Creative Media: Object Lesson

 This is the first Creative Media project of the term 'Object Lesson'.  In this project we are choosing an object and using this as a starting point for a short one week project. As I was starting this prior to the class I have a rather large postcard collection at home and the postcard I was drawn to, and the object that I am choosing is this one..

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin (2012) ALIAS: Dora Fobert (1925-1943) Image 5 from the Archive of Adela K ca 1942/2011. Fibre Based Negative

I had to scan this in as this is not available on the internet - I found other images from this series but not Image 5. I chose this image as it emphasises the dark and shadows, it was framed behind handmade red glass.  My previous post was about the Fayum Portraits the artist of these portraits worked from dark to light.  This looks like a negative or infrared image, a negative shows the dark parts light and vice versa. An infrared image explained by Adobe; 'The human eye cannot see infrared light. It lies beyond the visible light spectrum. But you can take photographs with an infrared filter or infrared film, which produces intriguing effects'  (www.adobe.com, n.d.) however although I have not yet found a definitive answer I believe this image maybe one that was edited in Photoshop and used a dodge tool.  The image came from an exhibition titled 'To photograph the details of a dark horse in low light' and the article about this states that;  'The awkward yet rather poetic phrase camouflages an underlining dilemma for the photographic industry as film stock historically performed poorly in capturing black skin. A photograph of Kodak’s ‘Shirley’ vividly illustrates the industry’s racial bias as the film was calibrated to capture the white skin of an imaginary proto-subject. Here, the ‘dark horse’ is in reference to the film’s supposed ability to transcend this bias and photograph black skin with equal detail.' (Bohr, 2012).  I found this interesting and the process maybe what will come into play later.  I was not thinking of racial bias or the Fayum portraits as such but more about some lines I read in John Berger's that had began by discussing the imprint of Christ's face on cloth; 'the image now celebrates the existence which is beyond reach. it offers a substitute for tangibility. The imprint is like the footprint of a creature that is elsewhere..' (Christie 2017:28). I am thinking of the absence of things, the darkness before the light and here continuing with these thoughts of the imprint.  So I began by tracing the image to feel the contours of the image

I enjoyed the idea so I printed further images of myself that I changed to infrared and then traced to see their imprint

Here is the imprint, the simple lines make this more interesting, removing the photographing and reverting to just the lines is a thought-provoking process, through this I can feel the image more clearly.

In class, I worked further on my ideas and created a thought board.  This gave me further ideas about perhaps using a passport photo as a base image or take photos like police photos as base images for drawings.

References

www.adobe.com. (n.d.). An introduction to infrared (IR) photography | Adobe. [online] Available at: https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/infrared-photography.html [Accessed 5 Jan. 2025].

Bohr, M. (2012). TO PHOTOGRAPH THE DETAILS OF A DARK HORSE IN LOW LIGHT. [online] Broomberg & Chanarin. Available at: https://www.broombergchanarin.com/text-to-photograph-the-details [Accessed 5 Jan. 2025].

Christie, J. (2017) Seeing Through Drawing: A Celebration of John Berger. Objectif, Suffolk.

Griffiths, K. (2020). Found Photobooth Photos – Photobooth Journal. [online] Photobooth Journal. Available at: https://photoboothjournal.com/category/found-photobooth-photos/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2025].

Warhol, A. (2025). [Photo Booth Self-Portrait]. [online] Getty.edu. Available at: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104AFT [Accessed 8 Jan. 2025].