The way to the image in terms of techniques and approach
I’m using analog film, because the reaction of light on the negative is an immanent part of the image’s look. I found this to be the best way to get the results that match my ideas for this work. And besides I like the physical aspect about working with analog film. The 6×6 negative and in the following the print is the base for the idea of the image. By blowing up the photograph to a maximum, a very small area is chosen from there. As only kind of parameter I use a size-determined frame to do this. The rest of the photograph is cut off, and the chosen area blown up again to a fixed size. What I get with this procedure are very dense images. I work mostly with dark saturated colours, hence light is becoming even more important.
The selection of the area which will constitute the image is an aesthetic as well as an emotional and psychological approach. Comparable to the selection of the standpoint before taking a photograph. The inner process and sensations are very similar. The discovery of a photograph within reality causes the same dazedness as the discovery of the image within the photograph: Beyond all techniques, methodes and ideas that make a photographer at the end produce certain interpretations of the world & life by capturing reflected light at a specific moment – there is always this enigmatic element in those photographs that are capturing the observer.
As for Thomas in Antonioni’s movie, the act of photographing is primarily in direct analogy to intercourse. The scene with the two pantyhose-girls is quite harsh and violent. I remember well how much I was offended by this scene when I saw the movie the first time at the age of twelve. Interestingly his behavior changes in the darkroom, still passionate but in a calm, patient, even somewhat gentle way. As if he despises reality, but admires the images he takes of(f) it. And accordingly even more himself as the creator of the photographs.
This of course is the ultimate masculine approach. But it shall not conceal that there naturally is an analogy between photography and sexuality. Even though the approximation is different. More than to hunt and shoot the shadows of the real world, it is here about finding and unsealing. The moment I see leaves me behind breathless. As does the moment in the darkroom before the first shadow appears, or nowadays (profane, but true) in front of the screen, sampling each square-inch, searching the image within the photograph. The fulfilment of the gesture of determinating what will be the final image is maybe even bigger: Within the act of photographing fortuitousness is at the very end always your companion, furthermore all ideas and intentions a photographer can have. Whereas in the choice of the area that consists the final image it is all about the manipulator of the photograph which becomes the two-dimensional support for his ideas.