Innholdsfortegnelse for #6 2022 i Artdoc Photography Magazine

NOTE OF THE EDITORS “Numerous old photographic techniques are being re-used as contemporary means for unique and creative expression. - The Artdoc Team We are living in the digital age, where materiality seems to evaporate into the retina screens of laptops and smartphones. An analogue come-back has arisen in recent years as a reaction to the ubiquitous digital images that essentially lack physical substance and are unable to serve as valuable gems. The analogue renaissance reverts to a wide range of alternative processes to bring depth, personality and charm to the photographic artworks: cyanotype, gum bichromate, ambrotype, tintype, carbon printing, wet plate collodion, and palladium-platinum printing, to name a few. In addition, artists started to use added techniques like encaustic painting, as well as photograms or photo collages and mordançage.…

“A walk is just one more layer, a mark laid upon the thousands of other layers of human and geographic history on the surface of the land. Maps help to show this.” (Richard Long, 2009) Although maps are generally considered a tool for navigating unfamiliar territory, mapping is also a visual ordering of features and information. One feature often found on a map is a trig point: a fixed surveying station used in geodetic surveying. Although these points are no longer required for many surveying purposes, they remain a practical navigational point for hikers. I created Journey to evoke the experience of walking by mapping the essence of my journey rather than focusing on the descriptive. I mapped the journey to a trig point AO86 L OMIRU (Mahinepua Bay, NZ)…

What if there is a parallel universe similar to ours but slightly different? What if our universes overlap sometimes? Would we be able to see it? Would we be able to feel it? Or is it just a fantasy? I am a polaroid artist, and I shoot with vintage Polaroid cameras. My art combines two of my passions, nature and polaroids. Nature never ceases to amaze and inspire me. Through observing nature, I learn to understand and love myself. Polaroid offers many possibilities to create. It is like polaroids create another dimension - a magical world, another realm - beautiful, perfect, and imperfect at the same time. Polaroid art is my meditation and a way to connect to nature and people, making me very happy. My photography is about love,…

I have fully embraced the iron-based alternative processes for print-making, platinum-palladium and chrysotype (gold). I feel that this is where I belong. Printing in platinum and palladium is perhaps the summit of ‘alternative processes’. Composed of precious metals embedded in the uppermost fibres of the print's paper, these prints are characterised by luminous, matt surfaces, an extraordinary tonal range and longevity. I use the Malde-Ware print-out process exclusively. Its rigorous physicochemical basis and the ability to see printouts during UV exposure ensure economy and print control without suspect additives. My current papers are Arches Platine and Aquarelle, handmade papers from Ruscombe Mill, and fine Japanese papers. The gold process was long discounted as a viable printing method for eighty years until Mike Ware, with his professional background in chemistry, revisited…

In my previous photographic series, I invited to the contemplation of nature. I photographed the seasonal migration of cranes, reeds influenced by the wind, or the spirituality of an abandoned place in my series Indian Ashram. With The murmur of the wind, I invite you to enter imaginary landscapes and take a sensory walk through the forest of Landes in the southwest of France. It is a forest that vibrates with the ocean's wind and the mysteries accompanying it. I use the technique of mordançage to loosen the gelatin emulsion from the paper. I transform the images and direct them towards a poetic path. Sometimes copper tones appear, and sometimes a veil moves. Alchemy is operating here. The metamorphoses I obtain by mordançage invite the viewer to take a step…

I have been exploring far-off lands and their timeless rituals and ceremonies, looking to document and share possible commonalities. Globalization and the push of technology into once-isolated areas threaten to alter traditional ways and values forever. What is the value of ancient practices? What will be discarded, and what will be treasured? Culture and traditions are instrumental in personal development, giving a sense of who you are. The photographic encaustic mixed-media work is about art and the connection with our natural world and ourselves. We have been bombarded with multiple chaotic events for the past years. I felt the need to visually balance this by creating a body of work indicative of nature's beauty combined with the human form. www.joanmillerphotography.com…

GAËLLE CUEFF Gaëlle Cueff has always been interested in the physicality of natural materials. As a child, she admired the bones of a dead bird. As an artist, she needs the manual labour associated with producing artwork instead of ephemeral and immaterial digital photography. The formation at her job in the famous art museum Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where she worked with old photographs, also contributed to her interest in the substance of artworks. The mixed bag of techniques is varied. For several works, Cueff uses encaustic or hot wax painting, an ancient technique that involves heated wax mixed with coloured pigments. It was already used by the Romans and even Egyptians, but also by the artist Kandinsky. Another technique is the collage, done with cut-out illustrations of magazines that…

SVETLANA TALANOVA Svetlana Talanova did her projects without using the most basic instrument of photography, the camera. Her abstract and colourful images result from direct exposure of different materials on light-sensitive paper. She made cubist-like images, either in various shades of red or purple, and details of green and blue leaves and photograms of flowers. Why did she choose this elaborate manual process? “I was interested in the essence of photography, which is light. And I felt that in the darkroom, I could touch the materials. I could manipulate and play with light. It is like painting with light on paper. It is about going back to the basics, to the beginnings of photography. Moreover, this process connects photography with painting and sculpture. You can feel the energy of the…

Observing people has been the focus of my attention throughout my life. Initially, it helped me to survive, but later it developed into a fascination for what makes people tick. I take great interest in what is hidden behind the individual's mask. We live in times of societal polarization and individualization. I feel called to challenge and question the identity we ascribe to ourselves and others. This identity determines to a great extent, how we relate to others and the world around us. For this project, I used a heat camera intending to “de-picture” the outer identity and explore if a core remains which unites all people. In applying this technique, external attributes such as age, gender or skin colour often disappear. With personal identity falling away, a universal phenomenon…

I recently returned from the big lap around Australia with my family. It was a chance to unwind after an intense couple of years and reconnect with the landscape. I make photographs on film using a large format 4×5 view camera. It is mainly a solitary pursuit. With luck, I may expose one or two sheets of film. These slow meditations are pivotal to my practice and lead to the moment I see a composition that interests me. The exposed film was developed on the road and dried on the car's dashboard in the warm sun. The printmaking stage is by far the most time-consuming part of the process. Printing is the transfer of an idea into a tangible object, in contrast to much of today's photography which only ever…

Limbo is an ongoing series of cyanotype prints of blemished, irregular, and withered plants and leaves. I create these images to reckon with transience and loss and to represent the terror and beauty of transition from one state to another. The humble plants and leaves I photograph are characters existing in an ambiguous time and space, interacting with each other and responding to forces beyond their control. I continue the transformation started by the time, weather, and insects through the photographic process using motion blur and selective focus. Within each composition are juxtapositions intended to represent the precarious balance between dualities and the impact when the balance is lost. The subject matter and cyanotype technique I use refer to the tradition of botanical prints dating back to Anna Atkins work…

LESIA MARUSCHAK Awakening in the World takes its title from Irish author John O'Donohue's book Eternal Echoes. O'Donohue directs his gaze inward to the fragility and temporality of human existence, which marks our tenuous relationship with mortality; we live as if we are here to stay forever - rarely pausing. As a photographer, I focus my lens on the trauma and injustices that define contemporary Ukraine. As a Ukrainian-Canadian, I have spent the last five years gathering archival materials to explore past atrocities and injustices, including the famine-genocide in Soviet Ukraine (1932-1933), known as the Holodomor. And now, I revisit this injustice while putting it in dialogue with Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and its traumatic impact on children. American psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman has noted that images of the war…

“Photography is the art that combines reality and vision, feeling and truth, psychological depth, and political awareness. - Artdoc Magazine Artdoc is an international online magazine dedicated to the world of photography. We aim at connecting the community of photography including photographers, publishers, museums, galleries, collectors, art students, and every interested person in the world of lens-based arts. We believe that photography is the most relevant global plastic form of art. Photography is a tool to communicate about the world that surrounds us and our feelings about it. Photography is the visual storytelling medium of our time, and it's deeply pervaded in the veins of our society and culture. The art of photography is not limited to the aesthetics of the images themselves but encompasses the story behind them. The…

Artdoc presents the creative submissions we have received for our Alternative Process exhibition. The many submissions make clear that photographers from all parts of the world are immersed in the renaissance of analogue photography. We received outstanding works with various techniques, ranging from cyanotypes to palladium and everything in between. It becomes clear that since the era of pictorialism, alternative processes have never died and are still excellent vehicles for an abundance of creativity. The photographic artworks in this exhibition all display the subtle quality of intimate prints that speak about profound human life experiences. Visit the online exhibition…

MARGUERITE BORNHAUSER The extensive series When Black is Burned, which comprises many diptychs, is colourful, vibrant, and enigmatic. All highly saturated colour photographs, if you can still call them that, or photo works, show intimate details of daily life. You see a face, parts of a body, plants, leaves, fishes, fences, shadows, and water. It seems like a diary of lazy Sundays and dreamy summers, introverted and meditative. The photo works have an intense aesthetic radiance, vibrating colours, and abstract compositions. Analogue The photos are taken with a small analogue camera. Later, they are scanned and digitally processed. Marguerite Bornhauser explains how the project came into being. “When Black is Burned is a project mainly about shadows and contrast and turning daily life into an enigmatic world. As you can…

Alternative Photographic Processes: Crafting Handmade Images Brady Wilks Alternative Photographic Processes teaches techniques, both analog & digital, allowing artists to bring a personal touch through manipulation of a photograph, the negative, and the print. This book stands apart from recent publications on alternative processes by presenting a range of new approaches and methods to achieve popular techniques, as well as providing step-by-step guidance for an array of unique techniques meant to inspire artists working in various mediums. The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes Christopher James Written by internationally acclaimed artist and photographer Christopher James, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes: 3rd Edition is the definitive text for students and professionals studying alternative photographic processes and the art of hand-made photographic image making. This innovative Third Edition brings the medium up…