2.4 Photography

Transcript

The year is 1826. New tech unlocked. Create a lifelike image of something and reproduce it. This unassuming novelty disrupts our one-to-one relationship between the object and its representations. You no longer have to visit your auntie to see her face, and soon it would become cheap to print a thousand aunties.

The camera is unique in its accuracy of representation, but this is an illusion. If the camera had a will, it would strain with all of its clockwork at the hands of the photographer to get the subject, but it always comes short of the truth of the subject. The illusion of reality is a fundamental truth of photography. Everyone’s seen the comparison of left and right media outlets reporting the Trump inauguration.

Lo-fi trends seem to contend with this too, and throughout the history of photography, there have been parallel lines of inquiry in abstract photography and photo manipulation. Presenting a photograph as the truth would be dishonest. The photo is only ever a tiny slice of the real world. They are fragile artifacts.

A caption can swing the meaning of a photo drastically to opposite extremes. The content of a photo is vulnerable to cropping, misreproduction, misunderstandings, context, and most importantly, who clicked the shutter. These are some of the tools available to the photographer. The work of a photographer is fragmented across time and space. There’s the seeing and maybe setting up of an image, then the capture itself, the selection of photos, and finally the finishing, printing, framing, or publishing.

It is true that anyone with a camera can produce an amazing image, but there is a definite technical aspect to taking photos. For example, knowing how shutter speeds and apertures work can get you results closer to what you’re trying to express. As a mode of communication, the initial impression of the photograph is as a record. It proves that something happened.

Of course, we can never escape the context, expression, and emotion of an image, intentional or otherwise. In this mode of photo as proof of existence, it’s at the point of seeing that the viewer imposes their values and feelings onto the image. People are painfully aware of how accurate photos are. There are apps to manipulate your image to make you look hotter.

Your mate catches a dumb expression on your face in a picture. And even though you probably couldn’t recreate the face, you have to agree that it is you. There’s so much to photography. It’s impossible to capture everything in the scope of this podcast. We’ve narrowed our discussion to just a few key concerns. Topics like abstract photography and Instagram photography deserve their own episodes.

Topics like abstract photography and Instagram photography and Instagram photography and Instagram photography When I was three years old, I begged for a camera from my parents and they got me one for my birthday. And I was looking at some of those early photos today from about when I was like seven or eight.

And I used to take the camera into school. And you can see I was already keen on something about what we’re going to talk about today. I was taking pictures of my friends and alongside those are pictures like images, you know, art or something. I think I was keen from a young age.

And what about you? Yeah, I’ve pretty much never really liked taking pictures or having my picture taken. It was funny that my roommate and I were walking home last night and the Apple year in review just like started playing itself in my pocket. And we were standing at the lights waiting for it to turn green. And we just like watched it and watched all these nice memories.

And like you were in there and he was in there. My family was in there like a bunch of things I’ve cooked. And it was like a nice reminder that, you know, photos are really nice. And I was like, damn, I got to take more of these. And also, like when we talk about photos in galleries, I think it’s the most difficult medium for me to feel comfortable with and for me to get.

And I think we’re going to talk about why we think that might be in the episode. All right, let’s go. G’day. Welcome to Hung Up. I’m Aiden.

And I’m Matt. This week we’re talking about photography. We’ve done so much homework for this episode, like two times the normal amount of homework. Yeah, like we felt like we had to. Yeah, it’s true. It’s a it’s turned out to be like kind of a like a yeah, it’s a bigger topic than we thought, even though we’re narrowing it down for one.

And also, like, I realized that it might be my favorite like art form in this process. Cool. But like, yeah, we’ll we’ll just we’ll see where we end up. In the process of like doing the lead up work for this episode, just talking back and forth and kind of, you know, pushing each other on what we actually think and what is actually true about photos and different forms of art.

We kept coming back to this kind of idea of like when the work of a photograph happens. Yeah. And how like compared to any other form, there really is like no barrier to entry. Like that’s to say that. Well, I’ll give you an example. Like I was thinking about it this morning.

I was like sitting on my my balcony eating a passion fruit in the sun and it was lovely. And I cut this passion fruit open and I was just like amazed at how complex it was. Like it had so many colors and it had such like interesting weight and like just around the perimeter. So like in the center, it’s got all these like bursting kind of gold and yellow seeds or the black seeds in this kind of gold and yellow.

Like what do you call it? It’s like a membrane. It’s just such a wild fruit. And I had been writing a poem like half an hour before and I was thinking about how hard it would be to describe and like, you know, capture this passion fruit well in a poem. But then I thought, hey, I could just take a photo of this and I would like have it in some sense.

Like I would have captured it in some sense and I could send that right to you. And that kind of just yeah, that was like this kind of burning unresolved tension that I yeah, it was I thought it was a nice moment. But it was, you know, speaking to this question that we’ve keep we’ve kept coming back to. And maybe that’s what attracted me to photography initially.

I really don’t remember this kind of like easy, easy reference to such a complex object, you know, or scene or anything later on and and pretty much infinitely reprogramming. Right. Like you can just print that photo out a thousand times. You could like share it on the Internet, whatever.

And then, you know, I think that the power of that, which which was like the the big disruptive thing about photography when it was invented, the power of this like reproduction, it kind of dwarfs a lot of the other work that photographers do. There’s there’s a whole lot of work that a photographer does after the photo has been taken to get it to you in the end.

If you look at like a more serious, like gallerist kind of photographer, they might spend like this is a very traditional, like especially European way of working. But they might spend like, let’s say, six months on location in southern France, for example. And then they come back and them and their editor will go through thousands and thousands and thousands of photos.

And I think this is a really important part of photography that doesn’t really get discussed is selection, like editing your photos as in not manipulating them, but choosing the photos that say what you’re trying to say or that that do what you’re trying to do. Yeah, I think that that’s that accounts for as much skill and complexity to me as the moment of capture as well.

Yeah, for sure. And then like, like, by analogy with poetry, for me, it’s always like the that process is even harder than the initial like you’re creating the slab of stone or whatever, and then you actually have to carve it into something cool. Cool. Like that, that’s so much more painful and complex.

Yeah, totally. And the thing is with with photos, like, I remember my mom telling me this one time that, like, she just happened to know that like photo competitions, you ever seen a photo competition, like there’s a bunch like going in Australia at any one time, but basically, like you and 10,000 other people with a camera submit, like maybe one or two or three photos to a panel of judges.

And they they judge the photo, they judge, like they look at all the photos usually. But the way they judge the photos is they like fly through them, they, you know, they like they snap, like through, you know, hundreds and hundreds every hour. Because like, you know, I think I think what she meant by that was that, you know, you can take in a whole photo right away, whereas a poem, you got to go line by line, or it feels like you know, you have to read every word of it. Right?

Yeah, so to like jump off that point. I’ve been thinking about like, why, why sometimes people feel photos are particularly like slippery, or difficult as an art form. Yeah, yeah, as an art form, compared to kind of anything else. And I’m, I’m kind of feeling like, like what you just said, resonates pretty strongly with me that the fact that you can, you know, get or you feel like you can perceive all of an image instantly,

kind of gives me this almost like, like, huh, what else is there feeling? Yeah, whereas like, I’m listening to an album, and it’s kind of slowly revealing itself to me. Or I’m standing in front of a painting, and I’m just kind of naturally, whether it’s fair or not giving it more respect. I’m like, I know that I can’t, like, you know, take in a photo in one look, you know what I mean?

Especially now when we’re talking about like, representational photography, like if we were looking at some of Justine Vargas, photos that are kind of super experimental, like heavily edited kind of images of, I think, like the film itself. Yeah, and that’s like a very expanded photo, like photo practice. And that kind of doesn’t give you this feeling. But especially when I can recognize things in the image, it’s hard not to have that kind of, like more, like very practical classification brain on.

Hmm. This is something that we sort of, we kind of wrestled with before, like, slippery is a good word for it. Photos. I mean, we were kind of racking our memories trying to think like of what photo shows we’ve seen, like where it was just a photographer or, you know, photographs in the gallery. And it was like really hard. I mean, again, we don’t really seek out anything in particular when we go and, you know, or when we choose galleries to go and look at.

But it seemed like from our sort of very like average scatter plot, you know, approach to galleries in Sydney, it seems like photos are underrepresented, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that is one thing that has to do with it. I think photography has always been, you know, it’s entirely new in comparison to a lot of the other like traditional art forms like painting or, you know, sculpture, whatever, poetry.

Um, and do you know what? I think we’ve, we’ve probably seen as many like video screens as we have seen photos. Yeah. Um, just, yeah, maybe more, um, just as an aside, I think like just to go back to the kind of like this sort of time question, like, I think, um, like we, we, we promised we wouldn’t talk about Roland Barthes, but I think I just want to like bring up something that he like talks about a little bit.

All right. I’ll allow it. So he like, he, he kind of like, uh, spoke, uh, in his book, uh, camera lucida about like an interesting kind of experience you can have with a photograph, which is like, and like, I won’t even use his language with it, but just like his ideas, like you can, you can either get like stung by a thing in a photograph, or you can like, you can find yourself almost like pouring over it or like, um, looking for something, you know, you can either reach in,

into it or it can reach out to you was kind of the, the categorization that he was using. My favorite photos, it’s got, it’s got both or it’s got like very strongly one or the other. Um, you know, something will grab me and then it’ll have like one, two, three, four more beats of like recognition or like surprise or something. When you like roam around the photo, once you’ve sort of accepted it into your sort of field into like, you know, your, your, your, uh, visual kind of parts of your brain are kind of like,

maybe like there’s a, there’s a couple of different parts of your brain, you know, at once it’s like the kind of like lightning reflex part. Like, is it a predator kind of brain? And then there’s like the kind of like, you know, weaver’s brain. Like, I’m just going to look over the surface of this as, as an object or as a, you know, even just as a shape. That’s a really good point. And I’ve seen you do that a bunch of times.

I thought it would be interesting because like a couple episodes ago or even last episode, I don’t remember. We were kind of talking about like the skills that allow you to enjoy art. And I really enjoyed like having that conversation. And I guess I wanted to ask you, is there any kind of specific skills, um, that have helped you to like see photos in that way to, to step away from that kind of instant.

I recognize this, like this very kind of human, you know, shapes and forms and identifiable objects and allowing yourself into that more kind of like emotional kind of curious space. Hmm. Yeah. I think like for one, just, just carrying a camera around, um, for, you know, long stretches of my life with me, um, has kind of helped me, um, practice that looking, that type of looking, uh, even when it’s not in my hand.

Sure. Um, so, so that’s one thing. Um, last night we were just going almost like as a practice run, we were like looking at some Eggleston photographs. Um, and like, we, we both zoned in on the one with these tomatoes on the sink and you’re like, it’s just tomatoes. Like, and like, yeah, I get it. It’s a retro sink. Like, you know, it’s, it’s a minty blue, whatever.

And I, my sort of like reading of it to you over the phone, it kind of sounded like, um, I don’t know if you’ve ever done one of these drawing lessons where it’s like, don’t draw a person, like draw the shapes that make up the person. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that kind of like that kind of looking, especially when there’s a good image maker, a good photographer to like hold your hand through it. Um, it becomes easier and easier the more you practice it.

And like, I think, um, Eggleston’s a good example. Cause like so many of his photos are like just these kind of boring scenes where like, there may be like a bit of a subject, like we could say the tomatoes are a bit of a subject, but it’s just so, it’s so sort of, uh, he used this word himself, democratic in terms of like, you know, everything is kind of photographable.

Yeah. Like, you know, it, it all kind of can contribute to this sort of, there’s, he makes these funny like medleys of photos. Like there’s just, you know, totally. But there is also like in that, like you can call it democratic and that is, that is cool and true. But don’t you think there’s also like a type of like raising up of that stuff? Like once you photograph it and once you print it nicely, like even just, you know, that is an image that he has captured and then that he is, or whatever, like poured over it and just decided on. And there’s always this element to me of like honoring the like mundane or the everyday and kind of making it like holy or something.

Hmm. Yeah. Photos do kind of take on a bit of a holiness. I think like a lot of people really like the effect that film like 35 mil film, for example, gives to a photo. Cause I think it kind of has something to do with like a, yeah, like a vaunted, like a holy, a kind of scarceness or something. The moment seems more scarce like that.

For sure. Yeah. Um, I think for me anyway, like as a photographer, I, I don’t necessarily want to think of it as holy. Like I want to think of it as like the frame, like, you know, I just want to think in terms of that, like rectangle or the square and like that I’m pulling that out of the little splinter that I caught, you know, in time and space. Like, I just want to sort of set it aside to look at it again or to show someone.

Yeah. Cool. Um, and then like, you know, whether it ends up being holy, like that’s out of my hands, I think. Yeah, for sure. Agreed. The death of the author to bring it back to, uh, Mr. Bart. You got me again, Mr. Bart. You got, yeah, you got yourself boyo. All right. Cool, man. I thought that was a really nice, like that was useful for me to hear as well, because it’s kind of something that I want to get better at doing. And I think that that idea of, yeah, breaking, breaking free of the like potential restrictions of that classification brain and into seeing like forms and shapes and composition.

Um, it is harder for me when things are not abstracted. Yeah. One more thing I want to say about this is that like, you know, for our, like, uh, we, we, we, we, in the intro, I kind of outlined the like two big, um, branches of photography. It’s like the documentation versus the like image making photography, you know, for, for most people and, and also for like probably most of our daily lives, unless you’re really in the thick of it.

Um, we see photos where there is a big clear subject, you know, right in the middle of it. Um, and you mean you’re talking about like the documentation mode. Yeah. And like, I think, you know, we’re, we’re sort of like, we’ve kind of been trained, uh, to associate the two together. Like when there’s a frame, there’s a big, important, like capital I important subject in the middle, you know, that, that like the photo is of, right.

Like, whereas like, yeah, I think the other thing that like is, is so interesting and, and like so possible and exciting with photos is that like subject list kind of scene or like, you know, the composition, I guess I’m talking about. Yeah, for sure, man. I think that’s a really, a really nice and useful framework.

And it’s important to like, there’s not, there’s no other form where we’re kind of bombarded with this, like less artful version of it. So often, you know what I mean? Like we’re constantly bombarded with, you know, non, you know, these are images that have inherently composition and color.

And, you know, if you take them a certain way, like an ad can be beautiful or artful, but we are, you know, so often seeing images that are purely functional. Like, here’s what I, here’s what my kid looks like, you know, here’s like a receipt for later or whatever, you know. So I definitely think it’s, it’s interesting to consider how seeing so many kind of practical or boring or like necessary images has impacted, you know, what we take when we see any photo and maybe why that has, has made photo more difficult for some people.

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I guess we kind of picked out a photo of yours to, to discuss. I think that would be like, now would be a cool moment to, to talk about that. It’s funny. Like many photographers I’ve kept just about everything I’ve ever taken. Yeah. Um, but I did have a couple of like big holes in the, uh, in the archive.

Like there’s a hard drive that I lost at some stage, which had a whole bunch of like pretty special to me photos, more of the documentary kind of photos, um, of like trips and like friends in high school and stuff, which sucks. But you know, that’s just, this is what happens. Um, but where the, where the like archive picks up again is like when I started working at a photo shop in like, uh, at the end of high school and like through my like uni years.

Um, and I had, uh, gotten a secondhand digital camera. I really liked it. It was a cute little Fujifilm thing, uh, Fuji X100 for the photo docs out there. Um, and I, on my lunch breaks, I would just like go around snapping photos. I think I may have seen something, uh, like the Vivian Meyer documentary online, or maybe I just heard about her on like Tumblr or something.

Um, but yeah, I, I, um, was just taking photos of like the crowds and the people in Crow’s Nest where I, where I worked, um, and doing, trying to like practicing my like looking and image making stuff. I only selected it, uh, in that kind of like, uh, that sort of flip side of the capture editor kind of two, two jobs that a photographer has.

I only selected it, uh, today at the time I was like, oops, you know? Um, and what it is, is it’s, um, me like sort of walking past this like small, uh, I think it was a mom pushing her baby on the pram and she had the dog going as well. Like, um, and in the, right in the foreground, slightly out of focus is this, um, cute little, like sort of fluffy white dog, um, mid jump, just down like four inches of down four inches of pavement.

And then there’s the baby, like kind of in the same jump, but like sort of doing other baby stuff. Like you can see three limbs, like sticking out of this pram and a funny, funny sort of like jaunty, like baby gesture. Um, and it’s the whole photo is on a tilt because I, um, I had the camera like down at my waist when I took this.

Um, actually I wasn’t looking through the viewfinder when I took this, it was just like, you know, shooting from the hip kind of thing. Um, and yeah, it’s funny. Like it really, I really liked this photo today at the time. I just, I, I mean, I’m, I’ll say this, like, I’m just glad that I didn’t delete it. Cause I probably deleted a lot of photos. Yeah. It’s great. It’s cool.

I mean, I’m looking at it and now, and there’s all these like wonderful, it’s kind of nice. And it’s super local. Like there’s this big kind of like warehousey, like orange brick. Like, I guess, where was this? This was in Crow’s Nest, like North Sydney. Yeah. Right. And it’s got like all these cool textures. Like you’ve got, look, it’s like a, the fuzzy white, like tight curls of the dog.

And it’s got these big floppy ears. And then there’s like, uh, the kind of like mottled concrete and then the kind of like patched up tar. And then there’s this like kind of silver grate in the background. Yeah. It’s almost like musical. And then on the pram, there’s like a little blanket that’s like obscuring parts of the baby.

Yeah. And then like a plastic like cover, I guess, which is for like the sun or something. Yeah. And I’m really like noticing all these like wonderful textures. Yeah. Like this kind of brutal street stuff. There’s like a big fucking SUV and like a bin with graffiti on it. And then like the softest, softest, like cutest, most precious, like turned in baby limbs.

And it’s kind of tiny toes and its hand is stretched out in this like, yeah, just essential baby kind of quality that he’s doing that thing or the baby’s doing that thing where it like grabs its own foot. Like his legs are so bendy that it kind of like bends and grabs its own foot. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s such a, you sent it to me and I kind of waited for it to pop up in our like

notes, our shared notes thing. And I just instantly loved it. So it’s really cool. Yeah. I’m glad you like it too. There’s something about it that’s just, it’s really sticky. I also, I just noticed talking about it now that everything, that everything’s in threes, like just about like there’s kind of three shapes in the driveway. There’s like the bin, the car and another car. There’s like three baby limbs and there’s three like pram wheels and there’s three dog legs.

Like, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a great photo. It’s, it’s very like unlikely and unexpected to find it like this, you know? I mean, when was this taken? Like 2015? I think something like that. Yeah. It’s hilarious. Yeah. Awesome. And yeah. And there is actually a moment like this kind of funny, uncanny kind of silliness, but then

this very, I guess like genuine kind of suburban life element. Yeah. Yeah. It’s cool, man. Good stuff. Good job. Thanks. And I like, I get, especially thought it was cool, like to think about, yeah, that it was taken so long ago and only just, it’s like, you know, it’s like turning an old note

into a poem like six, seven years later or whatever it is. Yeah. It’s interesting to think about the lifespan of a work like that. Cause I don’t know if that would hold true for other forms, you know, whether you could just kind of, you pick it up and quote, like finish off the job. So such a long time later. Sure. I think for me, like, um, like speaking musically for a second, like, I feel like if I listened

to something that I recorded this long, like what was it? Seven years ago, I would be like, you suck, you know, your voice is out of tune and you can’t play guitar yet. Like kind of thing. But I think with, with this, it’s like, I, I, you know, I, I maybe I’ve become a better photographer, but I think I’ve definitely become a better selector of photos. And like, that’s, that’s what’s at play here.

For sure. And I guess like looping back to that instantaneousness of photography, like photos, like everyone, like there’s some beautiful photos that I’ve seen, like just like family photos that were complete accidents and that seems kind of unique to photography that you can have like a happy accident. You can have an unskilled practitioner, like almost accidentally create something very powerful.

Aidan, what’s your Instagram consumption at right now? What’s your hours?

10 minutes per day. 10 minutes per day. That’s pretty good. Mine is one hour plus the 15 minutes snooze, uh, like three or four times. So two hours. I have plenty of other shit to waste my, I have plenty of other shit to waste my time on. I think I spend like an hour in bed just browsing the web in the morning, but yeah, not on Instagram.

I don’t even have the app. I have to like go through the browser, which like creates some funny, like there was actually this weird moment where if I was watching a story, like a series of stories on the browser on the web, the audio from the first story would keep playing through all of the next of the stories, like slowed down and like chopped and screwed.

And, uh, even when you close the story, it would keep playing. That’s so funny. And I actually really liked that. Like the reason that I have them as browser apps instead of the actual app is kind of to intentionally introduce those moments of friction. And it kind of creates like a interesting, uh, what would you call it? Like it breaks the app in ways that the developers would not be happy with, or the, the managers

would not be happy with. Yeah. Well, they, they, they want you to download the app, but they’re not going to get me. Not this podcaster.

So yeah, we’re, we’re kind of ruled. We’re like some of us, uh, not Aiden, we’re ruled by this world of images, this like endless fucking stream of images. Like, you know what I mean that some of them are photos. Some of them are other stuff. Um, there’s a lot of manipulated photos.

Um, I think we read in this article, um, that we’re about to bring up. It’s something like, what was it, dude? Like a million photos are uploaded, uploaded just to flicker every day. Something like that. Right. Something stupid. Yeah. Yeah. And then like, you know, Instagram is probably 10 times that, you know, easily. Um, so I think like one of the big challenges or questions for artists, uh, for photo artists

in this century is, um, you know, how, how do we deal with that? Or like, how do you come to terms with that? Or how does that figure into your practice? Cause I still see a lot of people like basically practicing photography as if it was 1970. Like, yes, there might be a smartphone in the odd photo, but like, aside from that, it’s

like, what’s, you know, can you see a difference? So we read this article by Teju Cole, who’s a writer and a photographer.

Um, he’s got an article, uh, a column at the New York times called on photography. Um, and he brings up some of this stuff. Um, he’s got this thing in his article about, um, it’s become hard to stand still wrapped in the glory of a single image, uh, as the original viewers of old paintings used to do. The flood of images has increased our access to wonders and at the same time lessened our

sense of wonder. Yeah. I mean, I think that speaks to what we were talking about earlier about, you know, external kind of visual culture stuff, um, like fundamentally changing our relationship with all images and, you know, how we can’t help but pass the images we see through, um, the filter, the language,

um, you know, the relationship that we’ve built with this kind of immensity of imagery. Um, and that, especially like that kind of plays in and out of the platform, you know, like our experiences with photos on Instagram, you know, which is most of our images and we’re

not going to talk about it, but there’s a really cool Genevieve Felix Reynolds, uh, article. She’s a local artist, um, where she talks about, you know, I, at the end of her essay, she says, I understand that, you know, most people will see my images on, on a phone, on like a small black screen, static and flattened.

And I think it is a really interesting and important point. And like, as this conversation has gone on, I’m kind of feeling like this motivation to invest in redefining that way of seeing, um, you know, like on my own terms rather than on the terms that have been dictated by me, uh, by the platform. And, you know, that’s kind of like, you know, a bit of a, a critical take of Instagram.

And I do think Instagram kind of, you know, is so much a part of our, you know, real life. What were you saying the other night about like the platform in real life? I, well, what I was saying is I was having a conversation with, um, uh, friend of mine, Glenn, um, and we were talking about, uh, how artists kind of, uh, I mean, you know, like

he and I, and I’m sure you, Aiden, have this too, like every, you know, every six months, like if you’re, if you feel like, you know, you’re doing artwork every six months or so, you’re like, what am I doing this for? And like, why am I here kind of thing? And I said to him, um, I think, uh, Instagram in particular has just been like troubling for

a lot of artists because people begin to mistake content for reality when like reality is itself. And it’s one thing. And like, yes, you can, you can make photos and art in reality. Like that’s fine. But then, but you know, what I was saying was, but then there is content, right? Like it’s, you know, it’s sort of so often like given all this weight, like as if it weighs something like

kilograms, you know, but, but it’s nothing it’s, you know, content is, is vanishing and like whatever, you know, for sure. I’m going to stop you right there. Cause I want to, I want to keep the rest of this for like a juicy future, all Instagram episode. I think that would be really fun to just play with like all the ramifications and realities and, uh, unrealities of, of Instagram.

Yeah. Yeah. We’ll save that for a later episode. All right, cool. So the way he kind of progresses in this essay, he talks about, you know, a few artists that are using like the very kind of concept of abundance or overwhelm as their sort of medium, but like you alluded to, like things have moved so quickly that that take

has kind of dried up like six years later. So we’re kind of going to skip past that. And I’m going to read a chunk from the end of his essay that I thought, uh, sat really well with me. There was a time where I was really into, like, I was writing a food newsletter and I had an Instagram of like food stuff. And he talks about, um, again, this relationship between, you know, documentation and,

you know, something more than documentation. Uh, here he’s talking about like photo photographs of like really everyday things. Uh, he says a plate of food with its four or five items of varying texture corralled into a circle is similar to countless other plates of food, but a book full

of photograph meals, meals long consumed and forgotten is poking gentle fun at our obsessive documentation of the quotidian. And he kind of goes along down that line of thinking saying things that would have like, you would never, never have like thought about them twice are just like automatically, almost automatically captured now. And then he ends on this kind of like sweet moment.

Like it’s kind of that, that almost makes it sound like it’s cheapened the value of photography. Like we’re just, you know, it’s, it’s part of this kind of consumptive capitalist brain where we must document and capture and cling to. And of course with food or any other kind of item in that documentation mode, there’s, you know, status and signaling kind of, uh, tethered to the image,

but he kind of concludes with cheap photography makes visible the ways in which we are similar and have for a long time been similar. Now we have proof again and again and again. Yeah. It’s cool. Yeah. I think like, um, that’s like, that’s the, the beautiful thing to me about like how, how easy it is to get into. And like, yeah, like, I think I should, I don’t know if I

need to say this, but like, you know, I, I, I I’m interested in like art photography and like, I’m interested in being an artful photographer, but I’m not really putting them in two different buckets. Like it just feels like a sliding scale and like, you know, and, and any photo, any image is ripe for that kind of experience to just like come, come forth from for sure.

Definitely. Although I would make one point on that is that I think that that is true for you. And that may be true for you, but it almost like, I kind of disagree. Tell me when I see your photos that you would like to like as, as an artist call, oh, this is like just documentation. This is just

capturing. When I see those images, like I can see how they’ve been like tinged and framed with the artfulness, uh, almost always like you can’t, you can’t actually help it at this point. That is true. Yeah. And so I am not really comfortable saying that you are capable of

doing the type of documentation that is, you know, you’re not really capable anymore of taking like a genuinely, um, agnostic photograph. Yeah. You got me there. You totally got me there. I mean, it would be too much rewiring to undo all that stuff that I’ve like, or whatever. Yeah. It would have to be like a photo of a

receipt or like a photo of a package that you’ve dropped off for work. Sure. Yeah. Oh man. Maybe you could make that more agnostic, but probably not a fucking dummy. You’d probably like think about the lighting. I’ve actually got a bit of a side project going on. Yeah, I bet. No kidding. It’s, um, this is my work. Okay. No one’s ever going to see this artwork, but as, as part of the, um, as part of the like job I do, I have to like get a delivery

confirmation. So I got to take a picture of the package, like on someone’s doorstep. Um, and they all go into an app, right? Like, so I think the only case in which someone would actually look at the photo, do you know what? We have to ask one of the customers, maybe like, it’s like your food’s here and then they get it sent to their phone. But like, like pretty much unwaveringly,

unwaveringly, I try and make them as arty as possible. Dude, I fucking knew it. I fucking knew it. Do you see that? I’ve been doing this for two months now. Do you see that listeners? I fucking unfurled his web of bullshit and I showed you all who he really is. Artist of the Week is Kai Wasikowski. Um, I thought it’d be cool to pick a person who’s doing, uh,

a lot of photo work, uh, for this episode, obviously just to like kind of underscore, uh, some of the like ways of seeing, uh, that we’ve talked about. Um, a lot of Kai’s work has to do with nature, um, like depictions of nature and, and like themes in nature. The work that I chose this

week, um, is garden number one from 2019, um, which is, I’m looking at, um, a picture of, uh, his mates like Harrison and Seb holding it up on Instagram. And it’s about like the size of someone’s torso. Uh, it’s, uh, I think it’s him in the, in the image, uh, squatting in front of a big,

like, uh, viewing camera, like a big old school, large format camera in front of like a, a black and white backdrop, um, and like surrounded by, uh, stones, leaves, uh, like, you know, like dirt and rocks and stuff like that. Um, I think this, this photo has got this really like compelling, like

intense texture to it. So it’s like, it’s like the artist taking a photo in the photo. Um, and it’s just surrounded by this, like sort of like, I want to say gritty, like grainy texture, like because it’s black and white, the texture feels all the more, um, like intense. I think if there were colors to kind of separate out, like maybe the leaves are green and the rocks are brown or whatever, like it

would feel in air quotes, easier to look at. Um, but I, something about what I was saying earlier sort of fits well with this photo is that like, I was talking about, you know, um, it’s got the kind of like the two things, right. It’s got the like pose of this photographer in the picture, like that pulls

you, pulls you in immediately. You recognize human form, but then around that, like surrounded by that almost like, um, conquered by that is this like endlessly complex texture, which is just kind of like, um, circling and like ensnaring this photographer. I think I can see like a, like a black net somewhere on the ground as well. That’s like, Oh, maybe it’s not a net. Maybe it’s a plant,

but yeah, just something about the confusion of it. And like, I don’t know, it’s just kind of got this, like at once, this singularity and this confusion. Um, yeah, really cool photo. There’s also like, for me, a sense of humor, like there’s like a backdrop, right? There’s like, yes, the natural setting. Is there a backdrop and a natural setting or is just two backdrops? It’s hard to say.

It looks like there’s a backdrop and like a natural, um, setting. Like it looks like real leaves at the top and around. And then like, you know, the artist is, or the photographer is, is standing in front of like a photo of the same or similar nature. That’s kind of slightly disordered with the frame around

it, which to me gives it a kind of like absurd humor. And one thing that I noticed that you didn’t mention is that the artist is like shirtless, but wearing like camo. So there’s a, his camo jacket is like wrapped around the head of the camera in like some kind of old school. I’m guessing that has a technical function. And he’s also got like, uh, uh, camo pants tucked into socks

and then camo crocs, which is like at once this, like, you know, camo with its associations and it’s, and it’s kind of like, you know, the way it’s blending into the, uh, scene, like just purely compositionally, but then also playing with that sense of like, you know, the, the, the backdrop as

camouflage and the outfit as camouflage. And then also like the contemporary meme ability of camo and crocs. Uh, and he’s kind of perched on this little stone, almost there’s like a bit of like a chaplain energy in the way that he’s, uh, he’s on, he’s on a like tiny little stool, like a camping stool. You know, one of the things that like landscape photographers have to do is like, yeah, they’ve

got to hike to all these places often with like really heavy gear, like this camera. I don’t know where this, where this was taken. Like maybe, you know, maybe it was like up in a fucking mountaintop rainforest. We should ask and get some more info. But yeah, like, I love the stool. It’s like, you’ve got to sit and wait for your photo to come around. Like you found the composition, but like the light’s not going to be right until maybe tomorrow morning. I don’t know. You know,

like I love that. Um, it kind of has this like a turn of the century, like poacher record photo. It’s like, it’s like, it’s almost like the kind of scene you would see someone holding up like a dead lion in Africa, like kind of thing. Like, um, and like, I just, I think it’s fun how like, you know, I know this, I’ve met this person like, and like, you know, he’s, he doesn’t,

he doesn’t give me poacher vibes, but like, it’s just fun. That kind of like incongruous, like association and like, yeah. It’s funny. It almost with that backdrop and the prominence of that backdrop, it’s interesting that these are the photographs we’ve chosen, which are both like what I would call like, you know, experimental photography in a sense. And that’s kind of like

what we’ve latched onto. And I don’t know, it, it, it could be a reach and it probably is given how little I know about photography, but, but I’m comfortably saying that points to a feeling like, uh, you know, in contemporary photography where, you know, uh, it’s common to, uh, for an artist to desire to expand, you know, the frame and so on. But I’m sure like, I know that going back

through history, there’s all sorts of, um, references and versions to stuff like this, like, you know, photos of photographers and so on. And it was a super like rich history. And, you know, we’ve only touched like a tiny portion of a tiny portion of it here. I think, you know, we’ve still uncovered some cool stuff and I, and I hope that, you know, we’ve kind of been able to talk about

some things that make, um, seeing photos easier and more fun for, for you. Yeah. Cool. And, uh, just to, uh, close out this episode, Aiden has, uh, a little bit of a art related Facebook marketplace story. Oh my God, dude, this is so fucking annoying. I literally bought this easel

like seven years ago when I was doing drawing lessons. I didn’t expect this emotional response to my promise. I was doing a drawing lessons on King street and then, uh, it’s like seven years ago or something, something like that, or maybe five in that ballpark. I can’t be bothered to work it out, but in that range long enough to find out that it’s not the artwork, the art form for you.

Yeah. Yeah. It was cool. I’m like, whatever, but it was like at art on King. It probably wasn’t the best space. It was like technical drawing class. It was chill. I liked it. Um, but yeah, I, I found this like old easel, like in the back of my dad’s cupboard and I was like, I want to sell it. Like I’m sure it’s worth like 50 bucks. So I put it on marketplace for like a hundred bucks. I like

cleaned it up and took nice photos and like no one was biting. So I dropped it to 60. And since then I’ve had a lot of bites, but like every single bite has turned out to be like a seat, a snag of seaweed. So I literally saying this means about, let me just tell you like the fucking names I have,

like I sent you a picture today. So we have like, no, no fully identifying names, please. No, no, of course not. But we have like Janelle, India, Lucia, Louise, Katayun, Giuseppe, Mimi, Zoe. And in the screenshot, you can see that I’ve like responded to all of them and everyone gets to the same point. Everyone asks me, is it available? I say yes. And then they say, okay, where do you live?

And I say where I live. And then they either ghost me or, and I, there’s a couple of people who I think are probably quite old. After getting my location, they say, no, thanks. I’m like, bro, I don’t, I don’t need like a no or a no thanks. I don’t know how marketplace works, but that feels like they’re trying to like take a shot at me. But anyway, I think like I’m coming from a place of

like a bit of malice because I really just wanted the 60 bucks. And so my take is that it speaks to, you know, this endless desire to get into artistic hobbies, especially during lockdown, you know, it’s like, oh, I would love to be a painter or I would love to be a musician. And these things just

get, you know, quickly cast aside, just like it did for me, you know, I bought it with great aspirations and it sits and I guess it is what it is. I mean, it’s, it’s a little bit sad and I guess it’s, it’s, it’s nice. I think even the gesture, like even if you don’t end up buying the thing, I feel like it’s a, uh, still, I’m still like proud of them for having the thought that they

might want to paint. Cool. Yeah, that’s cool. That’s very charitable reading of you. Yep. Yes. Cool. Um, so thanks for that. Uh, thanks for your story that wraps up another episode of hung up. Uh, my name’s Matt. I made it. And that was really fun, man. Um, I’ll see you later.

You can check us out on Instagram at hung up.au and don’t forget to hit subscribe on whatever app you’re listening to this on so that you can hear the next episode.

Bye.

Bye.

Show notes

This week, we’re on about PHOTOGRAPHY. 📸 The TRUTH and LIES of the camera 🤫 The selective process 🧐How easy it is to use a camera 🤓 PHOTOGRAPHIC OVERABUNDANCE 🌾 And more tangential stuff 🤳 💐 Hung up Artist of the Week is @kaiwasikowski (Garden #1 2019 in third slide shown here) 💐 Please hit subscribe on your podcast app ✅ With Love, Matt and Aiden 💞