Seeing is Believing - Part 1
This is the title of a current show at the Photographers' Gallery in London, which I visited yesterday. I was more interested in the contemporary work in this exhibition than in the worthy archive of "psychic investigation" pictures, which wasn't really very well presented. It was interesting to compare the amateurish fakery of these pictures (ghostly shapes and floating tables) with the conscious manipulation of photographic technique to create "paranormal" effects in the modern pictures.
I particularly liked the work of Fred Ressler, who takes pictures of shadows falling on the walls of his house that show ghostly blurred faces, like this one, which apparently has an uncanny resemblance to a friend of the artist. I don't quite go along with his views on these images:
I see these images as projections from my unconscious corroborated by having them projected to me. I started seeing these photos as something beyond what any artist could do. The way the background complimented [sic] the foreground to form a unity with a group mind..... These beings are not under control as in art. They are not bound to function as in nature.
Really? Another one, called "Dylan", I and another visitor both thought could actually be an image of the great Bob, so perhaps there's something to it. Anyway, the pictures are very impressive. If the artist's ideas give him a rationale for making excellent images, who am I to argue?
2 comments:
Glad you "especially liked" the photographs of images I was fortunate enough to see, beyond space,time,philosophy, and man made art. I feel fortunate that others can see what I see.
fred ressler
Hello, Fred, good to hear from you. I did think your pictures stood out, as direct expressions of photography's ability to capture what is otherwise unseen, rather than the degree of conscious commentary in some of the other works on show.
I'm very interested in how you go about taking these pictures - do you see the image before you take it, or do you just take it, like a sort of "automatic writing"?
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