why film? part one

Why film?

It's a question that I get asked a lot. And I ask it of myself even more often. It's something I've been thinking hard about, and trying to articulate, for the longest time. The closest thing to an answer I've ever been able to achieve is less an explanation than a feeling. A very strong feeling that I just have no interest in taking up digital photography. An extremely strong feeling that I am just in love with film. But this hasn't satisfied my intense curiosity on the matter.

While buying and testing out my new (film) camera - the most expensive one I've bought yet - the question seemed more relevant than ever. While I don't yet have a single, definitive answer, here I'm going to attempt to explore one of my strongest suspicions as to the reason I continue to stubbornly snub new (digital) forms of photography.

The core of this suspicion is my very general belief that film just seems more real than digital. When I have tried to explain this in the past, I haven't been able to get much further than the logic that film is a physical medium - the image is there on the strip of negative, permanent and concrete. Digital, on the other hand, begins and ends in the virtual realm. It's made up of ones and zeros, and open to a plethora of manipulation and dishonesty within ubiquitous programs like Photoshop. Digital photography has opened the medium up to a world of effects, techniques and methodologies that allow images to be spectacularly manipulated. In many ways, this is a wonderful thing, as artists can create images that simply couldn’t be achieved before. But it also means that our default position when we see a remarkable image is to suspect (at best) or assume (at worst) that it has been digitally manipulated. From famous hoaxes (such as the 9/11 tourist photo, see that and more here) to celebrities that have been airbrushed to within an inch of their lives (there’s a good collection here), the ubiquity of Photoshop in modern media, and photography, means that photographic images can’t really be trusted. Or, as Erik Voons writes in his introduction to the ‘New Realities’ issue of Guide to Unique Photography, ‘while fully embracing digitization and accepting that the plethora of synthesised images will continue to grow, it has nonetheless become difficult (if not impossible) to make a distinction between pictures that are “real” and those that have been altered.’

It wasn’t always this way. In fact, when photography was in its infancy, it was prized for precisely the opposite.

André Bazin was one of the most influential cinema theorists of the twentieth century. He co-founded French cinema journal Cahiers du cinéma in 1951, which would permanently alter the direction of modern film theory (case in point: its much-debated auteur theory is still taught in film schools today). In 'The Ontology of the Photographic Image', Bazin posits that photographic technology changed the face of creative representation by, for the first time, enabling reality to be visually duplicated. While traditional art forms had been representing reality for centuries, the photograph presented a way to '[completely satisfy] our appetite for illusion by a mechanical reproduction in the making of which man plays no part'. While obviously man does play a part in the composition and the act of taking the photograph, Bazin's point is that subjectivity ends there; unlike in, say, painting, the image is a mechanical duplication of life rather than a hand-made interpretation. In his words:

For the first time, between the originating object and its reproduction there intervenes only the instrumentality of a nonliving agent ... The personality of the photographer enters into the proceedings only in his selection of the object to be photographed and by way of the purpose he has in mind. Although the final result may reflect something of his personality, this does not play the same role as is played by the painter.

That's it! I thought. That's the difference between film and digital! That's what I love about film! This logic can surely be applied to the film vs digital debate: the extensive post-production that so often occurs in digital photography is akin to the painting in Bazin’s analogy. Film is truth; digital is a warped version - a subjective interpretation - of that truth.

But the more I thought about it, the surer I became that, unfortunately, it is much more complicated than that.

The problem with this simplistic categorisation is that film photos mostly end up in the same format as digital photos. Every piece of my work you've ever seen has most likely been on a computer. Even if you've seen a framed, physical print of mine, it has been printed from a digital file scanned from the negative. Which means that film photos are just as easily Photoshopped as digital photos.

Furthermore, even before negatives were being scanned and converted into jpegs, photos were being manipulated; photo hoaxes go back to the nineteenth century. Vroons acknowledges that ‘there hasn’t really been a moment in which claiming the recording of the “real” was not problematic’, pointing out that ‘as soon as Hippolyte Bayard photographed a staged scene of himself as a drowned man (Le Noyé, 1840), he introduced his audience to the need for a sceptical eye.’ Indeed, much of my own experimentation revolves around in-camera manipulation. Even Bazin acknowledged the issue of photographic trickery just a year after writing ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, investigating how reality and special effects interact in cinematic form.

So what does it all mean? How can I maintain that film photography is closer to the Real than digital photography when there is so much conflicting evidence? Will Part Two of this blog post answer these questions? (Hopefully the answer to that question is ‘yes’.)

ordinary

Contrary to the title of this post, I think these images, and the things within them, are anything but. I'm aware that it's potentially a bit redundant to say that there is beauty in the ordinary; it's been said and demonstrated a million times (including a few times on this blog). But I'm also aware that so much of my output lately is of overtly extraordinary content - live shows, newborn babies, weddings - so I felt it would be a good idea to balance that with some everyday visual observations.

This first image, for example, is of perhaps the least ordinary person in the whole world: my mum. But the wooden deck, the cute deckchair cover and the comfy slippers encapsulate her typical Sunday morning, and perhaps speak to many of our typical weekends: comfort, modesty, relaxation. Certainly sitting out on the deck in a dressing gown sums up a lot of the time I spend at my parents' place, so this image is absolutely a representation of the everyday for me, in that context. It's a beautiful image, though, both because of how much I treasure the person and the activity within, and for its aesthetic simplicity. The natural tones, the composition, the lines of the planks, the slight vignetting thanks to my new LC-A+: it all works, and so visually and otherwise this is a wholly successful photo.

I recently did a solo shoot with a singer/songwriter which went for quite a few hours. We were shooting at his house and we were going about it in a pretty leisurely fashion, so much so that he decided to take a break to cook lunch. He was happy for me to shoot during lunch and the kitchen had beautiful natural light, so I got in close for a few aspects of the process. Heating oil in a pan, chopping tomatoes; an old stove, 1970s tiles, Keen's Mustard Powder on the shelf: we all know this. They are pieces of our collective everyday, and as such they simultaneously mean the same to all of us, and evoke a unique set of memories or meanings for each of us. I adore these photos, and especially the tomatoes shot, with its stunning window lighting.

More everyday - this time, an early afternoon in a place that exists on the cusp of urban and suburban, authentic and gentrified. A cafe - and it could be one of hundreds that scatter the suburbs surrounding inner-city Melbourne - with some gorgeous light streaming in; and a decidedly suburban car wash - a blue man against a brilliant blue sky. What is especially fascinating about the second shot is that the sign's 'shadow' makes it appear as though the sky is a fake - a backdrop to some kind of surreal theatre set. The strange markings that have appeared on the negative enhance this odd effect.

These are all photos of ordinary, day-in-the-life objects and occurrences. But there's a reason that images such as these are perennially appealing, and hold a special place in many hearts. Though the subjects are ordinary, they make up the bulk of our experiences. As such, I don't think they can be dismissed or discounted in any way.

how's the serenity

When we boarded an old motorboat to go on a sunset billabong cruise just outside of Darwin, I couldn't help but think of Darryl Kerrigan and his love of Bonnie Doon. Maybe it was partly because of the smell of two-stroke, or the fact that I was with my family, just like Darryl was at his beloved holiday spot. But mostly, it was the serenity.

The sun was setting on another perfect day in the Darwin Dry and an uncanny stillness permeated the billabong. This serenity most likely comes from the fact that the billabong is so far from any kind of extensive civilisation, and as a result the place takes on an almost spiritual quality. It was a lovely thing to just drift past and through the picturesque lilypads, seeing anything above water level reflected in the billabong's pristine surface.

Even the wildlife seem to be in perfect sync with the atmosphere, as they act like the boat cruising past doesn't exist. From the enormous eagles overlooking their territory to the little waterbirds hopping delicately from pad to pad, the birds and animals give you the sense that you're witnessing nature in its untouched state. Even old mate didn't blink an eye when the boat sidled up beside him, preferring to remain in his mottled shade and, like us, enjoy the serenity.

Soon after the orange fireball crept below the horizon, the boat picked up speed and headed back to the banks with uncharacteristic haste. This was because, the guide explained, at a very precise point during each day's farewell, the billabong becomes completely overtaken by infinite swarms of mosquitoes. And so we disembarked and scurried back to the car before our exposed skin was eaten and all traces of that billabong feeling disappeared.

But the feeling remains here, in these lovely images. Another piece of Territory magic from the place that just keeps on giving.

two people

I've been thinking a bit lately about the connections people make with one another. Two strangers, for example, meet and become close. They share a lot and grow to care immeasurably for one another. They take a kind of journey together. Sometimes a long one, sometimes a short one, sometimes a never-ending one. Or to put it another way, each person shares part of the other person's journey.

My first relationship was a very serious one, and very long one. When we came to the end of our time together, we went in wildly different directions: he chose tradition, family and stability, and I chose personal exploration, career progression and, for lack of a better word, creativity. In the immediate aftermath of the relationship I was struck by how incredibly strange this was. For so many years we were travelling down the same path, and sharing that journey, and then this fork in the road seemed to appear out of nowhere, and sent us in completely opposite directions. I'm sure there is a lot that could be read into that situation, but I'm not going to attempt to analyse potential mistakes made or judge my younger self for her decisions. I now look back at that as a very simple situation: we took one another as far as we possibly could; at a certain point, we could accompany one another no further. Our paths just went in different directions.

I think this basic principle is applicable to many relationships - and to their beginnings and their endings. Sometimes, as is the case with the relationship I just referred to, the two paths end up being so far apart that they simply don't intersect in any way anymore, and so the two people leave each other's lives absolutely, and often for good. Is that a good thing? I don't know. Perhaps in some way it is - though I don't doubt that such judgement could only be made on a case-by-case basis. On the other hand, sometimes the paths - while diverging - remain in the general vicinity of each other, and so the two people remain in each other's lives in some other way.

My sister's path aligned with Hugh's for a while last year. Because I live in another state, I didn't spend a lot of time around the two of them - though I did spend a week in Darwin while they were seeing one another. They got along really well for the most part, but they also bickered a lot. They seemed to get on each other's nerves. Despite this, they were tremendously comfortable with one another, like they had known each other for many years (and perhaps this also explains the bickering). I think the second photo shows that comfort and lovely familiarity. The first photo, which shows them sharing a beer over a game of chess, shows the friendship - or perhaps mateship is an even more suitable word - that they had.

In my opinion, they weren't right for one another. It seemed like it was often a rocky road that they were on. But they did see one another through a small period in their respective lives, and I have no doubt that that was largely positive for both of them, in the broader scheme of their lives. Lately, Hugh has shown up in my sister's life again in a different form: helping her out while she goes through a bit of a tough time. They remain in each other's lives as friends, which is a really lovely thing.

After they broke up earlier this year, I was reluctant to post these two gorgeous photos because I thought it might be painful for my sister. But in light of the way things have panned out, I think it's a great lesson that can only be positive: people come in and out of your life, and their role in your life changes, but different doesn't mean bad. And sometimes - maybe even most of the time - different works out pretty well.

for the love of feet

By most standards, feet are kind of unappealing. They get sweaty and smelly; they are often covered in delightful things like corns, bunions, cracks and calluses; the nails are prone to yellowing and collecting a whole lot of undefined gunk; and as a general rule, Tarantinoesque fetishes notwithstanding, people find feet ugly. Some people vehemently despise them. There is even such a thing as podophobia - yep, fear of feet.

But I reckon feet are alright. In fact, lately I've had a tendency to point my lens towards the floor and capture just the bottom half of people. I only really noticed it when I took all those photos of the beautiful children in my life, but actually it extends beyond cute mini feet. The top photo is probably my favourite of these ones. We see great legs with a gorgeous grey tone against the bright white heels. The floorboards add a great texture and don't look like a typical dance floor. (It was a house party.)

The thing I wonder about all of these photos is, how much would I like them if they included the whole bodies and faces of the subjects? Take the first one: if I had Maydia's face in the photo then it would almost certainly be a more animated image, but seeing as it was late at a party there's always the chance it wouldn't be flattering. Whereas here the focus is entirely on her legs and feet - which look fantastic, and would regardless of the time of night. And the mere exclusion of heads and faces means that the photo is automatically less conventional, which I find interesting.

In all of these photos we are forced to look more closely at the details in order to find out about these people. In the second, we can see several people and lots of cords, a bit of a guitar, plus a mic stand. So it seems that it's a band, but the fact that it's on carpet and there are quite a few people standing closely together throws it off a bit - it's not a stage per se, so where is this? What is going on? If the people were shown in full we would be able to tell who is in the band and who isn't, and we'd be able to see the background and perhaps get a better idea of where it is. As it is, though, I like the element of the unknown.

The position of the feet in the third photo lets us know that whoever it is is relaxing, and if we look closely we can see a bottle of wine on the concrete: not a lot of information, but enough to convey a pretty strong sense of leisure. And again, the white shoes against the dark background stand out beautifully on the black and white film.

The final photo is a lot less cryptic, in that it's a relatively classic image of a rock and roll band. But if we ask the above question - what would the photo be like with faces included - I realise why I like it so much more with just legs and feet. See, faces automatically draw your attention. That's great - I mean, I adore portraiture - but what that also means is that your attention is being taken away from other details in the photo. When you don't have that distraction, you have to build personality and narrative from other elements. So we see boots/shoes, dark jeans, cords, mic stands, beers, a coffee cup, floorboards and natural light. So it's during the day, but they're drinking beers. There is also a coffee cup, which implies they may have been there for a while - or perhaps someone's hungover. They're standing in a line, so it would appear they're performing. But the floorboards and the ramp and rug in the background don't really look like they belong to a conventional stage. So what's going on?

Maybe with the absence of the complete picture, so to speak, there is no way to know exactly what is going on (not that full bodies and faces tell you everything, of course - but they certainly tend to tell you a lot more than feet). So instead of being presented with a photo that is relatively easy to interpret - a narrative - we are faced with something closer to a feeling. And while photos that tell an unambiguous story can be wonderful, it's also nice to appreciate a less straightforward image, where you're forced to think, and where the imagination might be able to come up with a story much more fascinating than the reality of the scene.

the many faces of holly

Caught off-guard.
Concentrating.
Show-off.
Ravenous.
Camera smile. 
Pretending not to pose.
Cracked it.

Or:

Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.

portrait of the week: maydia

I couldn't decide what to post about today so I have gone back to the portrait of the week idea in order to stall a little before I post a larger entry. But this photo is actually worth more than just a fill-in between 'proper' posts. There are a couple of reasons why this is very deserving of its own post. Firstly, it's my sister, stupid! So naturally she should be entitled to stand out on this blog. Secondly, this photo is fantastic! Anyone who has visited this blog before would know that I'm crazy about the black-and-white film/flash combination, so that automatically adds appeal to the image. Then there is the expression - so full of character while at the same time extremely flattering! Win-win!

The story behind this photo also adds some interest, if only to me. We were at a house party in Fitzroy while Maydia was down for the Christmas break, and quite late into the evening we went into the bathroom. Why? Hmm, admittedly the memory is a little hazy here. Possibly to discuss something away from the crowds and the music, but more likely we both needed to use the bathroom and were sufficiently inebriated not to worry about sharing the experience, so to speak. In any case, Maydia was sitting on the edge of the bath, and when I decided to take a photo of her, this is the expression she pulled. Thanks, Maydia!

I've written before about the benefits of taking photos late into an evening, when the drinks have been flowing. This is more proof of such benefits - because not only do I get a completely uninhibited portrait, but I have captured a memory that I'm pretty sure wouldn't be there without photographic evidence. Admittedly, I treat my cameras somewhat poorly after a few drinks, but with results like this, I have to say, SOZ, CAMERAS. You're going to be bashed around for a while to come.

putting your cutest feet forward

Even the most straightforward photos of kids are invariably gorgeous. Everything we know is miniaturised and injected with a whole lot of innocence, and it's a combination that is sure to melt hearts and elicit a lot of 'oohs' and 'aahs'. I recently spent a couple of hours with three precious kids that I am lucky enough to be very close to, and I took a couple of rolls of film of their irresistible faces. But I found myself completely (and surprisingly) drawn to their feet.

It got me thinking about photos of feet. Feet don't have a face with which to express emotion. And while feet and legs are relatively flexible, there is a limit on the number of ways you can make feet look different. I mean, feet are feet. Some are less attractive than others, but really, they all look pretty similar. So why do they make interesting photos? Well in the case of the top photo, the interest is definitely in what you can't see: where is she that enables her legs to dangle like that? The fence in the background is subtle but adds a nice element of the ordinary, and perhaps of backyards, which leads to the idea of playing. The different placement of the legs also suggests that the owner of said legs is climbing. So it says a lot about what's happening without showing much at all. I adore that photo. The one immediately above this paragraph holds the answer to the initial riddle: the kids are on a swingset. This one isn't as effective as the top one, but I still love it because there are so many things in it that are universal signs of childhood: bare feet, classic swingset, climbing as play, backyard/fence, and perhaps getting up to mischief by climbing above the swing instead of swinging on it.

Feet are absolutely the star of this shot. For starters, the only part of Holly that is in sharp focus is her feet. Her gloriously dirty feet! Secondly, Holly is looking up at the owner of the feet on the slide - but we can't see who it is, so we wonder what the interaction is between the two kids. All we have as a clue is the first child's feet and the direction of Holly's glance (and the expression on her face!).

So adorable. While it looks out of focus (and largely is), the sharp focus exists on that very small part of her body - yes, her feet. Probably appealing because it's just a little different to usual photos of kids on swings, both in the focus and the angle. And the fact that we don't see a face - the character is discerned from her sitting position (very childlike and unladylike - very like Holly), her clothes, and her gorgeous little half-painted-toenailed feet.


This black and white image is such a spot-on portrait of Holly. Unbelievable. She is defiant and stubborn - and the position of her feet leads me to imagine that she was standing just so, with hands on hips, ready to argue with anyone game enough. She is a total dag, and almost tomboyish, which is in complete opposition to her wonderfully girly sister Jas, and you get that in this image, too: she is evidently OK with dirty feet, wearing only one thong, and wearing that thong on the wrong foot. What an amazingly cute kid.

And here they are again, making another grubby appearance. This is great because you can tell she is on a swing as her legs are dangling, so it adds a kind of movement to the image. And again, it has so many elements of childhood - the bare feet, the willingness to get them as dirty as possible, the joy of feeling dirt between your toes and not caring at all, the grass, the toy in the background. The narrow depth of field enhances the photo too, and for me lifts it above your standard snapshot.  I also love this because it goes some way towards explaining why her feet are so grubby in the other photos!

aussie christmas

I like to think that there's nowhere else in the world that celebrates Christmas like we do in Australia. (By 'we', I mean my family, and many other Australian families - but not all other Australian families! In such a multicultural society, there are obviously many different global customs being observed throughout the country - not to mention those many Australians who do not celebrate Christmas at all. Just in case you were worried about such a generalisation.) Back to the classic Aussie Christmas - or, should I say, Boxing Day. We've always done a Boxing Day BBQ with extended family. Christmas Day has traditionally been immediate family celebrations, but on the 26th, many members of our large, widespread Irish-Catholic clan get together for a lot of food, booze, kids, cricket and, hopefully, sunshine. The Christmas just gone gave us some spectacular weather, perfect for all of the things I just listed as essential ingredients for a great Boxing Day bonanza.

Being a family event, it is only natural that such traditions bring with them a lot of memories of Christmases past. As such, there is inevitably a certain degree of nostalgia involved. I think that's why I love that these shots are faded, sun-drenched and sprocket-holed - they just remind me so much of the giant old photo albums, with that strange sticky cardboard under the flaps of cellophane, and the falling-out images that discoloured long ago.

This is the first time I've taken sprocket shots without overlapping the images, and I'm happy with the results. In the absence of the multiple exposure trickery, the simplicity of the photos can be more easily associated with old family photos, so it makes the nostalgia more accessible.

Aside from the physical properties of these images, the content also evokes a lot of memories. Stubbies, those stackable plastic chairs, lawn cricket, swingsets, silly children, irresistible children, sunshine. Christmas. Family.