The project started with the idea of photographing what I could not see.  Usually the process of photographing comprises a series of steps in which the photographer first contemplates that which he wants to photograph with the purpose of creating a “good” image.

When I started the project I was in a fight with myself about why I should photograph things that were there to be seen, why not simply take them in and use my own memory instead of having to record everything with the camera.  The act of photographing had lost all importance at the moment and had even become banal and idiotic.  The camera was obstructing my eyes and impeding me to see the city and the turn my life had taken when I moved to London.

So I decided to photograph what I could not see, and remember what was really important.

This completely new process took over.  The act of photographing what I could not see but the camera could, brought with it ideas of its own.  The simple process of reviewing the images of things I never saw made me question reality, society and individual existence.

There was no trial and error (for there could be no error in this type of photographing act).  After the images were reviewed there was a careful act of selection, subjective act of selection, and an unconscious act.  Something (more than that of subject and composition) united these photos.

 It was striking to find a similarity in all of the images.  They all had something in common.  They were forgotten realities, or better said, latent realities for they had never been perceived.  Even so they seemed familiar.

The camera gives us the possibility to experience an infinite number of times, things that are otherwise not visible to us.  Either through long exposures or a flash, it aids our eyes and expands our world.  The world is real only to us as individuals, it exists only through our senses.  We have an individual view of reality.  A personal reality.

The camera makes the individual reality everybody’s reality, for as long as we posses a physical imprint of light (through a light sensitive emulsion or a electronic sensor). 

 

In this project I explore no ones reality.

 

No ones reality because the camera photographs latent realities which have not been previously perceived, or granted a moment of contemplation to sink into ones memory.  Therefore, they do not exist until they have been photographed.

My experience with them is no different that your experience with them.  I have only seen them as images on screen and paper.

Duane Michaels wrote:  “To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.”

When I photograph nothing, reality is revealed.  A disturbing revelation, for everything is real, but so is nothing.  Familiar images which seem to be hidden in our psyche.