Chris Byrnes. Pinhole film negative printed and decayed through traditional analogue processes, echoing the decay of a human life.
According to John Baldessari… one of the worst things to happen to photography is that cameras have viewfinders.
This statement is one of many that underpin my photographic research of the medium of photography. The employment of low-technology equipment and processes create a primitive photographic experience that is current and real for both the producer and the viewer. With this intent, my methods of practice are predominantly pinhole, plastic lens, cameraless and alternative historical photographic processes.
Taking a research position that the photograph has the lifespan of a human, this series explores the ‘loss’ of analogue photography while simultaneously experiencing the ‘loss’ of a human being, my mother Eleanor. After an earlier realisation that I did not possess lots of my own photographs of her, this series became the ‘Portrait without a Face”, when photographs are not taken or are lost or destroyed over time.
Using a timber pinhole camera and both 4×5 sheet film and photographic paper as negative, the works construct a photographic passage of time, space and light. Removing, transposing and marking-out my experience as I further take the position that there can be one truth or indeed many truths within our world. My personal resolve is that the only reliable truth in photography is the truth of my human experience in its making. This reflects aspects of such a human experience.
I have been working in experimental photography since 2000, mostly in pinhole, cyanotype, photograms, lumens and experimental, utilising out of date papers and chemistry. I play with the notion of the accident or glitch within each handmade work. I completed a Master Fine Art in Photography in 2017 and have exhibited nationally and internationally.
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