The photographed self

and the self behind the camera

Dear Listener

Have you ever failed to recognize yourself in a photograph? I guess photographing yourself is common practice now so people are used to seeing themselves from all kinds of angles, but it wasn’t always so. The photograph above was taken twenty some years ago using a poloroid land camera held at an arms length. Before the print was fully processed it was peeled and stuck to a sheet of paper. The image transferred to the paper, imperfectly. I do recognize myself in that shot, I used to see him all the time. That guy used to spend hours in the bathroom, mostly in the dark printing photographs, processing film, a bit of an eccentric. He also spent much time wandering around capturing images and sounds, inhuman and human. Mostly inhuman though, on one occasion I was walking in a shopping mall downtown with a super eight camera. Trying time lapse with long exposure while moving through the crowd, filming faceless mannequins. At the end of a hall I come to a jewelry store. In the display are rings, diamond rings displayed on stepped tiers, held in slotted cushions set on blanket of black velvet. I see a pyramid of useless extravagance, stones of the nobility pushed on the workers as symbols of patriarchal possession. I raise my camera and zoom in to focus on the small stones. After a couple of trials I press the release bringing the camera’s motor to life and pan among the jewels. What an absurdity taken out of context, what should I edit before it? What after? I stop, lower the camera and a woman is standing next to me. She wears a jacket and tie and a tag identifying her as a manager. She explains that photographing the displays is not allowed. A hand is extended toward me with a demand that I surrender the tape from my camera. I explain that there’s no tape at all, it’s a small gauge film camera. In that case she demands that I turn over the film in the name of the security of the holy stones. I consider asking if the problem is because they’re blood diamonds but it wouldn’t help my case. Instead I talk about how expensive the film is and why I wouldn’t use it for that kind of recon photography. That would be ridiculous. Ridiculous, did you hear how much noise it makes? This is an experimental film, what I see is a symbol of meaningless extravagance, shallow opulence. The manager holds out her hand and mentions calling security. Maybe I should just run, I don’t want to deal with this situation for very long. I remove the film cartridge from my camera and holding it up assert that I am poor and film isn’t free, it’s almost twenty dollars. The manager delivers a sigh and says that if I bring a receipt tomorrow she will pay me for the film. I pass her the film and she walks away shaking her head.

That’s the guy in the self portrait at the top of this letter. He stumbles around, in a world of his own assuming no one notices his existence. Most of the time it works. I sacrificed little in that situation, I was used to loosing footage through hand processing and I worked at a camera store so film was cheap. Plus I did get my money back. The question I ask myself is what footage would I not relinquish so readily? Some singular chance event? Maybe. An injustice? A crime? Not a peasants crime or a Robin hood crime but a crime of King John. However, photographers risk death for evidence of such crimes, three hundred some have been killed in the last two years alone.

Those are some of the cameras I’ve collected. All of the shutters are mechanically timed except for the AE-1 which is electronic. I’ve had the opportunity to use a pile of different old cameras because I used to work in the camera store mentioned above. The place had been in operation for more than fifty years selling new and used equipment and darkroom supplies. There was an attic containing all kinds of old stuff, 16mm movies, curiosities and some steel guitars. I would deal with pro’s shooting food, snowboarders or weddings, tourists or students with ideas. I worked there for nearly ten years despite the fact that I’m not the chatty sales type. I liked film and darkroom and for the rest I learned stories about new equipment, regurgitating them as needed. Saturday’s were crazy busy, one customer to the next, I regurgitated non stop and before I knew it was heading home. One Saturday there, I was shown images of myself that I did not recognize. The store was full of clientele with the five sales staff, including myself, tending to their needs. Most of the crowd is gathered at the end of the store, farthest from the door. I’m just finishing with someone when a long haired man strides up to the counter. Pointing across the floor he says that the guy over there is putting cameras in his bag. I come out from behind the counter and approach the guy in question who’s fiddling with a bag on the counter opposite. “Excuse me” I call in my sales tone. My words set the man in motion. He grabs the bag and runs out the door. Without hesitation I give chase. I emerge running onto the sidewalk outside. My quarry is already pushing his way down the bock. I hurry after while stepping around pedestrians. The street is downtown with loads of foot traffic. I see my quarry ahead, trying to find room to run. He turns around and seeing my position he decides to run off the sidewalk into traffic. I follow. We zig zag our way between bumpers and hoods of the slow moving cars. There are less people on the other side of the street and the sidewalk is bigger. As soon as my quarry is through the traffic he breaks into a full run and I do likewise. The ground between us begins to close. I could catch him but if I do then what? Tackle him to the ground? I slow my pace a bit. Letting him get away at this point might be the best thing to do. I tried but he was just to quick for me. As these thoughts pass the guy ahead turns around and, looking at me, sets the bag down. Jogging backwards he raises both arms before turning and running off. Picking up the bag I inspect the contents. Looks like he got his mitts on some outdated digital SLRs that would be more profitable as insurance claims. Nice work Dave. Back at the shop I watch security footage of the incident. In CCTV black and white I watch the man filling his bag, running when I approach and myself tearing after. Gone in two frames. My coworkers shake their heads at my bold and foolish act. I don’t recognize myself in those frames. I can’t see myself, I see a dog, a dog chasing an intruder.

Those are some of the other cameras I’ve collected, the moving picture ones, including the Bauer super eight I was using at the mall in the first story. One of those cameras came from the store I chased that guy out of. I have no ill will toward the fellow, I think that scenario ended the best way it could. I got a chance to not recognize myself and see how quickly I can reduce situations to binaries: sales person/customer, merchant/thief, pursuer/quarry, right/wrong. Of course the situation contains much more but the labels and simplification are attractive to my socialized mind. That’s what I saw in those video frames of myself, that’s what I saw in the bag of obsolete cameras left by my quarry. Those cameras were once new technology then old technology, display merchandise then stolen merchandise. In a short space of time anything can be many different things, in a longer space of time it can be even more. This kind of thinking leads to the idea that nothing is static, that everything and everyone is a constant process progressing at different rates.. I’ve experienced this in my photographic practice. Collecting images of common things like laundry, garages and chairs has helped me appreciate how everything has it’s own story, it’s own life. I was recently introduced to philosophic process ontology and the idea that all existence is process, that it could be thought of as being alive beyond just metaphor. Even a white plastic lawn chair laying face down in an alley is moving at an atomic level, changing through exposure, deterioration, cracking and the application of cigarette lighters. Anything that I train my camera on I see only in that moment everything else must be gleaned and imagined using appearances and environments. A chair can appear playful or depressed, laundry can be joyous or mournful. In this way I’ve found myself feeling empathy with my inhuman subjects, recognizing myself in them.

That was some of my chair collection filmed using some of the camera collection seen above that. I like collecting I guess. It’s certainly helped me to perceive my inhuman subjects in a way that I can feel a sense of connection with them. Human subjects are more complex. Human subjects have eyes that might look back at you. I’ve attempted to connect with human subjects using similar methods as their inhuman counterparts. Filming them in similar, common situations, mechanical tasks. Framing the subjects as to avoid their eyes, reveal only parts of bodies, to conceal their humanity and make contact on an ontological level. The goal was to achieve the same kind of connection with humans as I had with discarded furniture. To see us both as part of the same fabric as the environment we inhabit. I believe I’ve reached such a connection but I am still editing the footage. Below are some clips of humans set to electronic improv, watch and see what happens.

It’s actually sort of creepy isn’t it? Severed body parts and all that. I am fond of creepy stuff so that works. Although when I picture myself filming the events depicted I feel that I am simply a creepy person, the film is only proof of that. Luckily nobody can be recognized except maybe the filmmaker for his creepy style. It’s the same style as the self portrait at the beginning of this letter and the same style as the one at the end. I don’t recognize myself in the image at the end of this letter. I remember making it at my moms work when I was around twenty. There was an unattended photocopier sitting around so I took the opportunity to mash my face against the glass and hit the copy button. The result is a face that doesn’t really look like me even when I was twenty.

The fish is a talisman on a necklace that was a gift from my girlfriend. I broke it some how. I might still have that photocopy somewhere, I dragged it around for a long time. Years later I found it among my things while unpacking and stuck it on the refrigerator. My upstairs neighbor saw it one day and asked if it was Jimi Hendrix.

Ever yours

D. Markayshun