Quinn Pictures • Jonathan Quinn

An approach.

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or my old site: quinnpictures.com
or drop me a line: jonathanpquinn@yahoo.com
or come visit me in my studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

2006 interview on the water photos on my website


 Link to the old website discussed below: www.quinnpictures.com


35mm out of date Ektachrome frame
from an Olympus Trip 35 with a fungus-damaged lens.
November 2003












Interview: with Gerry Kass 03.12.06

GK
Technically; what are these images made from? (the water pictures on the old website)
JQ:
The series is very conventional --traditional photographs made with cameras, lenses and film. I used a variety of cameras. Everything from expensive antiques to two dollar toys with plastic lenses --point and shoot cameras as well. I also use a wide range of films. Out of date or end of stock.  Sometimes I leave a roll of film on the radiator. I've destroyed several cameras in the water while squeaking out one last roll. Its one big experiment. Maybe in that sense this series is not so typical.
GK
But there is a computer involved?
JQ
I bring them into the computer after development for minor adjustments with color, contrast etceteras but out of this series I think I've cropped maybe one or two and even then just to straighten out the angle. Generally, I don't crop. The image corrections are very minimal --if at all. I edit out a lot of shots that don't quite please me. Whats on the film is what you are looking at on your screen.
GK
Why not just shoot digital?
JQ
Yes I do shoot digital, but not this (2003-6) series. The relationship between the way film interacts with light as it travels through a lens; the subject matter (fluid water in natural states of motion) lends itself nicely to the relationship and understanding we have with how an image is formed. Well, at least I think so.
GK
What do you mean by relationship?
JQ
There are plenty of people that could explain the technical better than me but we are on a cusp. Issues for traditional photography like the way light refracts, film grain and so forth are such a part of the language of photography but it is not simply evolving. In favor of clarity, much of these elements have disappeared and are disappearing. I should say that for the sake of clarity, the idiosyncrasies of film are all but gone. Film will soon be over. There will be a story in the news. Kodak (et al) will stop supplying film but water and foam, light and air will always form up to the speed of cognition.
GK
Ludite?
JQ
I hope not. I love digital, it has profoundly changed the image making practice. Have you ever seen so many people making pictures? It seems like everywhere I go I see a digital camera in use. The function of photographic image-making as a cultural practice is (once again) being redefined. I too am marveling at this evolving form. Maybe this series is (in part) a celebration of this film-endgame we are in.
GK
Im trying to understand your rule book.
JQ
If there is a discernible process it relates to ideas about the ability to evoke emotion. But there are interesting issues I am attempting to exploit regarding that process and this waning era of a dark box, glass, chemical and paper. There is an emotional component to this. Wait, maybe I mean romance.
GK
When did this begin?
JQ
Heres the confession. I was taking these kinds of pictures long before digital. That is close ups of water creating abstractions. really its the same picture over and over. I even spent some time trying to paint this kind of image and I imagine I will return to it. Pictures aren't photos and paintings aren't pictures.
GK
So the technique is just a part of the story.
JQ
I hope a small one, I would hope the pictures themselves transcend any formula regarding the process or relation the process has in time. The photographs are pictures. What you see is what you get.
GK
So then, influences.
JQ
For this series? Two painters: Arthur Dove and Marsden Hartley. My interests here are about exploring early definitions of modern pictorial abstraction. How pictorially, light and shadow organize themselves in an organic way --obeying physical properties-- that sort of thing.
GK
Where is your commitment towards this (as you call it) practice as a convention for yourself.
JQ
I am butting up against a wall. Two walls really that do make me a little uncomfortable. First, as I am exploring convention; some of this work could fall into stock images. Context and authorship becomes the a driving explanation. If I attempt to make art that can’t be confused as art I am again relying on a context to define the work. It is an interesting conundrum. Second, image making practice is fully engaged in virtual, digital method. Any one of my pictures could have been built from pixels bypassing anything to do with freezing light and time with a camera. This idea extended out from image making long ago. Take for example a fake Rolex verses a digital reconstruction of  a film based photograph there are interesting mimetic cross-hairs going on here. Or, at least I hope.

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