FEATURED: Yes and Yes Birthday Giveaway!

I’ve been a fan of Yes and Yes run by the lovely Sarah Von for ages now and when I read her posts asking for submisson for a big (and I mean BIG) birthday giveaway, I knew I wanted to be involved.

To that end I have offered a 15×10″ print of any photograph from the Flickr account for the project.

To enter for a change to win this (and a ton of other really gorgeous prizes) head on over to Yes and Yes now!

In the Works

I thought it might be a good idea to give you a sneak peek at what’s in the pipeline for The Forgotten Negatives Project. These are my promises to you!

> More film! I have 2 developed and scanned films ready to show you as well as another 5 processed films that I need to scan and approximately 14 more that are waiting to be developed. So there is plenty of photographic material to come!

> More regular posting. Now I have finished uni I have more time to devote to this website and I pledge right now to post much much more regularly from now on! I’d also like to add new features such as…

> A print store. I’m still thinking about how I’d like to do this but it’s certainly somewhere I want to take this project. (It’s never been my aim to make money from this, but I’d love to be able to cover the costs of having film processed. I also desperately need my own film scanner.)

> A regular ‘links round-up’ feature. I know a lot of blogs have these (such as Nubby Twiglet’s Link Love ) and they’re some of my favourite posts when they’re done well. I was thinking about making it a weekly feature, possibly on a Monday. I’d like to get some feedback on the idea because they would inevitably not all be photography links.

Any comments on what I’ve mentioned above are welcomed and encouraged!

Technical Issues.

I seem to be having some problem with my Flickr account whereby my images aren’t showing up on these pages. The best part of which is that I can see them fine so I’m relying on other people to tell me where things have gone wrong (bravo Flickr). Please hold tight, I’m working on getting my photos back up. If anyone has any suggestions on what is going wrong they would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

12 out of 240

It cannot go without mentioning that I’ve neglected my posting duties lately. It has been the last 2 weeks of my degree and I had a family bereavement and everything was just kind of crazy for a while. I handed in my last final pieces of work this week though so I now have all the time in the world to devote to this project.


I started collecting these films for one of my two final projects for my photography degree, which meant that I needed to produce some kind of final outcome, regardless of the fact that I’ll be carrying this on long after I graduate. To keep things simple(ish), I drew the line at the first 10 films, which was still 240 photographs. Which I needed to pull a final 12 images from.

I first broke it down into categories according to the most obvious themes that I could see when I looked at the images en masse. The categories I ended up with were: Human Presence (physical), Human Presence (lack of), Human Presence (suggested), Holiday, Celebration and Candid. There was obviously a lot of overlap between the groups but that was fine.

The category that I was most drawn to was Human Presence (lack of). I had noticed a while ago that there were certain photos that looked like they should have people in, as if they’d just gotten up and left, or were about to walk into the frame. The setting seemed ready, as if it were waiting for them to arrive. It seemed odd to me that people would take these kind of photographs. The presence of other people is usually a key ingredient in this kind of photo so these images suggest a kind of loneliness. It gives the impression that the photographer is entirely alone. If they had a companion, wouldn’t they have asked him/her to step into the frame?

With this in mind I selected the images that portrayed that feeling. There were 16 that fit the criteria and from those I chose my final 12, which were these:

I’d love to hear what you think about my selection process and the images I chose as my final 12. Like I said, this is by no means the end of the project, I have 2 fantastic black and white films ready to go in the next couple of days!

Artist Inspiration: Nan Goldin

One of the first artists that comes to mind when I look at the photographs I have gathered so far is Nan Goldin, in particular, ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’. The photographs that comprise the book were taken between 1979 and 1986 and are a visual diary of her life in the East Village in New York City. Goldin herself describes the book as a public diary, she also talks about how her camera is an extension of herself and the photographs she takes are taken without interpretation or calculation:


“If it were possible, I’d want no mechanism between me and the moment of photographing. The camera is as much a part of everyday life as talking or eating or sex. The instant of photographing, instead of creating distance, is a moment of clarity and emotional connection for me.”

Nan after being battered, 1984

In large part, the book chronicles her relationship with her partner at the time, Brian. Goldin describes the relationship as being intense and consuming but she felt dissatisfaction with their dependency on one another and it’s claustrophobic nature. She wrote about her feelings in her diaries and when Brian found and read them, he beat her severely, almost leaving her blind.

Cookie and Vittorio’s wedding, New York City, 1986

The photographs also document her friends. Much of the subject matter is dark, such drug abuse and violence but many many more show them spending time together, having fun. To me, the most significant aspect of these photographs are the interpersonal relationships they depict. Almost every photograph features people, in one form or another and it is easy to read into their relationship from the moments she captures. Each photograph has a brief caption below it, which adds to the impression of this being her version of a family album. The photographs aren’t making a statement about lifestyle, relationships, or anything else. They are purely a visual diary, they function as a reminder.

Kenny in his room, New York City, 1979

Obviously the subject matter of this book is a lot darker than the material I have been receiving. But the aesthetic qualities are similar as well as Goldin’s desire to chronicle life through photography. I get the same feeling from looking at her work as I get from the photographs I’ve received for this project, the feeling of being an outsider looking in, and trying to decipher what the image is showing me and how it relates to the photographs around it. The voyeuristic aspect is always prevalent in these types of photographs (voyeurism by the way, not necessarily having a sexual aspect, but simply meaning the ‘pleasure of looking’).

If you would like to read more about Nan Goldin, I recommend this article from the Guardian

Film #010

We’re in double figures now! I received this film last month and got the film back yesterday. It’s a real mixed bag of photographs, moreso than any other film I’ve received so far. It ranges from a karate competition to a holiday in Spain to a band practice, and others beside. Here are my picks:



I love this photograph for many reasons. Obviously it’s a very aesthetically pleasing photograph. The colours are beautiful and vivid and the composition is attractive. It looks to me like a 1980s postcard advertising an exotic holiday destination. These are the types of image that photographer trying to emulate the ‘snapshot aesthetic’ are striving to produce but it’s incredibly difficult to fake these kinds of effects, at least without using digital manipulation. It delights me that something that people go to great lengths to imitate is produced accidentally by amateur photographers. One of my favourite things about this project is that I’m building such a rich archive of this type of photograph.

This is a photograph from the karate competition documented on this film. The rest of them are fairly standard shots of the competition (that’s not to say they lack interest, far from it) but this one looks like some kind of dance routine involving tigers, which is fairly amusing in itself, not least because all of the dancers seem to be doing something completely different. All of the photographs of the competition are really really grainy, much more so than the rest of the film. I understand that it was shot indoors but I wouldn’t have thought that would have produced that much extra grain, especially when there are other images shot indoors at the end of the film that aren’t this grainy.

This photograph is indicative that the karate competition took place in Spain (the sign in the background of this image confirms that they were in Valencia). To have traveled to Spain to partake in the competition would suggest that the competitor was particularly skilled, and would probably be interested to see these photographs, if it’s not the photographer him/herself. I often find myself wondering why a film was never developed by it’s original owner when the images on it are so interesting and frequently very personal.



This photograph and another one of the same dog don’t seem to fit with anything else on the film. I get the impression that the camera that this film was in was passed from person to person, making it’s way to Spain and back at some point, because there seems to be very little in common between many of the images on it. Alongside the photographs of the band practice, these photographs look like an attempt to finish up a film so it can be developed to get hold of the earlier images on it, which I think everyone has done at some point.


One of my favourite aspects of this film is that you can read a lot more into it when you look at the small details. For instance, a bit of Googling revealed that the holiday snapshots were taken in Valencia, in Spain. And the karate photographs being interspersed with those indicates that it took place in Spain.

To view the full film, check out the set on Flickr

Become a Facebook Fan!

Just a note to say that I’ve started a page for the project on Facebook, I’d be delighted if you would become a ‘fan’:

The Forgotten Negatives Project on Facebook