layering chelsea

reframing new york

bike path revisited

lens of perception II

lens of perception

At first glance, the photographs appear bluntly straightforward in their documentation, yet they are subtly disorienting. Some of this de-stabilization is accomplished through the use of transparent surfaces and different scales, in a self-reflexive mirror. They play trome l’oeil games with our sense of surface and depth. Glass and mirrors have the power to fragment and dissolve the images that play across them. By shifting the relationship between the viewer and the object viewed, the photographs disrupt the habitual ways in which we perceive familiar surroundings. By confusing spaces that are real spaces that are reflected, and spaces that are photographed, I ask the viewers to recalibrate their own lenses and consider the ways in which perception and expectation determine how they see as well as what they see. The double picture planes are a kind of looking glass into the visual experience. The material stages a dialectic of materialization and dematerialization through which viewers apprehend and experience the contemporary environment.

The attention to shadow, illumination, and other ephemeral phenomena contribute an emotive layer of experience to the representation of architectural space. The chosen viewpoints trying capture the place’s intrinsic dynamism, which befits a space that is constantly in flux, and whose simultaneous contrast of interior and exterior space, serves competing needs for motion and stasis. I favor a fragmented perspective that favors a multiplicity and dislocation.

responses to the holga

As I have been getting feedback about my photographs from various sources, I have found most people really fascinated with the Holga photography as a material translation of time which is simultaneously stopped and in motion. Certain people exclaimed that the photographs are examples of the 4th dimension....framed in a two dimensional medium which is documenting a three dimensional world. Non-sequential and sequential ordering of time also came up, as the process captures a sequence on a linear roll of film, but the masking lines change the chronology of the original images. Bethany and Hammet had an interesting suggestion about contrasting deep space and shallow space. They also suggested documenting transitions, such as the sunset or a progression along a street.

It is a fascinating process and intriguing result, but I keep wondering what next? How can this be used? I like the images but think they should be shown with other similar images (maybe taken from the same place) to construct a more dimensional story. The medium and scale of their exhibited content will play a huge role in determining how the viewers will interpret the photographs. My gut response is that they should be large and hanging in a room installation. Maybe exhibiting them on flat panels which are hung dimensionally in space might add additional depth to their already layered framing. I want to give them context, and context does not have to be a literary narration or combination with a text. It can be a gallery setting, or the means—printed, projected—of showcasing the photographs.

multidimensionality

Bike Path, September 2005 — Taken while rollerblading, this series recorded the colors of the sky during one autumn afternoon along the east bay bike path. The evolution of the day—subtle color variations and transformations—are documented on this strip. The story of the path is the story if movement, mobility and change. The notion of capturing a place while moving though it—literally, on wheels—is conveyed through the striation of the sequence.

cityscapes

New York, October 2005 — This series is a continuing study utilizing multiple exposures in a Holga camera to construct dimensional space. In this project, I am translating a specific place into a new context of meaning and association through multiple layerings. Through a nonsequential assembly of parts, I reconstruct a fragmented story to create multiplicity and multidimensionality.

urbanscapes

Hollyoke, October 2005 — This print is a continuation of studying striated space, space that has superimposed lines and stripes to contrast dimensions and proximities between elements and perspectives.

southwestscapes

Acoma, August 2005 — This series of photographs constructs simultaneity of place by superimposing images of distant landscapes and immediate dwellings within the same frame. It contrasts juxtaposing perspectives of close foregrounds and distant horizons, building an “unreal” reality.

palmscapes

Palm Springs, August 2005 — I have used several trips—the main one being the one to the southwest—as places of inspiration that I can respond to and document. I photographed landscapes and vernacular signs, studying the natural and the man-made, as both are simultaneously existing in the southwest.