When we first knew that our project would be about the theme of ‘Disposability’ we wanted to see what inspiration we could take from other photographers which would help inspire our projects. Therefore it was only upon Benedikt Partenheimer’s work that I first had the idea to display our exhibition on a rooftop. Partenheimer uses his images to express the ultimate feeling of perspective on a landscape or event. The distance of which he takes his photographs helps to emphasize the feeling he wants you to draw from the event, in a similar feeling to what we want to achieve by hosting our exhibition on a rooftop. It was in his projects ‘Particulate Matter’ and ‘Expiration’ which were real inspirations to me. Expiration explores the abandoned, the destroyed and the discarded objects of abandoned houses or locations and I felt these resonated completely with our project. This was what inspired me to get the core sources for my work from the waste site where people had left perfectly usable items but simply discarded them for a more ‘modern’ upgrade.
I found that in his later work from the ‘Particulate Matter’ project where he would take images of polluted areas of the environment and manipulate perspective to his own advantage, was also quite an inspiration. It was the way he used the fog and the natural air to create the impact of the images, with the environment below simple acting as a tool to highlight the real meaning of the photograph which was the pollution. I was, therefore, hoping that by hosting the exhibition on a space that was isolated and almost disconnected from society it would not only act as a way that the audience could easily disconnect themselves with the outside world and focus souly on that which was in front of them but also the distance and height would compliment each other in a way that Partenheimer’s work has.
Stephen Gill
Another artist we researched was Stephen Gill. He has previously stated that “In the late ‘90s and early 2000s the idea of quality and technique became so important” with conversations about photography revolving around technicalities such as megapixels. This drove him to challenge these ideals and thus use very unconventional techniques in his photography. Because of this, Gill seemed like a good artist to research as the ideas behind our own exhibition were driven by a desire to create something unorthodox. As well as this, photo quality and the relevant terminology where very far removed in our exhibition as we used disposable cameras.
One of Gill’s most notable projects titled “Buried” involved burying multiple images in Hackney, where they had also been taken. The results of this piece varied as each image had a different aberration from its time in the damp soil. For me, this was much more interesting to look at than technically perfect images as these deteriorating visuals seemed to come to life. On the topic of this project, Gill noted that “Not knowing what an image would look like once it was dug up introduced an element of chance and surprise which I found appealing.” Gill also discussed that this project evoked a sense of “letting go and collaborating with the place”. This rings true as the pictures certainly were shaped by the location they were taken. Furthermore, the concept of not knowing how a photograph will turn out is something that attracted the group to disposable cameras. This method prevents the photographer from spending hours on a subject trying to get it perfect, perhaps avoiding the sense of “sterility” that Gill often refers to in modern photography.
