EYE WITNESS # 5-7 ~ the truth and the memory

I saw sunlight striking a flower and vase

I saw a halloween napkin

I saw a hotel garden

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry part of the concept, re: (I)eye witness, was to address the role of photography in creating visual documents which afix a precise truth as an adjunct to frail human memories. Which begs the question, should the genesis of the "memory" as pictured be part of the visual?

Hence today's pictures which include - all of a piece - a section of one of the original pictures used to make the (I)eye witness picture. iMo (at least as it stands here and now), is that there needs to be a visual reference to the camera's capability of recording the "truth.

eye witness # 1-4 ~ concept is not everything

2 Polaroids created for advertising and editorial clients

While it is certainly accurate to write that I am a fervant advocate and practitioner of straight picture making, it is also true that, over the course of my commercial career, I made my share of manipulated-process pictures (for editorial and commercial clients), mostly frequently manipulated polaroids. And, I thoroughly enjoyed doing so. Dare I write that it was fun.

That written, I am currently having a bit of fun - without feeling a sense of betrayal to my straight picture making sensibilities - making multi-layered constructs using 3 pictures of the same referent made from different POVs. That written, heaven protect me from the academic lunatic fringe, in as much as these pictures are concept driven.

The title of this series is (i)eye witness. The driving concept is, in short and subject to expansion, the imprecision of human memory, the often differing accounts given by eye witnesses and the role of photography in creating visual documents which afix a precise truth as an adjunct to frail human memories. Blah, blah-blah, blah and more blah.

However, where I hope to separate my work from the ALF concept-is-everything crowd is with the pictures themselves. Pictures which are interesting and pleasing to view. Pictures which can stand on their own visual merits without their conceptual framework made excruciatingly obvious or even necessary to figuring out what the hell the pictures are about.