Fugitive Obscura

     I am using pre-existing objects and structures that are found in the world and converting them into camera obscuras. In doing so, I am exploring the idea of transforming the kind of things that I might normally see as an object and take a photo of, into a subject that takes the photos. What happens when the roles reverse and the subject becomes the object and vice versa. What does an object see as a subject? Through the frame of this idea I want to explore the relationship between subject and object, and also explore issues around surveillance and the democratization of picture-making that digital photography and social media have brought to the forefront of daily life.  Now that everyone has a powerful digital camera phone within easy reach everyone is a photographer.  What happens when everyTHING is a photographer? 

     In this work I am using objects that, in the past, were interesting to me to photograph while keeping the photographic trope of detritus in mind, such as broken water fountains and dilapidated buildings. These kinds of objects and structures also references traditional photographic themes that have been explored by William Eggleston, Steven Shore, Walker Evans and the Bechers.  The pinhole images are shot using color paper and are presented in their original negative form.  This project is, by nature, experimental and because of that the images don’t come out perfectly. What is most important to me is the paper negative from inside the fugitive camera, not whether there is or isn’t a readable image on it.  These images are not meant to be clear or detailed renderings of what the subjects/objects see but by making them into something else, a camera, they take on a life and personality in the process of their anthropomorphization and each image is a portrait of that.