Impressionism in photography describes the work of photographers who create a version of thier realities and to evoke a depth of qualities that lie beyond the surface of this world. For me it is a reaction to the hyper-reality of modern digital equipment, AI and computing. Ironically perhaps this echoes how the nineteenth century Artists reacted to the newly emerging reality of Photography.
In 1839, Daguerre’s photographic process was used to capture an image onto a silvered sheet of copper, the first workable and permanent method to make a Photograph. The rise of Impressionism in the Nineteenth Century was, in part, a response by artists to Photography, to turn away from the established rules of art and focus on everyday life, to paint a ‘snapshot’ of the ordinary with a range of new painting techniques. Rather than compete with the photographer to record ‘a moment of truth’ the Impressionists found new freedoms to express thier world, using light, colour and movement to create an impression of reality that was not possible with photography. I feel that Photography and Impressionism have much in common, but the one defining quality linking the two must be the use of light. Light defines and transforms, the interplay of light and shade across a surface or a landscape can transform the mundane into magical, and just as the Impressionists painted with light, so the 'Photo-graph' is literally a 'Light-drawing'.
But the Artist and Photographer work in opposite ways; One begins with a blank canvas and adds to it. The other begins with a finished work and subtracts. I studied Art, Photography became a passion and I've used it over the years to both express myself and earn a living across many genres of the art. I choose, for now, to work in Black and White, which seems to some an odd choice when our world is in colour.
Black and white photography is not simply the removal of colour, many colourful images would simply not work in monochrome, and vice-versa. To translate the world into a palette of greys is an abstraction, a reduction where the removal of colour must be replaced with something else. A world where every surface is a tone, where opposite colours like red and green appear as the same tone of grey. So my thinking, alphabet and language must alter to make sense of it. I must think in monochrome while seeking to capture an imagination I choose to create out of reality.
My Camera teaches me to see, it defines and explains my world, yet the images are just an impression.
