instant – Acetylene Eyes

Source unknown – Title unknown (201X)

I’m not entirely sure if this is an actual instant photograph or if it’s one of those Photoshop jobs where someone takes a Polaroid mask and overlays it against another image.

The reason I’m not entirely sure is because this acts like a Polaroid–the compressed tonal range (essentially slight overexposure on the model’s stomach, the rest of the skin tone is more mid-tone and then everything falls off to black except for the back of the couch in the upper left third of the frame and the edge of the couch on the lower right), slight chromatic aberrations at the left and right edges as well as the almost selenium-ish tone.

I’m generally not fond of work that decapitates and amputates limbs but with this there is a sense that less was intended as more. (I’m not sure it completely works from the standpoint of eschewing the problematics of depicting women nude as a coding for presenting them as sexually available but the composition is self-consciously voyeuristic enough that I suspect this was made in such a fashion to at least implicitly complicate notions of sexual availability as necessarily passive.

Source: picturepolaroidporn

Jan Durina – [↖] Untitled, Prague (2015); [↗] Untitled, Ivan and Maria, Berlin (2015); [↙] Untitled, Tiergarten, Berlin (2015); [↘] Untitled, Maria’s Bed, Berlin (2015)

When I scrolling through my dash, I’m thinking about three things:

Do I like this or that image?
Is that or this image important to consider? (& if so: why?)
Could this or that image present an opportunity to illustrate some notion that has been stuck in my head?

Things fitting the second criteria generally provide the prima materia for the best posts. The first are the easiest posts to write.

The third? Well, I have nearly 200 drafted items that in one way or another came to be saved as drafts because I thought I had something to say about them but–unfortunately–now I can’t figure out what to say about them but I still feel as if I can’t delete them either…

Seemingly without variation, my approach to this glut of things about which I want to say something but cannot fit thoughts to words, I tend to trot out a game I like to call pin the tall on the influence.

I’m resisting the urge to do that with Durina’s work. (Although seriously, if I’ve ever posted a veritable who’s who of contemporary internet famous image making, it’s absolutely Durina. Were this an academic setting I’d posit Ryan McGinley, Inside Flesh, Diana Reinoso, Myles Pedlar, Ben Zank, Errance L., and Dara Scully.

As far as a showcase of up-and-coming talent, it’s not a bad list. The struggle I have is that beyond a point–ticking off a checklist of influences is a little like one of those word find puzzles: a good distraction for 5 or 10 minutes but galling boring for any more extended period of time. (Hell, I don’t even like crossword puzzles and I’ll spend hours with those before I’ll waste more than a few minutes on those damn find a word bullshit things.)

I’m of a mind, however, that at a certain point we want art to demand that we, that is the viewer, do some work. I personally find it frustrating when art demands that I fastidiously obsess over influences. For example: I absolutely get why the Beastie Boy’s Paul’s Boutique is widely considered to be one of the best albums ever made. I won’t argue the point. But gimme License to Ill, over Boutique any day–if we’re talking about putting something on to listen to for the express joy of listening.

That’s why I think that Durina’s Polaroid’s are so impeccable. I mean Polaroid’s are exceedingly immediate. You depress the shutter and what you’ve got is what you’ve got–a singular physical artifact of the moment. (I’m going to gloss over the whole conceptual grey area that is using a medium typical pigeonholed for private porn creation as a medium for creativity and how compelling I find that grey area.)

Also, it’s EXTREMELY difficult to make a good Polaroid–and when you do it’s typically a testament more towards stubbornness than technical acumen. The colors are never quite right–but can be more luminous than anything this side of a perfectly exposed chrome. (Honestly, if I could afford to, I would use 65% B&W, 25% Polaroid and 10% slide film.)

That immediacy clear cuts all mess of influences on shirt sleeves and presents something surprisingly candid in its front-facing carnality. It’s as if the whole porn vs art false dichotomy as well as the naked bodies aren’t always inherently sexual can and do coexist because they are obverse faces of a single coin: the eternal battle between the sacred and the profane. Durina’s Polaroids dismiss that narrative and instead present carnal desire less as appetite and more as a symptom of physical embodiment. (I’m putting it poorly because it sounds as if I am suggesting that the same assertion that everything reduces to sexuality–and that’s offensive to asexuals. Here’s the thing though, I think asexuality and queerness have more of a home in these murky Polaroids than in much of the work hitting the interwebz today that is produced from behind a very LGBTQ+ prism.)

Source: jandurina.com

photominimal:

There and Back. With Suspended in Light: Montreal / Polaroid Automatic 100 / Fuji FP3000b

I am absolutely dead-to-rights, head-over-heals for this ‘Polaroid’.

Yes, the tonal variations are effing exquisite. Note the gradual grade from right to left–reversing the convention set by Dutch Golden Age (that’s been more or less continued uninterrupted ever since).

And the light slides into the frame in such a way as to imply a right triangle. There are so many grace notes: the way the sunlight accentuates the curve of the bottle like a hand that can’t quite decide whether to lift the object or merely luxuriate in the cool press against its palm. The two plants–how they are just illuminated enough to separate them from the background, rendering them legible. The way the brightest point in the image is the echoing right angle formed by Suspended In Light’s left forearm the sink edge and the side of her top.

Oh, and the way the light from her left thigh pops against the gloaming darkness. And the second bottle to the left of the mirror with the sprig of something standing at attention. And the light on her reflected face…

Instant film stocks tend to provide an unpredictable softness of focus. It is used to masterful effect here were the paneling, sink pedastal and skin all appear to have visual texture that almost seems as if were you to touch it, it would feel like wood, porcelain and flesh.

But I think what I love most is the washing machine and dryer nudging in along the lower left edge of the frame. Not only does it balance out what would have otherwise between a frame leaning decidedly off balance to the right, the inclusion renders a greater degree of interest in the frame as a whole. There is a timelessness feel to the image but it is clearly anchored in the present.

I especially admire this image because in my own work, I am generally loathe to work indoors. I always tell myself that one day I’ll be able to afford to live in a place like the apartment in Mirror. This image serves as a reminder that even if I had that apartment, I’d still struggle to shoot in it because when you’re working in close confines, at a certain point you have to play it as it lays. I’m too much of a control freak to do that–and I think my work suffers as a result.

Source: photominimal