Using a digital SLR, image capture software and a hidden video camera ’70 Still Frames and 5 Minutes and 50 Seconds of Video’ highlights how much we simply don’t see when encountering someone’s photographic reproduction and underlines how problematic photography can be as a representative medium. In days now numbered, we’d pick up our photographic prints from the chemist, quickly rifle through them, exclaim and sigh, before promptly removing any prints we’d rather not exhibit - whether due to mis-exposure, lack of focus or, more significantly, to remove selves we didn’t recognize or approve of. The latter, at best, may involve an unflattering expression. At worst we’re caught without our mask, betraying a secret sadness, abhorrence or delight. With accidental selves removed, the prints can find a home upon the coffee table, to await visiting friends. ‘Ooooh, are those the pictures from last weekend?’ One by one, each protagonist, no matter how few speaking parts they held, will, mentally and surreptitiously, undergo the same re-encounters with selves both pleasant and otherwise (whilst convincingly surveying the event as a whole). ‘This disturbance is ultimately one of ownership[i]’, proclaimed Barthes. Unless one holds a photograph’s inherently exclusive authorship, we are largely powerless to cease its existence and potential replication. Photography becomes our scourge. Forbidding forgetting, holding us ransom, reminding us that our scraps can be reassembled, our actions re-imagined and our selves presented to us from an angle that we consciously shun. So, when faced with a camera, it is no wonder that people’s behaviour changes so dramatically - eliciting a hyperconsciousness[ii] matched on few other occasions. Flickering with multiplicity we must ultimately decide upon our self, invoke our most agreeable ‘qualities of nature[iii]’ and hold them still for the camera’s fleeting glance. With ’70 Still Frames and 5 minutes 50 Seconds of Video’ my aim is to reveal the editorial processes (utilised by both photographer and subject) that are inherent within photographic portraiture, subsequently questioning its capacity for success in representing ‘the subject’. I began by removing the photographer’s control over decisive elements of the photographic act; subjects were invited into a studio, seated and then informed that the camera – operated automatically using image capture software – would photograph them every five seconds for half an hour and each one of the resulting images would be displayed unedited and in chronological order. Once alone with the camera the subject was able to control their own representation, knowing that the photographer had surrendered command over the shutter’s release and the editing process. Put more simply; the subject could now choose exactly how much of themselves they wished to share with the viewer. Despite the photographer’s subjectivity having been diminished the viewer could still only access what the subject deemed suitable. The photographer had been denied ‘his need to plead his case[iv]’ but the subject was still thoroughly capable of pleading theirs. With a deliberately noticeable edit (allowing only a glimpse or two of each sitter) and the subjects’ preparations exposed, the viewer is made aware of the journey a portrait has already undertaken prior to meeting their gaze. Whether the viewer decides to extend this subjective journey by adding a personal interpretation is up to them.

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Using a digital SLR, image capture software and a hidden video camera ’70 Still Frames and 5 Minutes and 50 Seconds of Video’ highlights how much we simply don’t see when encountering someone’s photographic reproduction and underlines how problematic photography can be as a representative medium. In days now numbered, we’d pick up our photographic prints from the chemist, quickly rifle through them, exclaim and sigh, before promptly removing any prints we’d rather not exhibit - whether due to mis-exposure, lack of focus or, more significantly, to remove selves we didn’t recognize or approve of. The latter, at best, may involve an unflattering expression. At worst we’re caught without our mask, betraying a secret sadness, abhorrence or delight. With accidental selves removed, the prints can find a home upon the coffee table, to await visiting friends. ‘Ooooh, are those the pictures from last weekend?’ One by one, each protagonist, no matter how few speaking parts they held, will, mentally and surreptitiously, undergo the same re-encounters with selves both pleasant and otherwise (whilst convincingly surveying the event as a whole). ‘This disturbance is ultimately one of ownership[i]’, proclaimed Barthes. Unless one holds a photograph’s inherently exclusive authorship, we are largely powerless to cease its existence and potential replication. Photography becomes our scourge. Forbidding forgetting, holding us ransom, reminding us that our scraps can be reassembled, our actions re-imagined and our selves presented to us from an angle that we consciously shun. So, when faced with a camera, it is no wonder that people’s behaviour changes so dramatically - eliciting a hyperconsciousness[ii] matched on few other occasions. Flickering with multiplicity we must ultimately decide upon our self, invoke our most agreeable ‘qualities of nature[iii]’ and hold them still for the camera’s fleeting glance. With ’70 Still Frames and 5 minutes 50 Seconds of Video’ my aim is to reveal the editorial processes (utilised by both photographer and subject) that are inherent within photographic portraiture, subsequently questioning its capacity for success in representing ‘the subject’. I began by removing the photographer’s control over decisive elements of the photographic act; subjects were invited into a studio, seated and then informed that the camera – operated automatically using image capture software – would photograph them every five seconds for half an hour and each one of the resulting images would be displayed unedited and in chronological order. Once alone with the camera the subject was able to control their own representation, knowing that the photographer had surrendered command over the shutter’s release and the editing process. Put more simply; the subject could now choose exactly how much of themselves they wished to share with the viewer. Despite the photographer’s subjectivity having been diminished the viewer could still only access what the subject deemed suitable. The photographer had been denied ‘his need to plead his case[iv]’ but the subject was still thoroughly capable of pleading theirs. With a deliberately noticeable edit (allowing only a glimpse or two of each sitter) and the subjects’ preparations exposed, the viewer is made aware of the journey a portrait has already undertaken prior to meeting their gaze. Whether the viewer decides to extend this subjective journey by adding a personal interpretation is up to them.