Writing with Light

A Manifesto

By blacktulipimages on 06/01/2014

 

• I shoot totally in manual;
• I mess with the controls;
• I get messed up by control;
• I shoot as many photos as I want, because it’s digital and I can;
• I try to get it right in camera, but I love what post-production can do (change the colour of a dress; shift the light balance; shift the light; change the backdrop; alter the tilt of a hand…);
• I shoot in RAW;
• Photographs are raw material;
• Who cares about SOOC?;
• I composite; collage; remake;
• I take my photographs in a camera: I make my images in Photoshop;

• The photograph can be an object: limited edition images on paper, wood, clay, glass; or stitched and pierced photographs; maybe all of these all at the same time;
• The photograph can be an ephemeral thing: an image on unfixed light sensitive paper in a dark box… How many times can you look at it before it’s gone?
• The projected image as art; where does the art reside? In the thin spindles of light rays falling on a wall, or a body, or a tree, or a wall of water? Or maybe it lies in the digital file in the computer? Or in the idea?

• I rarely take any of my (heavy) DSLRs out to take holiday ‘snaps’: I use my iPhone to take snaps;
• I use some of these snaps as textures in my composites;

• I hate the word snaps;
• Snappy snaps;
• I don’t want to take your wedding photos or your event photos; especially not for free;
• I can lie on the ground and take close-ups of gravel for hours;
• There is always something to photograph.