These weeks I wanted to explore the limits between methodical chance and a mechanistic approach where chance would no longer exist. I thought this was interesting as the beholder may potentially struggle to differentiate whether chance is taking place or not just by looking at the images without having additional knowledge of the process. Hence, the ambition for these weeks was to produce some images in which the limits between methodical chance and mechanical would be addressed.
Week 29
In this week, I wanted to explore the limits between methodical and mechanical by trying to replicate the shape of a droplet inside a bubble and without a bubble. This is quite technically challenging as the shape of the droplet is indeed affecting by having the bubble burst. However, this was the best possible approach to show that even a chance process can turn mechanical with several trials. Following Nickerson (2004) even if the outcome is not frequent there is a point in which the practitioner can end up making quite accurate predictions (i.e., chance irregularity).
As seen in the contact sheet, I worked again with multiple layers of light to decontextualise the liquid. Although initially I considered working with multiple bubbles I realised that it was hard to achieve a specific droplet pattern that could be replicated without the bubbles so I soon dropped this idea and just focus on a single bubble with the splash. Although the two splashes are not completely identical they are quite similar. As outlined before, it is physically impossible they can be identical considering that the bubble needs to burst to achieve a similar pattern which in itself can affect the shape of the splash. Despite this, I thought the two outcomes worked well to exemplify when chance can turn mechanical if the practitioner can predict all the possible variables that may play a role on them:
References
Nickerson, R. S. (2004). The production and perception of randomness. Psychological Review, 109(2), 330–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.109.2.330
Week 30
Last year I worked more on portraits but this year the focus has been mainly on still life images. This is due to the complexity of the materials used. I felt that I needed to master them first before I could potentially incorporate them into a portrait. Following my aim of showing how chance can turn mechanical once the process has been mastered I decided to incorporate a droplet into a potential portrait. I wanted to achieve something similar to a Cubist portrait in which different elements might be distorted or not potentially visible. By incorporating the droplet into a portrait I could show how the process is mastered and how methodical chance has turned into mechanical. This was evident for example in Edgerton’s images in which he captured photographs of phenomena that a priori could be seen as chance but that he managed to master completely by multiple repetition (Elkins, 2004).
Working on the portrait was not easy as I was completely on my own and had to trigger the camera, the pump for the droplet, the flash and be the model. Working with another person has made the process easier. Despite this, I managed to achieve a good outcome similar to what I had in mind. I tried different poses and lighting to see what could work best and chose the image in which the droplet was fully visible but integrated as well on my face.
Althought the image turned out well, I thought this was a good experiment to further refine in other trials as I thought it was subject to improvement. For example, the black side of the face would benefit from having other elements that would help to compensate the final composition of the image. Hence, this might be a potential idea to consider in the final project.
References
Elkins, J. (2004). Harold’s Edgerton’s Rapatronic photographs of atomic tests. History of Photography, 28(1), 74-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2004.10441290
Week 31
Continuing focusing on the mechanical view, I wanted to address from a more representational point of view by playing with the idea of repetition. To that aim, I used multiple mirrors with a twofold aim: 1) helping to decontextualise the droplets and 2) achieving a repetitive pattern. For this shoot, I got inspiration from Robert Sulkin. Sulkin’s work is characterised by complex staged still life images with surreal aesthetics (the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, 2020). The image I mainly got inspiration from relies on mirrors to show different planes of the same object:
Although I did not want to display different sides of the same object, I thought that using multiple mirrors as in the image above could lead to interesting results.
To produce the image I used three mirrors of different sizes so that it could replicate the same pattern but with different sizes. I discarded those images in which the droplet was not clear or produce a splash as this is not what I was after. I realise that even though I try to approach it from a quite mechanical point of view, there was some accidental chance as well as one of the droplets fell precisely in the intersection between the mirror and the surface.
This image tends to approach the concept of mechanical chance from a more representational point of view. I thought the image was fine but I thought that it could potentially be subject to improvement by working with more stable mirrors as the small mirrors were prone to bend. Also, placing the mirrors in different angles could have provided potentially different perspective which had created more interesting effects.
References
The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum (2020). Robert Sulkin Photographs (1973-2019). Hollins University.
Week 32
In this week, I wanted to continue what I started exploring in the previous week by focusing on mechanisation from a more representational point of view. I played once again with lighting and a mirror to decontextualise the liquid. However, unlike the previous week, I wanted to explore the idea of displaying the droplet from different perspectives. Photographing different perspectives is not new and has been previously done by Barbara Probst (Sherman, 2016). However, unlike Probst, I am not intersted in showing different perspectives in different images but in the same image.
Images were discarded because the splash was not clear or because the shadow cast pattern created by the splash projection did not produce an interesting result.
The final image achieved a very surreal outlook. Interestingly, surrealism and chance have been intrinsically related since surrealism embrace chance to access the unconscious (Susik, 2016).
References
Sherman, K. L. (2016). The Manipulation of Perception: Barbara Probst’s Exposure# 106. The Journal of Undergraduate Research at Ohio State, 6.
Susik, A. (2016). Chance and automatism. In D. Hopkins (Eds.), A companion to Dada and Surrealism (pp. 242-256). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118476215.ch14
Week 33
In this week, I wanted to continue exploring the limits between methodical chance and a mechanical approach but creating a more staged still life. I felt the previous images were acceptable but they did not look “clean” and “crisp” as other images that I had generated during the year. Hence, I went back to the use of geometrical shapes and added a wasp to the composition to add ambiguity. The beholder could wonder whether this was accidental bringing again ambiguity in regards to the chance itself. Aesthetically, I took inspiration once more from Nathan Lerner’s image Paper on string (1938). He worked with multiple strings and I thought this would work great for this image in which the strings could potentially generate different planes in the photograph decontextualising all elements (Zollo, 1996). I displayed his work in Week 21. Before arranging the threads I wanted to use I created a possible sketch to think about the composition:
This is what I set up to make the image:
For this image, I took almost 100 images. The ones included in the contact sheet are just an example of some of the outcomes obtained. I discarded those images in which the droplet did not achieve a certain height which made it work with the overall composition.
I thought this image worked significantly better than the image of the previous two weeks and matched better with other outcomes produced since I started exploring the topic of chance.
References
Zollo, R. (1996). Nathan Lerner and Maxwell Street. Chicago Review, 42(2), 20-31.
Reflection on these week’s work
Overall, I felt that some outcomes were more successful than others but as indicated previously, the more I worked on a process the more control I had. This gave the opportunity to achieve very precise outcomes similar to what I had in mind. Adding elements such as mirrors, light planes, and shadow casts is helpful to shape the beholder’s views of the photographs.
Alberto Gonzalez 