twenty. As research is done one resolution moves on the the other in an almost seamless flow of work. Some of the resolutions along the way becomes their own bodies of work but also function as research towards the finished piece, all revolving around the same core idea or theory. It is tempting to move on to a completely other theme or interest (from festival toilets to dogs for example) as sometimes the hurdles and issues seem unresolvable or for the fact that another idea just too good to miss.

Appropriation in photography

Just before the show "Acting Out: Invented Melodrama in Contemporary Photography" Roberta Smith wrote a piece for the New York Times. The show featured young artists and brought back old memories and differences. Specifically, it recalls a point in the early 1980′s when Douglas Crimp, a pioneering art critic, lamented in an essay the growing popularity of postmodernism’s cutting-edge strategy, appropriation. 

Appropriation had begun only a few years earlier as a radical, primarily photographic practice introduced by artists like Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine and Richard Prince. As I remember it, Mr. Crimp’s general complaint was that appropriation was raging out of control. Conceived as a way to “interrogate” the images that inundate and condition us, it had pretty much morphed into an academic, reactionary technique used by artists of all aesthetic stripes, political viewpoints and mediums. . . .

You can read the article in its entirety here

Richard Prince from Cowboys

 

Mirror with amemory (follow up)

I approached the care home where my grandmother lives with the question if I could come and photography the patients. This is the exchange of email I had with the staff that unfortunately could not let me come and photograph.

My name is Elin Karlsson and I'ma photographer, and grandchild of xx living in Lillekärrs retirement home. 3 months ago I started taking portraits of my grandmother. I am interested in the relationship between dementia and memory in presence of memory in photographs and portraits. And I am collecting photographs out of my grandmother that I myself may have as memories of the days she is not with us anymore.

I would now like to photography more dementia patients I understand that this needs approval from the patient, relatives and staff. I wonder if you and the staff would give consent to this on Lillekärrs nursing home and if you do so, could suggest how I could get in contact with potential patients and their families?
I have the intention to create a collection of beautiful portraits in which the model is depicted with respect and integrity.





Her reply was unfortunately that this could not take place as many of the patients did not have relatives and were too ill to give their consent. Perhaps the location is wrong as they have psychotherapy patients as well as dementia patients. 

into this space life will come

I was watching the BBC series The Genus of Photography on e-stream and found a few point that were made really interesting. I will not elaborate but share them in their beautiful consistency.

On photography:

I would rather have one photograph of Jesus then all of the paintings.

Photography is perverse, you need dark to see light

(on daguerreotypes) A mirror with a memory

The Artist and the masterpiece

The term master piece was originally used to describe the work of an apprentice who was aspiring to be a master of his craft in the old guild system. His piece was then kept by the guild as a token of his craftsmanship.

As I am working of my final piece of my BA in Photography I find myself looking for the same sense of completeness. I was to produce a piece that sums me up and where I am up to in my practice so far.

When working with the appropriation of the 16 mm film I find myself looking for the one image that can sum it all up. The image that contains all the anxieties of life the fear of loosing, growing up and eventually finding oneself "homeless" (only children have homes). All of these themes are issues that I have been dealing with in the previous three years of my university course and also in life as I have "grow up". So when do I look for this image in another persons video. Wouldn't it make more sense to take the photo myself? I am not sure if I have an answer to that. Maybe apart from that I believe that the anxieties I feel are present in all life and in all people. Appropriation is also a test of the abilities of photography and meaning in images. I want to challenge these abilities and see if I can make the viewer feel something which perhaps was not there as the footage was produced about 40 years ago. By using photography innate ability to be taken as true I can make up a reality from the found images.

If I fund it "the image", it would be the masterpiece, the one that is so powerful in meaning while at the same time being esthetically perfect, so far it isn't there.
But there is another approach to this. As I have been working I have collected quite a number of still image while also working with the material as moving imagery. There is really no end to the amount of work that could come out of this appropriated material. If I were to use the still form each frame I would end up with some 23 000 images. Perhaps this is the masterpiece?

Maybe this is also true for my work is best understood when you look at everything? From my initial projects looking at female sexuality, stemming from the unfairness of rape as a young teenager. Then starting to deal with themes of homesickness (referring to is as a longing for the home I once had as a child entwined and soaked in paternal safety). If my work was to be psychoanalyzed horizon/time zone project is perhaps a way to control and repeat these issues in a safe and self controlled environment. To go away in order to explore the emotions and to long for the safety of familiarity, knowing that it is available to return to. But the place that I most want to return to is childhood, the impossibility of it causes the greatest sense of loss.
Photography is the false promise that the memories of childhood are there to return to.

Paul Graham

Paul Graham won the Hasselblad award 2012. These are from the series American night.

slides

snaps

Shooting my brother

As a continuation of a recent project I wanted to photography my brother with the belongings he now has that used to belong to our grandfather.

I wanted to try to get the same kind of light and feel in the images. I thought that capturing him in semi profile would create a tension of not quite getting access to his face, similar to the tension in my previous images.

Memories revisited

Flamingo/flamingo

Family/darkness

Mother/river

Grandad/field

Grandmother/window

Grandmother/window.2

Grandmother/sea

Nude/road

Snow/dress

Grandmother/mother

Maid of the mist landing

Film clip coming soon.
Performance art by Elin Karlsson

Listen to the soundtrack here

simple slideshow

When I visited my family over Easter my mum gave me a CD with about 700 scanned slides from the 1950s forward. I am wondering if I can use them in my work. I am starting by putting together a fast slideshow.

I watched a video on final cut and slideshows to learn how to do it.
Here

sunless

I watched Chris Marker's Sans Solei today on the train back home. Commuting is normally quite a terrible activity, spending between 6-7 h a day on trains and buses, but when watching a good film it can be great and quite quick.
As we pulled in to Brighton station the lady next to me asked if it was my own film I was watching.. very flattering indeed. But as I told her it was Sans Solei she recognised it.

Experimental Filmaker

CHRIS WELSBY