We're about to move into a house we've built that includes a walkout basement studio, and we're excited (and somewhat terrified) to get to work on some serious documentation. Up until this point we just haven't had a space to do that, and it's been holding us back. Our challenge is, photography doesn't lend itself very well to documentation – showing someone looking through a camera is pretty boring. So it's the 'everything else' that we need to show, with the emphasis on low friction. Wish us luck!
Hi Tom - Both myself and my partner Gayla took photographs as one of our primary art forms for many years so I definitely know how that goes. With photography, there are of course some built in documents depending on whether you are working with film or digital and then whether you print or make books. But like you suggest documentation of the making of a photo is scarce especially if you take images in a more intuitive fashion where it’s just a sight line, play of light, or visual association that you come across in the moment.
We're exclusively digital, but printing is a large part of what we do so there's potential there, and zines are probably in our future too. But yes, I'd classify most of our work as being intuitive, so not easy to put across to others. I envy anyone working in 2D who can make artful timelapses showing their process! We're going to have to get creative with other ways to allow viewers into our studio, which is a challenge I'm up for.
And what you seem to already be doing works as both an extension of the work you are doing and as a form of documentation. When I was primarily working in photography, I kind of went roll by roll, image by image on my photoblog and on Flickr. The posting became the archive and the timeline for that work. But then I took it all down or let it decay in the way untended digital work can — the hard thing about the ephemeral nature of digital archives.
Oh god, my side isn’t even purposeful right now. Just a solid mess.
We're about to move into a house we've built that includes a walkout basement studio, and we're excited (and somewhat terrified) to get to work on some serious documentation. Up until this point we just haven't had a space to do that, and it's been holding us back. Our challenge is, photography doesn't lend itself very well to documentation – showing someone looking through a camera is pretty boring. So it's the 'everything else' that we need to show, with the emphasis on low friction. Wish us luck!
Hi Tom - Both myself and my partner Gayla took photographs as one of our primary art forms for many years so I definitely know how that goes. With photography, there are of course some built in documents depending on whether you are working with film or digital and then whether you print or make books. But like you suggest documentation of the making of a photo is scarce especially if you take images in a more intuitive fashion where it’s just a sight line, play of light, or visual association that you come across in the moment.
We're exclusively digital, but printing is a large part of what we do so there's potential there, and zines are probably in our future too. But yes, I'd classify most of our work as being intuitive, so not easy to put across to others. I envy anyone working in 2D who can make artful timelapses showing their process! We're going to have to get creative with other ways to allow viewers into our studio, which is a challenge I'm up for.
And what you seem to already be doing works as both an extension of the work you are doing and as a form of documentation. When I was primarily working in photography, I kind of went roll by roll, image by image on my photoblog and on Flickr. The posting became the archive and the timeline for that work. But then I took it all down or let it decay in the way untended digital work can — the hard thing about the ephemeral nature of digital archives.
Yes I know that feeling well, untended digital decay. I've been wanting to reboot our Flickr soon and deal with some of that.