Though all the images here are created with film cameras, they are of course scanned from negatives and ultimately, on display here are digitised images on a computer monitor.
I’ve been experimenting with colours lately, having bought a dedicated pigment ink photo printer and various Ilford and Harman papers.
It really does make a difference whether the image is printed on glossy or on matte, etc. And of course, I am going to frame them up, now that I’ve finally gotten my hands on photo-safe tape.
Images like the one below work on both matte and gloss. On matte, there is a gritty look which fits in with the grungy seat-of-the-pants attitude of street photography.
A colleague who used to paint commented that the matte print looks more like a painting than a photograph. He said there’s a Caravaggio framed-by-darkness quality to it.
On the other hand, the glossy print has what I think of as a “Nirvana in Carnegie Hall” effect… a refined “fine art” treatment to street photography.
I suppose glossy is good for portraying drama in ordinary scenes.
And now that I’ve got all of these, I’m now thinking of what I should do next. Where is this taking me?
Direction 1: Teaching and Research
A fascination with photography (and film cameras, I must admit) is now changing the way I work. I find myself making connections between photography and creative writing, between the history of art and literary history. Is there a homology between creative writers and photographers?
What would a university course on the connections between photography and literature look like?
I am now thinking of creating a course that is practice-based, one that encourages students to go out and explore HK culture using literary and non-literary writing and photography, and getting them to think about what constitutes valuable cultural knowledge.
I’ll probably throw social media (such as a WordPress blog like this) into the mix, getting them to think about the use of social media for sharing one’s work. And what is meant by “sharing”? What, really, is being shared? And what is “work”?
Direction 2:
This has all to do with the situation of one’s work, I suppose. Digital images live in one’s hard disks or are displayed on sites like this. Now that I have the physical prints on hand, perhaps the next step is to work towards a gallery exhibition.
It’s a kind of curating, I suppose, setting up one’s work for viewing …
What kind of logistics and various other considerations would this involve? There’s a learning curve ahead of me …
What is becoming clear to me now though, is that this blog is like a thinking-in-progress technology, a depository of raw ideas… much like a building under construction …
Thanks for reading.
Hong Kong Lucida 