Prospect of Light Images from Pinhole and Plastic Cameras

Prospect of Light Images from Pinhole and Plastic Cameras

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The University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor will be hosting Prospect of Light: Images from Pinhole and Plastic Cameras, on view from January 23 through March 27, 2004.  This exhibition, organized by the Museum of Art with photographer Jonathan Bailey, includes John Boeckeler, Daniel Bouzard, David Burnett, Anne-Claude Cotty, Walter Crump, Christopher James, Gregg D. Kemp, Douglas Lucak, Robert Owen, Harvey Stein, Craig J. Sterling, and Willie Anne Wright.

With the abundance and ease of digital photography, the basic process of capturing an image has been obscured.  The twelve participants in Prospect of Light, from the United States and France, bring photography back to its most rudimentary premise.  Produced with little to no modern technology, the artists work with light alone, capturing it in containers of various shapes and sizes and leaving its impressions behind.  Eschewing the tools of the digital age, their aesthetic is based on the primacy of the image over technical sophistication. These photographs present an extraordinary directness – purity and simplicity.  The element of control is gone and we are left with the artist’s composition of the natural play of light.

The recent rise of digital imaging and digital manipulation of images has encouraged a resurgence of interest in the handmade approaches to the photographic image, complete with all the imperfections inherent in the process. With digital technology one can “undo” and “repeat” with the click of a mouse, an image can be viewed on the camera, deleted, and re-shot without ever making it permanent.  With creation and destruction so immediate, the accidental creations that often come out of imperfections are lost.  By bringing photography back to its most basic premise, removing control and allowing for imperfections, these artists are welcoming chance back into their work.  This exhibit explores the world of photography when the photographer has surrendered a portion of willful control about the outcome and allowed the camera a voice in the process.