Comments on: Joiners: Time Passing in Still Images

By: Jan Kaar

Jan Kaar — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:29:02 +0000

I also paint though it’s been about 5 years… *sigh* I was starting to delve into the Italian Futurist’s like Bocioni and Bala both were trying to convey time in 2 dimensions. And I might add they did it very well! I enjoyed what I ended up at but still in awe of something like Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending Stair Case” or anyone else capturing the sense time and movement in oil. I drag the shutter with my camera to give a sense of movement but have a new appreciation for what Hockey details in his idea of time, photography and our impression of people. Great post.

By: Moving Still Media

Moving Still Media — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:48:08 +0000

What an ambitious and thoughtful way to explore our world through art.

I love that he captures a range of time in a single image. It’s a collage but feels like a single, complete image. It’s a motion capture over time presented in a single static frame, artfully done.

It feels cubist, but over a span of time – whereas traditional cubism incorporates various angels presumably from the same moment in time. It’s like looking at a higher dimension in 2D.

By: Time, Motion & Photography

Time, Motion & Photography — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:43:25 +0000

[...] concepts of time & motion in still photography in very effective and unconventional way. Today, Heather Morten has a great post on his work and his thoughts on [...]

By: Simon Blundell

Simon Blundell — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:18:57 +0000

Hockney has been very critical of photography. He is comparing the experience of looking at photography with that of drawing and painting. One of the challenges photography faces is that it doesn’t show process in the final image. There could be as many hours taken in creating a photograph as it takes to create a painting. The evidence of that time is invisible to the viewer. The painting shows the brush strokes and the build up of paint.

Photography’s fundamental characteristic is detail. This can be amazing in its own, but lacks the movement of life Hockney is talking about. This movement helps us understand how the subject functions. Susan Sontag, in her book On Photography, states that “Only that which narrates can make us understand” This understanding takes place and is understood through time. Hockney does this in his joiners by extending the moment through multiple photographs. The narrative capacity of the photograph can be limited. In most cases, especially the consume and discard photographs required by the advertising world, often don’t use narrative. When they do the story is compressed into 30 seconds or less. (This makes for good advertising photographs) Hockney would like photographs to have the ability to captivate a viewer for longer periods of time, like paintings do.

Photographs can’t convey the full experience of living in the world. I don’t think any media can. Photographs are but fragments of the world, both in how they isolate time and space. The key is how the photographer isolates that time and space.

My own art explores extending time and space through the use of multiple images. I have been influenced by Hockeny’s use of photography.

cheers,
Simon