Saturday

When Photographs Seek Alternative Mediums


Last month on April 21, was The iPhone Art’s third anniversary, a moment that just went by without much fanfare and that is all right. At some point one no longer counts the birthdays or anniversaries, rather just enjoys the moment. While a number of iPhone dedicated websites have closed, TiPA plans to stay around a few more years and like with every anniversary, there is a reflection of looking back to see what has been accomplished, that which is still on the drawing board, and then focusing on the future.


After mobile photography having played a major roll in my creativity at the cost of other creative interests, the pendulum having reached its zenith, it has slowly begun a descend into the opposite direction. 


By no means is this signaling that mobile photography is taking a backseat, it simply means that photography is looking for an alternative way to express itself, for most creative individuals express themselves in a number of different ways and various mediums. 


So when Fletcher called me a little over one week ago, asked if I would join him on a trip to Mare Island, Vallejo for a few hours, revisiting the pier we were at a couple of months ago, I said yes and the next day we were on route.




Unfortunately, Mare Island is one of those places where everything is fenced off and you see more “No Trespassing,” and “Trespasser Will Be Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law” signs then people. Then you are dealing with Vallejo’s Public Works, Private Security and of course the Vallejo Police Department, who are actually more understanding then the other two.


We just arrived and I went to the far end of the pier and setting up, when my cell phone rang and Fletcher said, “We’re busted” before a single exposure was taken. Undeterred, we searched for an alternative location within the island. Thirty minutes or so later we reached a place I knew would be less visited and the next ninety minute or so, we were both lost within our visual creativity.




Photography is not only an art form in its own right, it is also a tool with which to explore and record visual ideas to be applied in other mediums. What I am eluding at, is that while honing by compositional skills by carefully selecting segments of a wall into their own rightful artistic expression, I’m also having numerous images that would serve not only as inspiration for other forms of artist expression, even reinterpreted in the form of an abstract painting, as with the two previous photographs, which could serve as the foundation of a painting. 


Even just capturing segments of a building which one finds interesting can serve as a compositional layout as we see in the following two examples.







But now my photography is longing to find a new path in which to express itself, for I’m no longer satisfied just taking photographs, post processing them on my iPad and printing out a few. My photographs and future images want to live in another environment, another form other than just being illuminated on the screen or viewed was a print.  


Therefore I now stand at the precipice, carefully measuring my next step, because that which I have left untouched for four years and counting; several unfinished canvases and numerous concepts that have not left the pages of notebooks, the old books I have collected to convert into altered book art or use some of the pages in a collage, are all waiting for my return.




And just as the images long to be converted into beautiful brush strokes of splendid colors living on a large canvas, or other photographs intertwined amidst a variety of papers, or a letters from a son mixed in with a few different ephemeral materials, which have been assembled into a collage; or reconfigured into an image transfer and applied to a multi-medium surface. The photographs also desire to live along side of words, telling stories and filling one’s imagination, then to be stored as a digital file on a hard drive and given a number for easy retrieval. 




So for now and through the summer months, when opposing mediums come together through a symbiosis, mobile photography will be playing a supportive roll, so that it may find a new voice.




All photographs ©2015 Egmont van Dyck - All Rights Reserved






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