As photographic documentation becomes increasingly customary, the differences
between our photographs diminish. Common themes and symbols can be found
within modern photographs that highlight our values, interests, and what we
believe to be significant. I address these icons by subverting their meaning
through photographic representation. My photographs and their installations are
articulations of the public’s relationship with the photograph as an object.
Photography maintains an interesting distinction from other mediums as a
process very much engrained in a social ritual as well as utilitarian function.
Photographic elements and technologies are accessed by a multitude of users
from children to industry, including a diverse variety of artistic contexts. Because
our lives are so integrated with this image making technology, photographic
practice or photographic elements cannot exist in a separate space when
discussing societal analysis of visual information. The photograph will always
exist as a referent and model for visual code, and I use this to my advantage. By
positioning my photographs as objects (in framed or book form), they begin to
permeate into other areas of art practice.
I use my photographs as key frames in a visual recording of a fabricated action.
Viewing the images together allows the viewer to construct their own narrative
surrounding the fragments of the “event” I have provided. These moments, or
signifiers, can be rearranged in an endless chain of happenings or moments,
none more significant than the last. Although the viewer is given multiple points
of departure for beginning a narrative, there is neither a definite ending nor
beginning.
This inquiry leads to a series of concluding questions. One of which is asking
what makes the “reality”, as the viewer defines it, any more or less valid than the
“reality” that I present? The detail I provide demands consideration of some kind
regarding the “authentication” of the subject being photographed. Through this
contemplation, the viewer places himself or herself in my role while pondering the
possibilities of setting up the scene or how I would execute a particular aspect of
the photograph. As the viewer enters the role of the photographer, they enter
another reality: the actualization of the photograph. They are recreating and
composing subconsciously, allowing the binary distinction between realities
become circular and blurred. Jeff Wall, among others, has influenced my printing
size and this has developed into an alternate form of presentation.
I have arrived at a point in my work, where they lines have begun to blur between
the physical object and the object of the photograph. I am interested in the
possibilities that lie in this grey area between object and representation. Once we
begin to study, catalog, and name the object, the societal representation is
applied. I want to continue exploring how physical signifiers can be manipulated
to produce a photographic reality that relies heavily on the viewer’s attachment
and relationship with the signifiers. How will the photograph continue to operate
in its physical relationship to the viewer in our post-internet culture? I do not
believe the question can by answered with an argument establishing qualities of
synthesis, but instead, a re-definition of object and photograph.
To investigate this reinvention, I see my work progressively becoming more
interactive. With the book form I can make digital objects and spaces physical,
allowing the viewer to navigate instead of approach. I have become concerned
with how an installation can provide this experience and the tool that subversion
of our expectations is able to provide. By continuing with a photographic based
education and pursuit, I hope to continue to use our unique relationship with
photographic representation as a departure point for further discussion regarding
the value of depiction and relationship.

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