Chapter 3.3.
Photography
- The Original Surrogate for Photography
- Necessary Digitization of the Photo Archive
- Photo-Reactivation
- Slow Down, My Friend!
- The Beginning of a Wonderful Friendship
- Systemizing That Wonderful Friendship
The Original Surrogate for Photography
The first association with the period of my life from 17 to 25 is undoubtedly music. However, somewhat “quieter” yet intensely present was another passion—photography. This preoccupation later lost some of its intensity and was abruptly interrupted by the stroke(s) that ravaged me. Because I continued to experience the world around me (and very vividly—even more intensely and consciously than before) after that calamity, the photographic urge to visually evoke everything experienced also swelled in me. Since the choice of means of expression suddenly and drastically narrowed, this impulse led me first to the haiku story. Namely, haiku/senryu is a miniature picture of the apparent world reflected in one of its details. But it is painted with words, allowing the reader to visualize that detail himself. Sometime later, my previous experience with photography and the new one with textual expression (poetry—specifically haiku/senryu, because of its brevity) merged in my experiments with haiga. As photography (visual artistic expression in general) gradually, but relatively quickly, returned to the focus of my bonus life, I also gradually, but relatively quickly, left the haiku section (which implies that I quit the said experiments).
Necessary Digitization of the Photo Archive
Only a few tangible traces of my analog photo pre-life remain. Hidden treasure chests in the form of several boxes filled with archived b/w negatives of various formats, b/w prints, and color slides… However, at the beginning of summer 2007, due to the growing lack of living space, my treasure was threatened with expulsion from the old closet in the hall. I promptly decided to digitize my photo history and archive it on disc or DVD as much/soon as possible! I hastily acquired a more straightforward A4 flatbed scanner and taught my household members to insert photos. (Unfortunately, it was unsuitable for transparencies, i.e., films and slides, so later I borrowed another one…)
At about the same time, a good friend of mine got me keenly interested in a particular photo website—www.fotozine.org. I liked the atmosphere there, so I joined it out of curiosity and started observing critically the displayed photos, even commenting on them. I quickly noticed that my old photos are not too bad either, so I also started posting my freshly digitized analog works (approx. 20-25 years old!) there. (drnda.fotozine.org—albums with the prefix “retro_” contain exactly those old photos from my earlier life.)
Photo-Reactivation
The socializing quickly intensified and culminated in the gifting of two photo knick-knacks:
This triggered my photo reactivation—I was again able to take fresh photos independently, even if in a somewhat limited setting.
A few months later, my work with that assembled photo knick-knack Gaca (my friend whose photos I had ruthlessly post-processed while dealing with haiga a few years ago and who gifted me with the two said elementary photo knick-knacks) recorded like this:
Slow Down, My Friend!
Simultaneously with the entry of that mojo into my life (so at the ideal moment), a movie crept into it as well that captured my attention and had a significant influence on it—Smoke (actually, one of the main characters, Auggie Wren was an influence). In that movie, he leaves his corner tobacco store at the same time every morning and takes a photo of that corner/the entire intersection. The same time, the same place, the same frame, regardless of the circumstances… Then he neatly arranges those photos in albums—many of them, thousands of pictures of the same scene. This, he says, is his life project (and he himself is not a photographer at all)!
Indeed—at first glance, looking superficially, these pictures seem dull, so similar to each other. But if the observer slows down, he will notice that only the scene does not change (buildings, streets…); that life goes on even in a seemingly dull and unremarkable environment: constantly different weather, different (and differing) people… So, each picture is still unique, no matter how similar it is to others. After all, here is a descriptive clip from the film:
The Beginning of a Wonderful Friendship
I was delighted and a bit naively carried away by that idea. I immediately started spontaneously recording (almost) all the people who brushed against my space-time continuum. That is, they found themselves in front of my camera during a visit…
I photographed them just so—for a possible pleasant surprise one day if I come across these pictures while tidying up my always overloaded computer storage—without thinking about a more solid, meaningful framework that these photos could make.
At first, visitors would generally be aware of the camera’s presence due to the unusual eye-catching pan-tilt pod and similar details. Still, everyone would quickly ignore it since the inevitably relaxed atmosphere would quickly surround every bybed socializing (besides, another knick-knack near a cyborg is nothing out of the ordinary). And the best is yet to come: of course, the window for controlling the camera is displayed on my screen. Next to it is also a window for controlling the pan-tilt pod. Although it all seems like a very sophisticated control panel that enables precise framing, when I’m photographing visitors, I do it only approximately!
While trying to hit that shutter button, I can hardly see what’s going on in the “viewfinder’” at all. My eyes are fixed on that button or the buttons controlling the robotic pod… Furthermore, I don’t want to be rude and stare at the screen in the middle of a conversation instead of looking the interlocutors in the eyes. So, my framing and shooting trips are very short and discreet. They are based on peripheral vision, which is only aware of the main outlines of the future photograph. Let’s add to that a short time gap between clicking the shutter button and actually releasing the shutter. It becomes clear that I, in fact, photograph moving scenes blindly, which is good because it strengthens my anticipation/intuition, which is so important to me in my daily functioning.
Systemizing That Wonderful Friendship
The above-mentioned classification of my old photos while submitting them to fotozine.org prompted me to organize those newly created spontaneous portraits, and that’s how my first conceptual project, Bybed 3D Tangents, was born! That is to say—it was not plotted but developed on the fly. You can view it thoroughly in Chapter 4.1.1, in FAA collections, and on fotozine.org (partly). It has undergone several expansions organized into several series—a brief overview of the original series is summarized in this slideshow:
At the same time, another tightly organized project, Time-Out, was created. Thematically, it is close to Bybed 3D Tangents, but it’s about the bouquets these visitors brought me—an extension of their good vibes (the primary purpose of these flowers is not to serve as photo models)
Again, it is viewable entirely in Chapter 4.1.2 or 2 FAA collections and partially on fotozine.org. This project is also extended and contains two series—a brief overview of the original series is summarized in this slideshow:
The photos that comprise the projects mentioned above have one prominent feature in common: they were all taken from the same location, just like in Auggie Wren’s case. However, while I was still living in the old apartment in Šrapčeva St. (where many helpers were still very young and thus always available), we moved the photo-knick-knack on many occasions in a circle with a diameter of approx. 4 m around my computer (dictated by the length of the USB cable). Photos taken on such occasions form a unique project, presented in the fotozine.org album meta_my room with some views, as well as in the FAA-collection Brave Outer World.
…
When we moved to Novi Jelkovec, due to circumstances, the photo knick-knack again occupied its old permanent place. It was seated on the cabinet to the left next to my bed to record the events on the right side of it. That’s how some projects got their sequels: Time-Out 2 and Bybed 3D Tangents 1, 2, 3, and 4 (the latter still use the same armchair to accommodate visitors)!
In addition to these projects, another new indigenous project from Novi Jelkovec was created. It is probably more exotic and attractive than the previous ones, so I present it separately and with a more detailed description in Chapter 3.3.1. Caverna Magica.