2 years ago
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Posted On: April 25th 2025, 06:56 am
Opacities (2023-Present)
8x10 inch silver gelatin photograms
The ‘Opacities’ are photograms of what is often called obscured glass, the kind of glass one finds in private parts of domestic homes. The sheets of glass act as compound lenses, fracturing and refracting the light to specific focal points directly onto light sensitive paper. The resultant images reveal, as one would expect, something of the hidden structure of glass and its peculiarity as neither a liquid nor a solid. But what couldn’t be anticipated was the strange, uncanny space created in this hybrid world of geometric, crystal structure and fluid, organic form. In the process of making the photograms a single millimeter movement of the glass from the photographic paper can dissolve crystal formations into visceral, organic shapes. The series celebrates an intimate and indexical connection between these two most dominant media of transparency in our culture – glass and photography. In this hidden and opaque space are generated ambiguous configurations which are both abstract matrices and photographic images. This ambiguity of the image seems to free the viewer from the ties that these different image expectations make, allowing the viewer a freedom for imaginary projection. The images of glass seem to reveal something of that exact same ambiguity in the photographic image, their simultaneous crystalline fixity and organic fluidity, as one medium of transparency creates an image of itself in another medium of transparency.
Check out my website linked in my bio to see the rest of the series.
Big thank you to @flatland_projects for giving me the time and space to develop this project and @brackenbooks_ for the darkroom equipment which made it all happen!
Exciting things to come
📷 - @alexanderbrattell
@aceagrams @delawarr @talentaccelerator_ @eastbournealive @uobphotography
8x10 inch silver gelatin photograms
The ‘Opacities’ are photograms of what is often called obscured glass, the kind of glass one finds in private parts of domestic homes. The sheets of glass act as compound lenses, fracturing and refracting the light to specific focal points directly onto light sensitive paper. The resultant images reveal, as one would expect, something of the hidden structure of glass and its peculiarity as neither a liquid nor a solid. But what couldn’t be anticipated was the strange, uncanny space created in this hybrid world of geometric, crystal structure and fluid, organic form. In the process of making the photograms a single millimeter movement of the glass from the photographic paper can dissolve crystal formations into visceral, organic shapes. The series celebrates an intimate and indexical connection between these two most dominant media of transparency in our culture – glass and photography. In this hidden and opaque space are generated ambiguous configurations which are both abstract matrices and photographic images. This ambiguity of the image seems to free the viewer from the ties that these different image expectations make, allowing the viewer a freedom for imaginary projection. The images of glass seem to reveal something of that exact same ambiguity in the photographic image, their simultaneous crystalline fixity and organic fluidity, as one medium of transparency creates an image of itself in another medium of transparency.
Check out my website linked in my bio to see the rest of the series.
Big thank you to @flatland_projects for giving me the time and space to develop this project and @brackenbooks_ for the darkroom equipment which made it all happen!
Exciting things to come
📷 - @alexanderbrattell
@aceagrams @delawarr @talentaccelerator_ @eastbournealive @uobphotography
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