The Snapshots series continues, but it started with a shift from cutting and peeling 4 x 6 inch photographs to leave only singular objects that could be juxtaposed with other such cut-outs to create ‘plausable’ images collaged together.
Snapshots focuses on the compositional arrangements inherent in such images. There is a certain familiarity and universality to the images that speaks of the ritualistic marking of time, the restating of family ties, rites of passage and also the incidental capture of off-hand moments of the everyday.
Researching the photographic image Roland Barthes identifies 4 messages at work in photographs. So as I found myself separating the symbolic image from the denoted, as I removed the indexical trace from the photograph as I cut and peeled the surface away, the focus on cultural conventions comes to the fore. Snapshot 26 signifies objects that are part of celebration while the posed figures grouped together enforces that universal ritual. Snapshot 17 puts emphasis on the mundane as an off-hand moment is captured in a familiar un-posed composition. Snapshot 13 oddly enough perhaps reveals the incidental while all present in the group pose for the ritualistic recording of family, the foot insists on having some attention.
So the project is a sincere exploration yet also playful in approach. I have found some posed photographs by others of fashion shoots and the like, which I am currently working on, which set different conditions as a starting point. So it maybe that some consistent differences will arise from that. We shall see.
