Untitled (SX70 / 1).

Sculptural Notations (3) #4.

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(Shuffled nine times).

Sculptural Notations (3) #3.

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(Shuffled nine times).

Edward Buscombe. Inventing Monument Valley.

Buscombe, Buscombe. Inventing Monument Valley. Nineteenth-Century Landscape Photography and the Western Film.

In: Petro, Patrice (ed). Fugitive Images: From Photography To Video. Indiana University Press. 1995. pp 87 - 108.

In the 1870s and afterward, large numbers of photographs were commissioned by the railroad companies. The railroads had a direct influence in the development of tourism, and the more the western landscape could be promoted as an unspoilt wilderness, the more business they did. even if paradoxically the more tourists arrived the less unspoilt it became. The railroads needed to both portray to its fullest extent the wildness of the country, thereby elevating their own achievements in traversing it, and at the same time demonstrate that while the landscapes had lost nothing of its splendor, it has now been rendered safe and comfortable for travel. They therefore lavishly commissioned photographs which showed off their spectacular achievements in throwing railways across the West's most intractable terrain. (p98)

unpeuflou.com.

http://www.unpeuflou.com/ (via http://www.polaroid-passion.com) leads to some interesting and varied Polaroid work, including exhibitions and, I think, a magazine POLART (not speaking / reading French, this is only a guess - it may only be a poster for a hypothetical magazine). Any additional details, please do leave a comment.

Interview: Luke Strosnider.

Luke Strosnider, who I mentioned in the recent post Luke Strosnider: OnMeasurement. is not only an accomplished artist but also a regular contributer to Afterimage (http://www.vsw.org/afterimage/) and the City Newspaper (http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/).

I am very pleased to present below a recently conducted email interview touching upon his work On Measurement as well as wider concerns related to the production of the photograph as image and the photograph as object.

Many thanks to Luke for taking time out to answer the inital and subsequent questions.

The work Ansel Adams | New Landscapes and the integral Polaroid work On Measurement, all highlight a 'photography' opposed to the the use of a lens, of actually taking photographs (as indeed, does your web address: lensless.net). How do you situate these works along side your other, lens based works ('Moments Seen or the Camera Obscura works)?

The camera obscura works fed into my fascination with the tension between photographic images and our perception of "now." Some of the obscura works employ actual glass lenses (Now On View), some don't (Views; also, the unique prints are all made from lensless apertures). But they were all explorations of that distance between a visual moment (seeing something) and the experience of said moment via a photograph at some later point.

My more recent projects are an attempt to make "art about photography". Making "photographs about photography" is extremely difficult (look at Isaac Layman to see some great work in that vein). Ansel Adams | New Landscapes and On Measurement continue that inquiry about what a photograph is and our experience of photographs (and the information they contain), but I'm trying to do so with photographic "symbols" and referents instead of actual images.

A I began making the "straight photographs" of Moments Seen after I'd finished a course on the Zone System. That process left me feeling distant from why I'd started making pictures in the first place: that epiphany you feel when you see something you consider photographable. So I was interested in making something that was about the "nowness" of the act of photography. Polaroid was a way to reduce the distance between that moment and the print, I distance that felt agonizingly far when working in the darkroom.

You mention making "photographs about photography" which, of course, was explored by a number of conceptual photographic artists - for want of a better phrase - during 1960's and 1970's. Keith Arnatt, John Hilliard, Lew Thomas, for instance. A lot of their work concerns the apparatus, the process of taking photographic images, while On Measurement is more engaged with the photograph itself as an object.

I wanted to highlight the process of photography more than the idea of photography. When I first started rolling the brayer over the Polaroids, I was stunned by the abstractions formed by the chemistry. Then it hit me: this chemical paste - that we use to attempt to "measure" so much - is just as capable of making something beautiful without the primary tool we use to "take a measurement" (the camera). For me, it opened up this whole other use for the film.

While producing the work On Measurement to what degree, if at all, did you view the process as a performance?

I never consciously considered it a performance, but creating the work certainly had performative elements to it. I'd begin by removing an individual sheet of Polaroid film from the pack, then use a printmaking brayer to burst the chemical pod and spread the developer, then into the typewriter. Sometimes, to get the desired impression of a particular letter, I'd have to strike the same key over and over. Those who saw me doing it (or heard the clackclackclack of the electric typewriter) would come and watch me make them for a few minutes.

The larger reproductions of the individual Polaroids on your web site do not show the white border: is this intentional?

(Just a note: on my new website - http://www.lukestrosnider.com - I've refrained from showing the white borders on any of my Polaroid projects.)
It's sort of a boring answer: I felt like editing the white border was the best use of screen space. But thinking about it a bit more, I do make a distinction between my Polaroid pictures and art objects. When I create reproductions (prints) of my Polaroid photographs (as in Moments Seen, Home, Nashville to Denver), I make them without the borders, treating the Polaroid as a "negative" to be reproduced. However, I see On Measurement more as an "art object" than a series of pictures, and the tactility of the object is important to that work in a way that it's not in my "straight photographs".

Do you see any correlations between digital and Polaroid photography?

Certainly. I mean, of course they are completely different animals (tactile vs. intangible, unpredictable vs. consistent). But they are similar, both providing us experience and re-experience of a moment in a very short span. But it's really that photographic object that sets Polaroid apart. I was pretty jazzed to see what would happen with the new digital cameras with integrated inkjet / "zink" printers (and made "instant" ink prints) but now, with the increasing spread of large-ish screen phones (iPhone, etc.), my guess is that people are going to be less apt to share "instant" photos on paper. Now we can just pass the phone around.

I was very aware of this last night. I was in a pub and a live band were playing. The music was so loud is was difficult to be heard. At the table next to me a group of people were taking photos of themselves and then passing the phone around - with much hilarity. And I thought about this having happened with Polaroids in some dim and distant past! Do you think that the lost of the photographic object - and not just Polaroid - is a concern?

The problem with so many photographic processes is that they are complicated, industrial / chemical procedures and are (were) mass produced entirely by corporations. We can't really "homebrew" Polaroid or Kodachrome (as we can tintypes / collodion processes ... and those are still going fairly strong). It is exceedingly odd: the original photographic processes will live forever, while the industrial capability to mass produce Polaroid (and many others) lasted about 60 myears. (I do offer my best wishes to the Impossible Project, btw!)

I don't dread the "end" of the photographic object (nor do I think it will ever totally go away), but it certainly is something to be considered carefully and deeply (and explored artistically). But I think the transition from sharing images on paper to sharing them via screen isn't going to stop, and I'm excited to see what comes next. It's a weird, exciting time for image making.

The e.e. cummings quote incorporated in On Measurement, when read in relation to a general disposability of the integral Polaroid and its often disregarded status as an artistic medium, certainly indicates a reluctance to leave behind the 'old' (Polaroid) technology. The use of a clam box seems to be a way to state its importance.

To me, that quote is a statement on the futility of trying to "capture" things (ideas, emotions, moments) via systems of measurement (and I consider photography as one of these systems). If you can measure it, it's inconsequential; but if it resists metrics (things like "ideas", "beauty," etc.), then it has worth.

I hadn't considered the quote in direct relation to Polaroid's "disposability", but it's an apt reading. Primarily, I used integral Polaroid because it revealed - rather beautifully, I think - the weird chemistry that is used to create these images / measurements. We have such deep trust for the veracity and meaning of these little squares; in the end, their just measurements of light and color made with chemical paste. But despite their "inaccuracy" or the futility of it all, they are important. That's where the clam box comes in: despite the flawed measurements that photographs offer us (and their disposability), they do need to be preserved and venerated. I wanted to give them the treatment that "fine art" photographs often receive.

Are there any artists engaged with with integral photography that have caught your eye recently?

Mike Slack (http://www.mike-slack.com/) has a new book coming out this Fall that I'm excited to see. His photos really stand out as exemplars of what I love about "straight photos" made with Polaroid integral film: weird slivers of seeing, those moments where you look at something plain but see something astonishing. I think that's when Polaroid shines. It's somehow capable of revealing the infinite mystery of small, often forgettable visual details. Slack's work excels at this.

In closing, what form / number will the edition of On Measurement be? When will it be available?

I'm still ironing out the details, but I hope to make an announcement soon. I aim to have a fairly small edition, and to have it finished by the end of 2009. Please keep an eye on http://lukestrosnider.com for information or to sign up for email updates.

More from Luke Strosnider can be found at:

http://touchingharmstheart.com/
http://visualthought.tumblr.com/
http://lensless.net/
http://lukestrosnider.com/

Feel free to add any comments...

Barthes, two Polaroids and three hostages (part 3).

1. Anything significantly scrutinised is, of course, invested with significance. Perhaps, then, the question to answer at this juncture is to what extent Barthes himself, if any, was involved in the utilisation of Boudinet’s Polaroid – or was it merely chosen by those external to the production (writing) of the text: editors, designers, brand consultants? Is Boudinet’s Polaroid significant to Barthes, significant to his concerns and articulations expressed within Camera Lucida? Does it warrant the scrutiny so far invested – for if the cover is an imposition, one could dismiss excessive readings of its use as little more than exaggeration, a flight of fancy in which the writers quoted above have indulged themselves, constructing more from the paratext than is warranted.

2. In the opening of John Buchan’s 1924 novel The Three Hostages, Dr. Greenwood, disparaging Richard Hannay in his affection for American ‘shockers’, argues that any such story can be construed from a random number of unrelated snippets of information. Pushed on this he provides the following three:

... an old blind woman spinning on the Western highlands, a barn in a Norwegian saeter, and a little curiosity shop in North London kept by a Jew with a dyed beard.

That it is such points that intrigue the reader and which s\he seeks to connect. The trick is that the reader follows the story ‘deductively, while it is written ‘inductively’; the problem is created to suit the solution.

3. It is known that Barthes’ attended the opening of Boudinet’s exhibition in which the image was shown. Diana Knight, referring to a text by Barthes himself, mentions:

... Barthes must have viewed the Boudinet photograph for the first time in the middle of writing Camera Lucida, when he attended the private view described in ‘Deliberation’. (1997. p267)

Indeed, of all the writers quoted [thus far], Knight is the only one to acknowledge this.

4. So I obtain a copy of The Rustle of Language (1989). What can Barthes say about a medium that he disparages? Very little it turns out:

... at the (crumbling) Galerie de l’Impasse, I was disappointed: not by D.B.’s photographs (of windows and blue curtains, taken with a Polaroid camera), but by the chilly atmosphere: W. wasn’t there (probably still in America), nor R. (I was forgetting: they’ve quarrelled). D.S., beautiful and daunting, said to me: “Lovely, aren’t they?” “Yes, very lovely” (but it’s thin, there’s not enough here, I added under my breath) ...after a second quick tour of the room (staring any longer wouldn’t have done any more for me), I took French leave...’(p369)

5. The Polaroid is not discussed at any other point within the book. The photographs that are mentioned are rarely articulated in relation to the specific method of production, but rather as a means by which to illustrate specific investigative frameworks (punctum and studium, for instance), and to the meaning/s personal to Barthes himself. So, then, what is it about the Polaroid that Barthe’s renders irredeemable? For it is from the position of spectator and subject that the book is written - not as a operator, as a photographer:

I possessed only two experiences: that of the observed subject and that of the subject observing... (p10)

6. Perhaps it would be possible to regard the brackets that enclose the writing about the Polaroid on page nine as something that occurred as a revision, something added to the text after Barthes visited the exhibition of Boudinet's exhibition - that Boudinet is the ‘great photographer’?

7. With such a self-imposed limit on the remit of the text, surely the photographic method, the physical manifestation, the print or type of reproduction, should be at least a secondary concern, if not an irrelevancy to Barthes? So what exactly is it that disappoints?

T-shirt.

Also see my previous post: Worn By... T-shirts andPolaroids.

The Integral Polaroids Of Jones Smith (#5).

There is some dispute - due to damage - regarding the numbers written on the piece of paper found on his person (in the breast pocket of his suit). It is not possible to ascertain if the digits are that of an integral Polaroid photograph, phone number or other numerical designation. Due to such uncertainty, an uncertainty shared by the wider community as a whole, I have refrained from including such numbers here.

The Integral Polaroids Of Jones Smith (#4).

It is thought that Smith's switch to type 600 film (the fourth film pack) was decided upon to further curtail the degree to which he could influence the outcome of his endeavours – each numbered photograph being identical.

It is believed that all such integral Polaroid photographs were taken during a single evening at his home sometime around Christmas, 2003. Patricia Smith (no relation to Jones), in an interview with his then neighbour, elicited the following:

It was late and me and the wife were trying to get some sleep. I’d been working all day. A long shift and all I could hear was, was the bloody noise of his camera!. (24 November 2004. Not published). 

The whereabouts and depictions of these Polaroids is currently unknown, though recently a number of differing hypotheses have been proffered.