Archives

Archives in photography is a collection of historic images that people have taken in the past. This could be as old as Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes in the 1800’s or as recent as family portraits taken last week. The use of archival photography is meant to re-purpose an image or to find a new life for it. This can be through creating series of images, photomontages or creating diptychs etc. A photographer may look into an archive of a specific area of photography if they are working on a specific project that focuses on something such as passport photos, customs photos or even old family portraits. These can all be applied and re-visited by artists to create more images or outcomes with new meanings, bringing the old world into the new, modern world. Overall, archives can be a useful way of presenting a range of photography from different eras in a way that blends them together.

Taryn Simon is an American multi-medium artist who has worked within photography, text, sculpture and performances based works. Her work titled ‘contraband’ is ‘an archive of global desires and perceived threats’. It contains 1075 images of items that were detained from airline passengers and postal mail entering the United States of America from abroad. The images were taken at both the U.S. customs and Border Protection Federal Inspection Site as well as the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. She continuously photographed items that had been seized from passengers and express mail to create this archive. Overall, I think this collection of images is very interesting as it shows the items that people try to sneak into the country and also shows how good the security is and how strict the airline customs is. Some of the images seem so out of the ordinary that it is hard to believe that someone would try to bring it into the United States.

One of these images that makes no sense is the image in the centre, of what appears to be a dead bird tied to an envelope. This image creates a lot of questions for the audience such as ‘why would anyone want to take a dead bird with them?’, ‘who even thought this was a good idea?’ and ‘why?’. In a weird way, this image is quite humorous as, from the outside, it shows how weird some people are and it makes it easy for the audience to point and laugh at them. The technicalities of the image are nothing crazy, it features a wide depth of field with the whole thing in focus. It is clearly lit from above the camera somewhere as we can see subtle shadows forming just behind the subject. Overall, I think this image has a story to tell and I really like it because it makes no sense.

Zoe Leonard is an American artist who most frequently works within photography and sculpture. Many members of her maternal line were killed during the second world war despite not being Jewish as they were persecuted by the Nazis for their opposition to Nazism and their Polish nationalism. As a teenager, she attended the City-As-School High School in Manhattan but dropped out at the age of sixteen to begin taking photographs using her mother’s camera. Her work titled ‘The Fae Richards Photo Archive’ puts together eighty-two photographs that document the life of a person that does not exist. I find this very interesting as she has created some very intriguing images that feel like we are really watching someone grow and live their life but when we actually look at it, the woman does not even exist. Overall, I think this archive is very unusual and interesting as the concept of it is something I have never seen before within photography.

The image on the far left features the character ‘Fae Richards’ that Zoe Leonard created in collaboration with filmmaker Cheryl Dunye. She is a black lesbian actress and blues singer and I feel like this image where she is blending into the shadows matches the stereotypical imagery of blues musicians. The use of the cigarette as a prop also helps to locate her in a time period. The lighting in this image is very moody as it is very low-key. She is lit from a soft light from above which casts shadows on the rest of her body, just leaving her face perfectly illuminated. With the subject being in the centre of the frame, our eyes drift towards her as we have nothing else really to focus on. This creates a very sombre image that feels lonely and isolated. Overall, I really like this image in particular out of the archive but the collection as a whole is very interesting.

My Archive video features my favourite images from both of my portrait photoshoots. The subject within these images is myself so I record a voice-over where I reflect on my choices when conducting these photoshoots and how well I feel I have done with these photoshoots. I did not know what to talk about initially so I had to re-record a lot of the lines as I stopped to think about what to say next too often. However, I cut these breaks out and recorded some more lines, giving me about 1 minute and 15 seconds of dialogue where I talk about my thought processes. Overall, I am happy with how this video turned out as I think I discuss my thoughts quite well and get my point across easily but I don’t like hearing my voice on video so it will be a challenge watching this back.