Analogue Photography
Andrew MacNair, New York architect, on Thom Puckey - 'What interests in part me about your photographic work is: a) they are intense investigations in asking; b) they are dense, packed form; c) they are hovering in phenomenon (literal) of delicate Not-Knowing; d) They are "plugged-in" while generating an-other energy (like from the far side of the moon?) and full of inviting (seducing)-you (us)-to look-long-and-slow day/night light and absence-as-color emanating from all directions with a flat picture plane; e) they are so quietly pre-punk defiant; f)........
Thom Puckey likes to keep his studio and darkroom practices very private and to a large extent shrouded in mystery. Technical mysteries that are echoed and mirrored in the mysterious atmospheres of the final works. He refuses to employ any digital methods whatsoever, and it is through motorised ad-hoc machines bringing multi-dimensional movement into all elements involved in the studio sessions that he overcomes photographic clichés and produces his unique results. All the technical aspects are carried out by him and him alone, from lighting, to camera operation, to developing the negative film rolls, to darkroom enlarging, to the traditional methods of developing and fixing, to the final b/w analog prints on high-grade baryta gelatin silver photo paper. He has a distinct preference for long-exposure shots, resisting the idea of the 'photographic moment'. The images are created through smearing the exposure over a number of seconds while allowing mechanised movement of camera, model and contextual environment/background. In this sense his work is the laying-down or registration of situations in space and time, which he complicates by his frequent use of multi-exposure shots. Everything comes together in the final print, a hand-crafted product like Puckey’s marble sculptures, and the culmination of the multitude of processes that preceded it.
The classical/mythological nude female figure (always a constant in Puckey's works for years now, and grounded in his deep understanding of art history) is embedded in environments of weird cultural mythologies, and fused with magical, art-historical, religious, superstitious, alchemistic, poetic and ritualistic references. Often bright in an unworldly light, but at the same time drenched in darkness and mystery.
The photograph is not dependent on its subject.
Time - Light - Movement
Registrate
Registration
On film
Registration of various durations
To lay a registation over another registration
To lay a registration over other registrations
(this is called double-exposure or multi-exposure. it can only be authentically achieved through the means of registrating on film)
Inviting the hand of fate plays into Negative Capability
John Keats - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
The camera is mechanical.
Mechanical means.
The mechanical means has its own duration, in counterpoint to the movements and durations before its lens.
To set the mechanical means to work, but to confront it with unpredictable factors.
This is registrated.
The duration's registration is set down as a writing with light.
The flickering reflected light is loaded into the film's surface, over and over.
'Then I began to go on, step by step, very slowly'
Analog (analogue) means that aspects of the physical composition/condition are analogous with physical compositions/conditions in the real world.
