Jack Welpott – [←] 65 Ave Paris (197X); [→] Elle se lave (1973)

For all I know about photography, I have some enormous lapses. (One of the only lasting + pervasive drawbacks of being an autodidact.)

I had never heard of Welpott until I encountered Elle se lave this morning.

The first thing I noticed was the two mirrors like eyeglass lenses. (It reminded me of one of many breathtaking shots in Raw–specifically the bifurcated bathroom mirror after Justine vomits, where another girl overhears her and assumes she’s purging instead of legitimately ill.)

I popped over to Welpott’s website and immediately took note of the first photo above. It’s interesting because in both images the camera has a noticeable down tilt. I’m normally not fond of this. I prefer interior scenes like my web design: clean and minimal.

As such, I’m inclined to read the camera here as self-conscious. (To my mind, the downward angle eventually draws attention to the camera. Also, angling down when the photographer is made by a cishet male and the subject is a woman are über problematic given you know centuries of entitled patriarchal hegemony and the dependence of such modes of command and control on the subservience of women..)

Yet, the ambiguity between authority and self-doubt actually comes across in these. So there’s that. (Also, I was able to go for a walk this morning and I walked eastward with the sun in my eyes the entire way. I noticed the way I looked at the ground in front of my feet–there are sometimes snakes chilling out on this trail, so you have to watch out; and it feels to me like these images have a similar privileging near as opposed to far–which adds a-whole-nother level of ambiguity to the proceedings.)

But then I read in his bio that Welpott played jazz piano and said of his photography:

When I’m working behind a camera, I feel like I’m trying to achieve something like a jazz musician does.

(This resonates with me because one of the reasons I’m a photographer is because I lack any sort of innate sense of rhythm and that ruins my chances of being a musician. I love music. In fact, I’ve gotten higher off of experiences of sonic immersion than I ever have on drugs. Also, I’ve been actively listening to more music than I have in years–it’s a really great time to be a metal lover, tbh.)

And that makes me wonder if I find these mirrored resonances in other peoples’ work because I’m attempting to feel less alone or if assiduous efforts to understand one’s self actually causes you to see yourself in the other?

Also, I’ve been doing a shit ton of drugs… so it could just all be in my head. (Yep, it’s probably that. But–in the same breath: I do think it’s interesting that the downward angle is paired with landscape oriented frames. I think if I was a little bit more together, I’d actually be able to sharpen this into another reason why there really isn’t a justification for #skinnyframebullshit more often than I am inclined to call #skinnyframebullshit.