Photography Project: Initial Ideas & Plan

 This term I am working on a project that I can use in both Digital Arts and Creative Media Production, specifically this must include photography.  At the beginning of the term I was thinking about disappearance and absence in the image and this is what I want to include in this project.  As in Creative Media it has to be portraits, I will need to create a set of photographic portraits.  Previously I had written about Charles Cohen and and Absence in the Image and I really wanted to expand on this as I really enjoyed this idea. 

Charles Cohen (2007) From Buff Series

Cohen's images in the Buff collection are a series of porn stars on set and then the body removed just leaving a white silhouette.  The absence of the subject gives these images a new meaning and as a viewer we respond differently, the images no longer really induce any erotic desire - they are a shadow almost of something that has happened.  

Moving forward from these images, The article 'What Photography has in common with an empty vase?'

What Photography Has in Common With an Empty Vase 05 © Edgar Martins. 3rd place, Series, LensCulture Art Photography Awards 2018

'In What Photography Has in Common With an Empty Vase is suffused with piercing loneliness and the sense that something is missing. At times, this absence is marked directly' (LensCulture n.d.) The above image really shows that absence, perhaps the outline, which reminds me of a police outline when someone is murdered is drawn around their body.  Perhaps this man was once here and now he is gone forever, his absence here is a presence as a idea of a man in the outline. 

The images I looked at next have a total removal of the sitters, the following images were old cabinet photographs taken in a studio and the sitters have all been digitally removed. The Independent Photographer States; 'By digitally removing the person from old cabinet card portraits, Rivera reveals an artificial environment created by the photographer to heighten the perception of the subject. Bereft of the individual, only a stage remains. The tension between presence and absence is heightened by the placement of objects' (“Lissa Rivera | Absence Portraits”)

Absence Portraits (2024) Lissa Riveria

I really like the absence of the sitter here with just the remains of the set, it is a remembrance almost of a person in the image.  I also watched 'Delete' a Thai drama from 2024 where the protagonists found a mobile phone that deleted the person when their image is taken I enjoyed this very much as it was played on the idea of the prolific nature of 'selfies' and images on social media and the idea that now so many images of a person exist - but what if you were 'deleted' or that your image was never seen again - this seems to be a question that might strike fear into the hearts of younger people who online keep stating they exist through their presence in images - I would like to disappear and never be seen again and it is this absence of image that I would like to work on. 

I was thinking this morning about Kirlian photography and I remembered some images form a David Bowie exhibition that used this method; 'In 1975, Thelma Ross of UCLA's parapsychology lab gifted David Bowie a Kirlian photography machine to capture images of peoples' "auras." This machine generates a high-voltage field to a photographic plate resulting in a glowing corona discharge image of whatever is positioned on the plate.' (Pescovitz 17/10/2017)

Kirlian Photography (1975) by David Bowie

My Plan is to photograph my rooms in my house with and without me and perhaps just leave my aura which I can create through post-production.  The images will then just have my imprint.  I will use my olympus OMD Mark II and I will experiment with both colour and Black and white and then decide which will work best for post-production work on this idea. 

References

LensCulture, Edgar Martins |. “What Photography Has in Common with an Empty Vase - Essay by Coralie Kraft.” LensCulture, www.lensculture.com/articles/edgar-martins-what-photography-has-in-common-with-an-empty-vase. Accessed 22 Jan. 2024.

“Lissa Rivera | Absence Portraits.” The Independent Photographer, 2024, independent-photo.com/stories/absence-portraits/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2024.

Pescovitz, D. (2017) The time David Bowie photographed his aura before and after using cocaine, Boing Boing. Available at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/26/the-time-david-bowie-photograp.html (Accessed: 26 January 2024).