LIGHT PAINTED STILL LIFE
These images explore the nature of ‘things’ - ordinary, everyday ‘things’ which effortlesly drift in and out of our everyday lives. I use a single, pocket-sized pen torch as my only light source and have been developing my light painting technique by photographing a variety of materials and contemporary subject matter for the last 6 years.
Sometimes I am drawn to traditional still life subjects like food or the natural world. At other times I photograph my childrens’ toys or garments which reveal themselves unexpectedly around the house, garden, or shed. I cast these subjects in an unusually revealing light that shows their construction or surface properties in a completely unique way, to emphasise their internal architectures or surface characteristics. I try to convey a direct simplicity or hyper-reality which is accessible and immediate, and carries with it the same clarity and communicative power as the visual traditions of Advertising, or the sensual best of Irving Penn.
More recently, I find myself drawn to photographing packaging and paper-based materials, plastics, containers, spillages, and “waste” in many forms. I like to use light to challenge our notions of the glorified and the mundane and sometimes I’ll emphasise the physical, unexplored remains of a products’ presentation and transportation, or the discarded traces of once-precious things, to reveal a hidden quality not visible in ordinary light. By creating shadows where the eye knows none should exist, or by carefully lighting an area where the eye would expect to find shadow, I can create extra dimensionality and expression from the most unpromising subject matter. I find a great beauty and fascination in the disused and discarded, where tiny details such as a crease, or a tear, or a remnant of adhesive tape hint at a kind of “tangible memory” of what was once there but is now gone - “in absentia”, with only traces remaining.
I am far more interested in the detritus and spillage of our materialistic lives (left behind once an object has been consumed or put to its intended use) than with the object or product itself which creates this ‘waste’. I enjoy the sense of frustration and unease achieved by isolating these by-products to confront our dual impulses of consumer guilt and consumer desire - to leave an uncomfortable itch that needs scratching - from looking and seeing, then visually wanting “something more” to reveal itself and astonish us, something ultimately which just isn’t really there.
This conflict between guilt and desire echoes a vacuum in our increasingly faithless lives. But more positively perhaps, I feel compelled to reclaim some of the ground stolen by the capitalist and materialistic ideals which spawn and disperse much of this ‘stuff’ into our already over-stuffed world. In doing so, I raise the status of my subjects and challenge the viewer to accept and observe this ‘waste’ in a new light, or to explore the mystery and uniqueness of its properties, what it contained or was attached to, to ask questions of its history and ownership, and to make comparisons between mass-produced packaging, and the incredible uniqueness, and individuality of found or used material.
Traditionally, still life photographers have borrowed subject matter from a very narrow gamut of choice. I choose the subjects I photograph simply because they feature more prominently in my life than exotic shells, orchids, or bunches of grapes in platinum bowls. The work within this gallery is really just a beginning. I’ll be extending my lightpainting exploration further by looking at bodyscapes, portraiture, and still photographys’ love affair with movement and motion. I hope you enjoy this gallery of images, and your comments and feedback will always be welcome.