Some reflections in the last days about the so recurrent photography “intellectual” discourse telling photographs don’t tell the truth.
No, I won’t go into that of course, just, didn’t your mum told you not to believe in everything people tell to you?
Yeah, that’s it…
When I saw this morning one of my PANoramic pinhole photographs, I thought yes, that’s my next post of today, the workers’ day… isn’t photography a working activity even if you get absolutely no coin from it? 🤗
I’ll tell you the story of that pinhole camera, but first let me introduce you the most extreme essay photography book I ever read
… you can believe or just tell photographs lie
This can come together with the famous magic of photography, in which (among all the other magics) I just stopped believing a while ago.
Someone told me regarding an exhibition I did recently that I just made the same thing every amateur photographer of my generation did. Meaning with it the typical kind of travel, family, friends and amateurish stuff. Even he asked me whether someone commented me the quality of the photographs were rather poor… No, he was the gallery owner, and he won’t feel offended with these my words.
Perhaps, but of course he never even thought in attempting to do a camera like this one:
I made this camera (after making a few more) because I’ve sold my flammant Hasselblad XPan. I missed panoramic, it seems.
But, it became just a dinosaur. The Hasselblad I mean.
It is just what many photographers become into by just having in mind, thinking of or emulating the legendary old times of photography. So, yes, I’m glad I sold that fantastic camera and decided to get a new path in my work.
The point is the camera just works. And the fact is I don’t use it since long ago. Of course it isn’t an everyday’s one.
Just I liked the idea to illustrate the former introduction with this camera unable to reproduce reality… as it is. I made it during pandemic when reality was, well, a bit distorted.
To fill the camera with film, I need to cut a piece of 120 film in a light tight bag and put it inside. Like this one
As the dark chamber is a cylinder and the film adjusts to it, reality is distorted, in a way called anamorphism. This famous painting is a (weird) example on that by showing a strange skull anamorphism on it
Hmmm, paranormal?
In the world of photography comes to mind here the work of Kertesz
But the point interesting me here is the images that camera I called COMBOX produces
perhaps a good one for flat-earthers: see, earth isn’t flat 😂
This one also interesting, even a person can be “deduced” moving just in the middle of the frame
Image is of course wicker in the edges because light reaches very obliquely there
Finally, this portrait of a man working on the fishing gear near to the sea (it might be a lie, of course) shows the perfection of a broom’s stick and shadow, bicycle wheel and door frame.
And it brings to mind those early photographs, like that famous one by Talbot for The pencil of nature, the first book ever published (not taking into account the algae cyanotypes one of his friend Anna Atkins)…
But the camera can also do it pretty well, like in this still life and digital versions
We see what we want to see, the camera reminds us of what we missed.