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Pinhole images by David Tefft |
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Flower #1 copyright © 2000 David Tefft |
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At First Light Photographs
can reveal truths or hide evidence.
They can record, transcribe, document our realities or can be a
house of cards with smoke and mirrors.
The evidence in my photographs are the visual truths found in the
photographic process after my experimental manipulations with the
instant 4 x 5 Polaroid positive/negative film.
What is photographed always contains light, the primary agent in
all photography. Sometimes
the image pictured is real, and later camouflaged by the alchemy of the
darkroom. The trajectory of a representational image is subverted by
the photographic process, which now becomes a synthesis of the two
activities of “taking” the picture and “making” the image.
Thus the process- as- art becomes an integral part of the
composition embracing the random chance and chemical providence. The
organic schema of the photographic process interrupts the picture plane
incorporating several layers at once; the physical reality photographed,
the physical reality processed at the time of the film’s development,
and the physical reality in the final printing stage when the prints are
toned (sometimes as many as four toners) and or
bleached. Many of these images further intensify their original picture
source with the use of pinhole photography, vignetteing through the use
of 19th century lenses and or multiple exposures. Historical
precedent for my work an be found in Fox Talbot’s early calotypes or
sun pictures as well as Gustave LeGray’s subtle use of multiple
exposures; while contemporary references include Henry Holmes Smith,
Emmit Gowin as well as Ellen Carey’s constant exploration of the
photogram and Polaroid processes. David
Tefft MFA
Candidate in Photography Spring 2000 David Tefft, from U.S.A. |
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page last updated
August 25, 2003
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