[alt-photo] Re: Michael Wesely's work (was reciprocity failure)

[Francesco Fragomeni]

Yes, I've seen www.solargraphy.com. Wesely's work is more my style which is
why it intrigued me. However he's doing it, I hope he continues because
regardless of his workflow and process I think he's making some great
images.

Last night, by complete serendipity I met a fellow list-member at a mutual
friend's birthday party and we ended up having a lengthy conversation
covering a range of photographic topics, one of which was Wesely's work. At
this point, I'm far too fascinated with this whole thing to do nothing with
it so I'm going to do a project based on solargraphy that I've had in the
back of my mind and which Wesely's work has has helped to get me excited
about again. I still haven't worked out a solid theory for what exactly
happens with film with exposures into the range of months or years so I'll
experiment with that a bit to see what occurs. As for the project, it will
be based on using photographic paper as the recording material since we
already know what to expect with it. I'm not particularly interested in the
sun's path for this, instead I'm more interested in observing changing and
developing spaces. That is where Wesely's work (specifically the
construction of MOMA) has been very intriguing. What I'll probably do is
make a number of 4x5 pinhole cameras (at least 100) with attention to
optimal pinhole diameter to match focal length (I like to make things as
precisely as possible whether its necessary or not) and I'll
semi-permanently fix these to various structures that I can gain access to.
I'd love to be able to send some of the cameras to people around the US and
other countries who are willing to help out much like Tarja Tygg does with
her work. After the exposures are complete I'll retrieve the cameras (or
they'll be mailed back to me in the case of distant participants) and I'll
produce either silver or pt/pl prints from the solargraph scans using a
variation on my inter-negative process. This should be rather simple to get
going. If anyone is interested in placing a camera for me let me know. This
will be a fun little ongoing side project. We shall see what comes of it :)

-Francesco
www.francescofragomeni.com



On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Matti Koskinen <mjkoskin at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Jan 21, 2012, at 4:42 AM, Francesco Fragomeni wrote:
>
> > If the artist's words are to be taken as truth, the multiple exposure
> > theories can't be made. Wesely has explained that the MOMA work was
> single
> > exposure over the course of 34 months. The museum has also said that the
> > cameras were placed and the only contact they received was periodic
> dusting
> > over the course of the exposures. I do think digital is involved
> somewhere
> > in the process but assuming the artist's words are true then the images
> > have to be single ultra long exposures. Thats only assuming that the
> > written accounts by those involved are true.
> >
> > -Francesco
> >
>
> There's also a Finnish artist, Tarja Trygg, who has her web page at
> http://www.solargraphy.com
>
> -matti
>
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