Giacomoni uses a square make-up style mirror, encircled with old-fashioned light bulbs. He photographs his subjects through the mirror, dressed in black to disappear into the darkness lest he is of distraction. “Relax, look straight into the mirror and think of something nice” he says before removing the Jablo block covering the mirror. He does wait a few seconds before revealing what’s beneath the cover – enough time to build a certain anticipation, curiosity even.

When looking into a mirror, we rarely ever do it consciously – we’re busy with other things and the mirror is just a tool of convenience. Remove that convenience, and the image that we see in front of us is that of vulnerability. “Look straight into your eyes”, he says. And I’m sitting there, looking deep into myself, trying to understand who I am, what has led me to this specific moment in my life. I can barely stand it – I’m anxious, but after a while I start getting familiar with the person on the other side, and relax. It takes but a few minutes and maybe four or five snaps – that clunky mechanical sound modern-day has forgotten. Then it’s over. I’m back, and life goes on. But that was deep – uncomfortably so. I loved it.

It took a few months – I had almost given up ever seeing the result. We’re used to seeing the result instances after the act, today. It makes us impatient. Then one day it arrived. I love it.

Read more about Antoine Giacomoni here.

This is a debate that has been raging on for a very long time. I would even dare say that at the moment it is probably hotter than the “is photography art” debate, which I feel has started to settle down, although we all know it will never really end.

I have noticed that over the past weeks/months, the argument of whether a photographic artist should issue work in limited editions has started flaring up again. I have personally had this dilemma from the day I printed my first photograph with the intention of selling it. A few years ago, I had a totally different view, centred around the value of a photograph being bound very strongly with it’s rarity, in the same way that many people prefer to purchase paintings or sculpture because of their uniqueness. Most of my initial work was thus issues in editions of only three.

Today, after many years and maybe some more sense and experience, I have finally decided to put an end to this dilemma. I have made a decision moving forward, and it is to not limit my prints any further. There are many reasons which lead me to this decision, but now that I have made up my mind, it all seems so much clearer to me that I wonder what took me so long to figure it out.

The Medium

Let us start from the nature of the medium itself. The idea of limiting prints stems from printmaking, whereby the nature of the medium would deteriorate over time, thus the limit would guarantee that the buyer is protected from lower quality prints. Photography is very different from that. It’s nature allows for multiple prints to be created with the same quality, without deterioration of the source, so whatever limit is forced on a particular edition, it is purely artificial. To be clearer, it is  purely a marketing exercise designed to allow the photographer or gallery inflate the mark-up, thus earning more money selling less quantity. I do not say that this is wrong – every photographer or gallery is free to do this, and there certainly is a sizeable market for such limited prints – however one cannot say that imposing a pre-defined limit on the number of prints issued from a single photograph is inherent or required by the medium of photography – on the contrary, it is just being untrue to the medium itself.

About Limiting

When limiting a print, one is placing a substantial chunk of the value of that print on the fact that it is limited. This is similar to earth’s resources – the value of a resource (e.g. gold, iron, diamonds, etc) increases not only due to the popularity of the resource, but also inversely to its availability. For example, if a material is very useful, it will be expensive because of the demand, however if the supply is also very limited, the price of that material will shoot up very quickly. One very good example is Rhenium, a very rare, very expensive ($6,000 per kg +) element used in the manufacture of high temperature alloys for jet engines. It is obviously a useful element, but the insane pricetag is very much a factor of its rarity. It’s very simply the rule of supply and demand. In an ideal state, the supply and demand creates a balance – when there is more demand, the supply increases to match that demand, thus creating a balance in price. If the supply cannot cope with the demand, then the price will increase to balance things out. When an item is either naturally limited, the supply is fixed, and the demand determines its price. However, when an item is artificially limited, the producer can determine the quantity depending on the perceived demand, and can adjust that value to get the best price even when the demand is not very high. My point is that in the latter case, it is not only the demand which dictates the price, but the limitation of the item which is used to artificially increase the asking price per item. This is a very common practice, where producers create items in limited editions to target higher earners. The higher price is not a result of the higher quality of the item, but purely of it’s limited nature.

The “Fine Art Photograph”

Disclaimer: I firmly believe there is no such thing as a “fine art photograph”. There are photographers and there are artists. In a recent interview with The Telegraph, David Bailey re-iterated what I and many others have been stressing for quite a while – “Photography is not an art. There’s that old cliché that my old mate Duffy used to use: photography and painting aren’t art. It depends on whether the person doing it is an artist.” For a photographer, the photograph is the end – there is nothing more and nothing less to it. An artist produces a body of work over a lifetime. Whether this is done through photography or other media is irrelevant. The photograph is the means, and should be seen and appreciated as part of a whole, rather than as an individual piece. Some of these will be aesthetically pleasing, and others will not, but it is the figurative depth of the work which defines the art, and not the aesthetics. Of course, some pieces will be more popular than others, and will sell better individually. By “fine art photograph” I mean a photograph produced by an artist, not necessarily one which is of particular aesthetic pleasure, as many understand it.

The concept of supply and demand is spot on for photography (and other art forms, of course). The value of a photograph is determined both by its demand as well as by its supply. Demand is something which photographers and galleries do not have control on, and therefore, in order to increase the value, one would need to decrease the supply.

I do not agree with this approach on a number of levels, one of the main ones being that through this practice, the value of the photograph is not a reflection of the demand, but also a factor of its rarity. This obviously creates a disparity across the board and one can no longer really gauge the value of a work purely on its quality.

The quality factor, in fact, is one of the many characteristics (together with concept, visualisation and focus on the end rather than the means, to mention a few) that distinguish an artist from a photographer. Quality is of course in no way limited to technical ability at the shooting stage, but also quality of the concept, the ability to translate that concept into clear visuals, and the ability to achieve a final product (i.e. the print) which reflects the vision of the artist. I believe that this alone should be the determinant factor of the value of an artwork, and not the fact that its availability is limited to a certain number of prints.

Poor but Happy

One of the greatest pleasures for an artist is to see his/her work hanging on someone else’s wall. If it didn’t cost me so much time and money to create each print, I would be giving out my work for free (which I do quite often anyway, to those whom I know appreciate it). So in reality, the answer to this dilemma has already been placed before me a priori. Do I want my work to be something which only the elite can afford, thus limiting the distribution of my work, or do I want to allow anyone who appreciates my work to be able to have a piece hanging on their wall? To me the answer is simple. The goal and pleasure of any artist is to share his/her art with the world – “the world” being as many people as possible. I would rather get to the end of my life knowing my work is owned by many, rather than having gained more financial benefit with less distribution. There is always that sense of immortality associated with artistic creation – I am quite sure that together with the sheer need to create, this is one of the main factors which keeps artists dragging along in richness and in poverty. In the end, let’s face it – money is transient, while art is forever.

Limited by Life

There are a few photographers that sell a lot. Let’s go back a few years – Ansel Adams was one of the greatest selling photographers ever. His “Moonlight over Hernandez” is probably the highest selling photograph ever (he didn’t limit his prints). That photograph sold “only” around 800 copies in his lifetime. I would say that 90% of photographs will rarely sell beyond double digit, and a good chunk will probably not even sell beyond single digit. There is no point defining a pre-determined limit on a work, because it will be limited anyway by the amount the photographer can produce in his/her lifetime. Artists who are focused on the quality of the work, will anyway not be able to produce large quantities of prints, because of the sheer time and dedication it takes to produce each print. It is true, today it is easier to create prints using digital tools, however it is not as straightforward as many might think. Anyone can produce an average print using an inkjet printer, however it takes time, dedication and experience to learn the subtleties of digital printing. I have been at it for more than 2 years now, and I know I haven’t even scratched the surface. Whether it comes down to profiling, colour management, and even choice of paper, there is always something new to learn – not to mention the breakneck speed by which technology is advancing, opening up always new possibilities of improvement. Which brings me to my next point.

Forced to Stop

Whenever I am asked for a print, I make it a point to take a good look at the work before printing, and if needed, tweak and improve it to my liking. As it happens, it is very rare that I find myself going to print without changing anything. First of all, this makes each print subtly unique, and secondly, in between printing runs, I will inevitably learnt something new, or just feel that there is a need to give it a slightly different look. It is not the first time that I have totally scrapped my previous work and started over again. It is a natural process of improvement, and it will never stop as long as I’m around. It is very similar to the approach taken by a darkroom printer. It is true that in a darkroom one is forced to redo the process each time, however in both cases, it all depends on the approach taken by the artist. Some great photographers outsourced their prints to professional custom printers who were able to produce almost identical prints with great dexterity and incredible speed. Others preferred to do it on their own, taking more time and changing styles slightly with each print. None of these approaches is wrong – they are equally valid. Some artists prefer to concentrate on the shooting aspect, outsourcing the work to those who have more experience in the field. Others enjoy the process from start to finish, maybe because they find themselves able to define their artistic expression at each stage. I happen to fall in the latter group.

Let us consider the implications of limiting the number of prints, and let us assume that early in an artist’s career, a great photograph is produced, which sells out completely. That artist will be forced to see his/her great work stuck on negative or digital file, locked in time to the last print produced, knowing how much more could be achieved with all the knowledge gained in the successive years of his/her career. Considering both the advancements in printing and post processing techniques, it is inevitable that better ways of producing a print will emerge regularly. It would very frustrating to be unable to create new prints using those new techniques because that would break the edition limit. I know this from first hand experience since I have a couple of images I am very fond of from a couple of years ago, which I have almost sold out and would not bear to know that at some point I will not be able to create any more prints of these images.

Some photographers have over time opted to destroy the original of a photograph, be it the negative or digital file. I can say with absolute certainty that I will never do that. First and foremost, it is a practice which is totally unnatural to the medium. There is no reason whatsoever which justifies the destruction of the original work. If the original were to deteriorate with each subsequent print, such as lithographs I could understand it, but not for photography. Secondly, I know that try as I might, I would not be able to get myself to do it – it would be akin to cutting off a finger or a limb. We all know what a great tragedy the loss of Ansel Adam’s negatives to a darkroom fire was. But that’s an accident, which happens – doing it purposefully is totally another matter.

Being forced to stop producing new prints from a photograph is not only a saddening thought for me as the author, but also to the art community in general, since prints would stop evolving at the point they are sold out, even when new methodology emerges which allows these prints to be improved upon. By keeping an edition open, we know that as long as I’m around (and possibly also after I’m gone), prints can still be produced which reflect the time in which they were produced.

A Choice

There are two main points (apart from marketing reasons) for limiting prints. Both are linked. The first one is that by limiting prints, the artist is fuelling the secondary market (i.e. auctions), since once the prints are no longer available directly from the artist they will start selling at auctions, raising the price of the print. While this is a very valid point, I do tend to see some flaws in it. First and foremost, what is the artist gaining through these sales? Nada. The practice is there to fuel speculation and earn money to collectors and auction housed. Fair enough, they need to make a living too, but it’s far more important for the artist to make a living while he/she is alive, since that will trigger even more work from the artist, and that’s what we want from artists after all. True, by selling prints in the secondary market, the same artist is gathering momentum and can sell prints at higher prices. This is true, but really and truly, how many photographers actually make a prominent appearance in the secondary market in their lifetime? I’d bet even the most venerated of the lot didn’t get there until after their death. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Andreas Gursky. Secondly, I believe there are other ways in which one can improve their asking price without going into the secondary market and gain full benefit out of it. I will get there shortly. The second point is that unlimited prints will struggle to sell in the secondary market even after the artist’s death because there’s loads of them out there, therefore making it a less worthwhile investment. This is certainly untrue. A good print from a great photographer will remain in demand even if there are others around. Case in point, “Moonrise over Hernandez” raised a very respectable $609,600 in 2006, shortly after the artist’s death, and was then superseded by the sale of “Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park” for $722,500 in 2010. I doubt the original purchasers paid that kind of money when they bought them from Ansel Adams.

I believe that while artists are alive and producing work, it is they who should be the main beneficiary of the sale of their work. Galleries play an important role in the primary market, and in the end their role usually benefits the artist’s cause, since they take care of what the artist couldn’t care less about. Art collectors purchase art for various reasons. Those who do it because they like the work will not care about immediate financial gain, while those who do it for investment usually accept the fact that it will most probably bear fruit when the artist stops producing new work, be it photography, painting, sculpture or any other kind of medium. In all this, there are, as always, exceptions. Some artists tend to benefit greatly from secondary markets during their lifetime, and collectors sometimes tend to reap gains from their investment very quickly, however the artists who fall into this category are few and far between – and even then, I am pretty sure that only a small percentage of these are photographers.

The choice here is whether as an artist and photographer I want to put myself in a position which will focus mostly on the primary or secondary market during my lifetime. Being realistic, the likelihood of my work gracing the catalogues of Sotheby’s in my lifetime is not exactly a given, so in my view it makes more sense to focus on the primary market, endorsing those who purchase my work for love over those who purchase it for investment.

The Bottom Line

I have read many essays and participated in numerous discussions about this subject. I have probably heard all possible arguments in favour and against limited editions. Each have got valid arguments, however, I believe that whatever direction artists decide to take should be a personal decision, based on what they believe and what makes them most comfortable with their art and themselves. We should not try to rationalise such decisions, because it would be next to impossible (not to mention incredibly frustrating) to derive a conclusion and take a decision based on these arguments. I now realise that this is why I have not been able to do so beforehand. The moment I realised I don’t really care much about what others might think or what the “market dictates”, the decision came quickly. The bottom line is that while all arguments are valid, decisions are and should be dependent on other factors – personal, artistic, intangible factors. Some of these factors are temporal, and might as well change through an artist’s career – in which case, decisions and attitudes might change. Every artist has the right to choose the direction to take and everyone – artists, galleries and collectors included – should respect such decisions.

Making it “Worth it”

One concern faced by collectors, galleries, etc, which I fully understand and respect, is the “investment factor”. Collectors love to feel that they are spending money on something that will increase in value over time. One way in which this can be addressed in open-edition prints is to create pricing tiers. Each print starts at a base price, and as it gets sold, slowly increases in price. For example, the price might increase by 25% after every 5 prints sold. This method addresses numerous factors. Collectors can choose to purchase newer or less popular prints for lower prices, spending less up front and balancing the risk of a print not becoming very popular with the benefit of gaining a much higher return if it does. Alternatively they may choose to purchase prints which have already proven popular, investing more on high value prints which might still increase in price, although less likely than newer prints, but which would already have a proven market value and would most likely sell better if placed on the secondary market in the future.

I have decided to adopt this approach since I feel that it best addresses my needs and those of anyone who decides to purchase my work. Each print will be signed, with the print number and printing date at the back. A certificate of authenticity would accompany each print, containing details of the print, printing medium and any other relevant details.

In the end, different strategies will inevitably work better for some artists than for others, and it is up to each one of us to take the decision on how best to approach the situation. Whatever we do, it needs to be the best possible solution for us and for those who believe in us enough to buy our work. Anything beyond that is irrelevant.

Photography is a relatively new artistic medium, counting in at just over 150 years; just a snippet of time in the history of art. However, during its short lifespan, it has gone through a crash course in artistic development. Being initially influenced by other fine arts, it has gone all the way through to influencing other visual arts in its own right.

The history of photography is rich and captivating, marked by challenges, obstacles, failures and triumphs. One thing, however, remained constant throughout – the struggle to bring to photography the recognition it deserves as an artform in its own right. The height of this endeavour took place around the turn of the 20th century, when traditional fine art itself was experiencing a revolution which would propel it into new directions. This revolution, triggered initially by the establishment of the Dada movement, which strived to deny all that were the traditional concepts of fine art, affected photography positively, due to the adoption of this new medium by major artists as a form of mutiny towards other forms.  This in itself triggered an experimental phase which brought photography into the picture as a medium that could produce, rather than just reproduce.

Indeed, this was, and probably still remains, the greatest struggle for photography – convincing society that there is a highly intricate creative process behind the creation of a photograph; that in fact a photograph is the interpretation of a subjective reality and not the portrayal of the absolute. It is no surprise that photography was the medium of choice of many Surrealists – the members of the artistic movement succeeding the Dada movement. Their main aim was to break down the links between the mind and reality, producing work which was a direct interpretation of their dreams and thoughts. One of the main contributors to the Surrealist movement, Man Ray, was particularly fond of the photographic medium, experimenting new techniques at length. His philosophy was one which has been adopted by many artists who followed: “I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.”

Fast forward eighty years. While technology has advanced photography into new heights, the one thing which made photography the powerhouse it is today remains constant. The photographer’s eye has brought us into an era where the real and surreal meet and sometimes overlap, creating that niche which photography so much longed for. It is this overlap that earned photography its deserved place in the most prestigious art collections.

As a photographer I often ponder on what I would like to achieve through my photography. It is a constant exercise which I find very important to the production of my work. As I look back at the history of photography and art it clearly transpires that photographers, more than any other artist, cannot be judged by a single photograph, but by their life’s work and the concept behind their creations. If we look at the greatest names of 20th century photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams, to mention a few, we keep stumbling into patterns. These photographers did not just take photographs. They followed a vision, a concept which drove their life. Photography was their way of interpreting this vision.

It is this vision that makes a photographer more than just a person with a camera, and it is the ability to interpret this vision into images which move and transport the viewer that make that photographer stand out from the crowd and become great. How we interpret our vision is irrelevant. It is the vision itself that is relevant and the will and skill to bring that vision to light. As I develop as a photographer, it also becomes clearer that vision must be strived for. We are not born with a concept in mind – it is something that comes through a constant journey of self-discovery. This journey has only a beginning and no destination. Its path is only dictated by the next step.

My personal journey has until now taken me into a number of directions – architecture, street photography and abstract to mention a few. Each of these directions has been fuelled by curiosity, passion, belief and opinion. It is these convictions and traits that give artists the extra dimension that makes their work remarkable, and allows their vision to permeate onto the viewer. While artistic discovery is a very personal voyage, its final purpose is to externalise what is within the artist, and therefore shared with the world. Photography, I find, is an ideal medium to achieve this.  It is difficult to beat the feeling of being shown what is seen every day and not recognise it. Photography is the link between all this – no other artistic medium can claim such an intimate relationship with reality while holding control over its interpretation.

Coming to think about it, it’s quite a natural thing. The effort that goes into preparing for a project or exhibition, when done well, is totally draining. It takes away all your physical and mental energy. To top it off, there’s that constant nagging feeling of incompletion which I am sure most artists out there will be familiar with. Then the day arrives, it’s a success (hopefully)… and suddenly it’s all over. Instead, there’s void. It’s quite a nasty feeling – not knowing where to go next, not really wanting to do anything for a while, and above all, no idea when it will be over. Then there’s also the knowledge that next time around you’ll have to do better than this, which in itself is quite intimidating.

After “Inheritance”, I was inevitably dragged into it once again. The project took up a lot of time and energy, and together with some other things, was a total energy-drainer. There is little which can be done apart from just riding through it, trying to “enjoy” that moment of mental quietness. It is also probably quite healthy, since I am pretty sure that force would most likely result in mediocrity. Eventually the ideas and enthusiasm start flowing back.

Since a short while now I have been thinking of new projects to work on, and have homed onto one or two interesting things. My process tends to take a while, with a few projects sprouting out and eventually converging or focussing onto one. I have some work I’ve been wanting to work on and I think that it is now mature enough to form a collection in itself, and I’m quite enjoying it.

Of course, I speak this way because I have the advantage that I am not relying on art as my main source of income. I can imagine it’s much tougher for the professional artist who needs to create a steady stream of work. I have gone through periods whereby I’ve yearned to do this as a full time job but now I realise that for the moment this is the best place to be. Having the freedom to work on something or stay put for a while is quite stress-relieving, although I can also think of a few disadvantages to that, including slower evolution and longer “recovery time”. In any case, art for me is an escape, and it can only be an escape if you want to go there rather than have to go there. That’s how I would like it to remain for now.

In the meantime, I’ve also put up the work from Inheritance. You can also see the whole set here.

[View with PicLens]

Let me wind back a few months, to that fantastic evening in mid-October that started it all. The preparations for the Inheritance Exhibition were now almost ready, and the plan was to start setting up on Monday 18th October. In the meantime, just to make sure I’m totally snowed under, I dreamt up submitting an architectural panel for a fellowship (FMIPP) qualification. It was a tough one, not only due to the excruciatingly high standards, but also because I was doing this while juggling a 6-piece strong exhibition on a shoestring budget which would be open in three days time. I vowed I would keep my cool in the run-up to the qualifications, and being on some of the judging panels helped me keep my nerves in check, however inevitably the butterflies came, multiplied, and made a havoc of my stomach while I was sitting there waiting for the verdict.

It turns out it wasn’t such a bad idea after all, and I must say that the excitement was great when the judges said yes. I now happen to be the youngest Fellow in Malta, and one of the youngest in the UK, which is quite flattering. I also got interviewed for the SWPP magazine, which is quite nice!

Still reeling from this great news, I joined my family to set up the Inheritance exhibition the following Monday. I was very wary on the way it would be received, since “traditional photography” went somewhat straight out of the window with this exhibition. To my surprise, there was an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the exhibition. People were very pleased – dad’s work was an overwhelming success mostly due to his very original style which greatly pleased a more mature audience, while Carlo’s work and mine mostly appealed to the younger generation.

Over the next few weeks, we organised events, and in general kept ourselves very busy promoting the exhibition. In the end it seemed like a great success, and overall achieved our goal of showing how the same, seemingly restrictive, medium can be used in very different ways. I am glad to have spent all the time and energy to do this.

However that’s not all. Rupert Cefai, a fellow artist and friend, had approached me in September with a proposal to set up a small art gallery in Valletta. This had been a topic we had explored ad infinitum during our various conversations over the years, so it didn’t take much effort to delve into it. Over the next few months, Rupert worked on converting this totally run-down room into a great (albeit small) space where our work and that of other artists could be displayed. Gallery Pi opened in December, and again, I am glad to say that the space has been very well received, and we have had some very positive feedback. There is still loads to do, but the enthusiasm is strong and we’re hoping this project will grow into something which will become a mark in the local art scene.

Up next, I’ll be delivering a couple of presentations in the UK for the SWPP conference in London, which is pretty exciting stuff! I am sure it will be a fun experience and I am very much looking forward to it.

If this year stays on the same positive trend as last year, I think there will be quite a lot to write about (and very little time to do so). In the meantime, I’ve uploaded some new photos from the inheritance exhibition and the fellowship panel. Enjoy!

[View with PicLens]

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So here we are – more than a year since we began preparations, and over 2 years since we conceived the idea, we’re ready to open the floodgates. The exhibition has been up and running for a few days now, and we have had some very positive feedback, but the big deal will be tomorrow at the official opening.

Today we have been featured on The Times of Malta with a great article which can also be found online here. Let us hope this is merely the beginning of a string of similar features!

For those who have missed it, the exhibition opening will happen tomorrow, Friday 22nd October, at 7:30pm at the Auberge d’Italie, Merchants Street, Valletta.

Children’s Photowalk

On Saturday 23rd in the morning, we will also be hosting a short photowalk for kids in Valletta. We will be giving the children (between 8 and 14) a personalised tour of the exhibition, and then take them for a stroll around Valletta to take some photos. If you are interested, please drop me a note and come along on Saturday at 10am latest at the Auberge. Children below 12 should be accompanied by a guardian. It should be fun.

This exhibition, however, is different. It is the result of a long and leisurely project which I have thoroughly enjoyed working on. No work is staged, and all is the result of images captured live during a number of milonga sessions. It gave me the opportunity to learn and appreciate the culture of Tango, and the time to digest it and develop the images over several months.

The exhibition will feature 7 artists using different media, and although I have as yet seen very few of the works, I am confident that some very interesting concepts have evolved during this period.

Below is the banner for the event. If you would like to attend the opening, feel free to contact me to request an invite.

Tektika Tango Exhibition Banner (Click to view in full)

We all know what reality is, or do we? In reality (no pun intended) it is very much not what we think it is. Or actually, it is what we think, not what it is. Reset for a moment. Let us think. In actual fact, we don’t know what is out there. We only know what we perceive as being out there. For all we know, the guy next to us might be perceiving something entirely different. The reality remains the same. The perception is subjective.

This is what makes everything so interesting – as a photographer, that is. While we are capturing the same reality, we know that what we see is not what others see, or at least, we don’t know what others see – we just know what we see (and even that is debatable). What results from this is an exciting barage of opportunity for interpretation. As artists using the medium of photography as an interpretative medium, it is our duty to ‘document’ reality as we see it, and present it to others to see, interpret and distort into whatever their own reality is. It very much feels like a machine which takes something, and through various stages of processing produces something totally different. We don’t know what will be produced, and since the last stage of processing is through the eyes of the viewer, the end result is always different. That is exciting.

So what do we make out of all this? What I personally think is that when viewed from this perspective, photography becomes a very powerful medium of interpretation. No wonder it was the medium of choice for many surrealists. If we look at the greatest artists, particularly from the last century, it is clear that they have all realised this, and spent their lifetime exploring the concept in their own way. The identification and development of this and other concepts is one of those things which I believe demarcate the distinction between a photographer and an artist.

By all means, this concept is nothing new. There just seem to be moments in a person’s life when certain things just become clear – those important moments of realisation, which help us evolve and better ourselves.

So that’s another tick on the list.

Thousands of images were received from 68 countries worldwide. The awards international Jury included captains of the industry from Magnum Photos, The Armory Show, Fratelli Alinari, Contrasto to Tate and Hamiltons in London who honored Spider Fellows with 84 coveted title awards in 28 categories. The judges reviewed the entries online for eight weeks before making their final nominations and Sergio’s “Just One Coin,” an exceptional image entered in the Photojournalism category, received a high percentage of votes overall.

“The Spider Awards celebrates photographers who operate at the highest levels of their craft,” said Basil O’Brien, the awards Creative Director. “Sergio’s work represents black and white photography at its finest, and we’re pleased to present him with the title of Nominee.”

You can view the 5th Annual Winners Gallery at http://bit.ly/aHUOUS

More black and white images may be viewed at http://bit.ly/cMTlGY

BLACK AND WHITE SPIDER AWARDS is the leading international award honouring excellence in black and white photography. This celebrated event shines a spotlight on the best professional and amateur photographers worldwide and honours the finest images with the highest achievements in black and white photography.

I brought with me a very famous book on photography (indeed aptly named ‘on photography’, written in the 1970′s by Susan Sontag). It is very well written and does have some truly inspiring words. It is clear that the writer had a passion for photography and spent long hours researching the content. As I read through it I find (rather disappointingly) that most of what she wrote is still very valid today, more than 30 years later. Has photography stagnated so much that we are still rummaging on the same ideas photographers created more than a quarter of a century ago? Many things have happened since then. Many photographers have come and gone, and left their mark. But is it a significant mark in the history of photography? Somehow I have my doubts. It is true, photography has changed, especially since the digital revolution, but I somehow don’t feel that photographers have changed too. Maybe I’m missing something but possibly the same fact that I’m missing it means it isn’t significant enough. I worry that maybe we’ve arrived to a stage where photography has come to the end of it’s development and it’s now about running around in circles effectively flogging a dead horse. Susan Sontag does mention it briefly in her book. Maybe she was right already 30 years ago.

I however refuse to believe this is entirely correct (although I’ve seen enough bad photography to believe this is not entirely incorrect either). I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I did. I might not be the key to the new generation of photography, but I guess every helping hand counts. I believe the key is in the way we perceive photography. Many perceive good photography as being equivalent to technically correct photography. While this may sometimes be a part of what good photography is, it is a very shallow view, and mostly a detrimental one. Again we have to take a step back and rethink in what context we are viewing photography in the first place. If we are looking at photography purely for photography’s sake – that is, just as a means of capturing something out there – then we are viewing photography as a craft, and in that sense, technique is certainly a pretty large part of the success of a photograph. If, however, we want to view photography as an art form, then the picture changes completely. First of all, the focus shifts away from photography per se, and moves onto the artist. This is a key element, and cannot be stressed enough. We need to start viewing photography as the means to an end rather than the end per se. It is an artistic medium which the artist chooses to make use of to achieve his or her goal, and not the goal itself. Secondly we need to shift our view away from the individual photograph and onto the bigger picture. The value of an artist’s work is the concept, and how it is presented. Judging an artist by looking at one piece of work is akin to judging a novel by reading one paragraph. While one piece of work can give an idea of the skill of the artists, and while some works tend to be remebered more, and may eventually become representative of the artist, it is the whole body of work of the artist that defines him or her. The body of work of artists is the translation of their values, thoughts and beliefs into something physical, and every part of that body needs to be viewed with the whole concept in mind. If we look at the greatest artists (including photographers) of the past century, it becomes clear that whatever they did was centred around a concept or passion they had, and which they represented through their life and through their work.

Art has changed greatly throughout the past decades, and if we are to understand art in the way it deserves to be, we must first of all remove preconceptions about artistic media, and then start asking the right questions when viewing a work of art. It is certainly not about aesthetics, and whether this would look nice hanging in the room with the new persian rug, but about the connection which the work creates with the concept, and eventually, with the artist.

During the year, I became ever more involved in the local photography scene, and helped the MIPP, one of the local photography organisations, to get through a pretty tough year after some radical changes. It was hard work but greatly inspiring. I can now start giving back some of what I have received, helping those who love photography immerse themselves into the art.

Throughout this period I was working on a new set of architecture images which eventually were presented for the Associate qualification. I was greatly encouraged by the judges’ comments which I will treasure for a long time to come. This was a goal I needed to achieve, and it helped me gain more confidence in my abilities.

I am now ready to move to the next step – a step further into the direction of art. It is important for the artistic community to understand that photography is not about creating technically perfect images. Photography is just another medium for the expression of art. It is a very particular medium in itself. It is a tool which allows us to manipulate reality, and show only what we want to show, the way we want to show it. No wonder it was, and still is, a favourite medium for the surrealists. When looking at a photograph, viewers cannot help but associating what they see with what they know, and that is a very strong manipulative tool in the hands of the artist. It takes time to master this technique of distorting reality, but when we manage, the whole world flips upside down. It becomes a dream – rooted in reality, but free of reality’s constraints. I look forward with excitement to the moment I will manage to master that. This is the path I will be taking throughout the coming years.

This coming year, I also plan to participate in some exhibitions. It is time to expose myself once again to the world. I will be doing this through a few collaborative exhibitions – at least that is the plan. I will not reveal details as yet, since they are still on the drawing board, however I can say that there will be some experimentation involved.

The coming year promises to be a very exciting one ahead. I plan to make it so. I have been encouraged greatly throughout the past years, and it is thanks to this continuous encouragement and support that I am able to keep ploughing through. So I keep ploughing through – one day there will be a harvest to collect.

Finally, I wish you all a successful year ahead, full of joy, success and unrestrained creativity.

Without taking anything away from other printing techniques, which are still very good, I remain firmly of the idea that inkjet technology is the future of fine art printing, and possibly even of commercial printing eventually. The technology continues developing in leaps and bounds, and there is a great deal of investment being poured into research for inks, papers and printing technologies. Within a few years, we will all be doing our own printing at home. And the quality will be great.

Moving just a few positions down the list, we find possibly one of the most famous female American photographers, who made her mark photographing people at the edge of society. Diane Arbus’s popularity may have been boosted through the recent cinematic interpretation by Nicole Kidman of the eccentric photographer, however, one still needs to recognise that she has certainly given a valid contribution to the world the documentation of an aspect of society which was at the time an unexplored taboo.

Cindy Sherman, at 50th place, has certainly got a unique style of photography. Since she was young, she has turned the camera onto herself, making her by far the main theme of her work. However, she definitely is not into self portraits. Her work is an elaborately made up scene, with one of her characters usually being the subject of the image. To create these, she uses high tech tools such as make-up, prosthetics, and digital scenography.  “Sherman uses herself as a vehicle for commentary on a variety of issues of the modern world: the role of the woman, the role of the artist and many more” (ref).

After a considerable gap, we find one of America’s “witnesses of change”. Alfred Stieglitz was there when America changed – when New York transformed itself into an economic giant booming with skyscrapers. His documentation of this change as it was happening is a priceless treasure to humanity. His fellow photographer, Edward Steichen described his work as “like none ever made by any other photographer.” His work also included a number of portraits, most famous are the ones of Georgia O’Keeffe, who was both his wife and a great artist in her own right – in fact she can be found in this same list at the 40th position. Stieglitz was one of the most passionate photographers of the beginning of the century, and he is recognised not only for his photography, but also for the extensive work he has done towards bringing photography to the forefront of the artistic community.

At position 114, we find the most expensive photographer of the moment – Andreas Gursky. He is best known for his enormous prints, sometimes in the form of collages and usually with a very wide point of view. He mainly treats cityscapes and landscapes, although his work is certainly very distinguishing from the work we are accustomed to in these fields. His use of repetitive patterns, combined with the sheer size of his prints, tend to create a sense of dwarfing in the viewer, and thus the complimentary sense of awe towards the images themselves. Andreas Gursky holds the record for the highest selling single print at auction – his print 99 cent II sold for $3,346,456, in February 2007 at a Sotheby’s Auction!

One might be surprised to see a photojournalist in a list of well known artists. However, coming to think of it, photojournalism is in itself a form of art, when the photojournalist treats it as such – and Weegee certainly did. It is the ability to make a statement and portray reality with impact that distinguishes the artist from the photjournalist who simply conveys what everyone else sees. It is also one of the most difficult and challenging of all photographic fields, so by all means, this is art. And Weegee was damn good at it. His work did not only centre around photojournalism. He created a series of portraits using lens distortions, which he called caricatures. “While Weegee’s intent was simply to photograph ‘the soul of the city I knew and loved,’ his unflinching eye set the trend for young, edgy photographers in the 1960s, most notably Diane Arbus who was a great admirer.” (ref)

Finally, we arrive to one of photography’s greatest contributors in terms of written technical knowledge. Ansel Adams remains an inspiration to this day, although in the digital world, things have changed a little. He was also an avid conservationist and a protector of nature – his greatest passion and the subject of the majority of his work. His prints are a total joy to view, and are still very difficultly rivaled by today’s photographers, even though things are arguably much easier with today’s technology. He was a master of the technique, and a pioneer who laid the ground for most of us who followed.

But what is it that makes these photographers stand out amongst the crowd? What is it that makes them artists? These are questions which have got many answers (or none at all). Every one of us will have a personal opinion and definition of art. I certainly subscribe to the philosophy that ”not all artists are artists”, although a comprehensive description of art is somehow difficult to come by, possibly due to its very subjective nature. The best description I have come across is very simple, yet powerful and meaningful. “Art has something to say,” puts all these names, together with the others in the list, into a new perspective. One can easily understand that these artists had something new to offer to the world, whether it be a political statement, the exploration of a new technique, or a recurring emotion. They are all artists who in some way or another left their mark in the world and the artistic community. They all inspired successive generations of artists, and some of them inspired also their contemporaries.

Many people look at photography as a craft – something to use for mainly commercial purposes. However, it is clear that these people have used photography as their chosen means to express their art. Cindy Sherman, for example, started studying painting, but turned to photography because she found it a better and more effective medium to convey what she wanted to express. Turning full circle, however, we end up back at the photographer – it is the photographer who needs to consider him or herself an artist before anyone else will. As photographers, we must decide what we have to say, and then use photography to say it. This is obviously easier said than done. I, for one, struggle often to find a direction, and I am starting to think that I never will really stop looking for one. Then again, that is how artists evolve, isn’t it? All I know is that I need to keep looking. Although it can sometimes feel like an impossible task, it helps to read about these great artists, and how difficult their struggle often was. It puts things into perspective.

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media_collection/6/PGP%20232.1.jpg

The nominated image is one of my first works to be exhibited, and is entitled “Beach Shop”. The image portrays the common and generally unnoticed as glamorous and imposing, creating an impact through the realisation that whilst most of us have seen this or similar scenes before, we never really gave it such importance. Beauty is also in the simple things, and it is up to the photographer to realise this and portray it.

Today, everything has changed. Commercial labs have taken over the photographic printing business. I am not surprised by this, of course. This is all about economies of scale, and the fact that the photographic process has become more commercial than artistic, and it is not worth while for some photographers to do their own printing. It doesn’t pay, so they don’t do it, and rightly so. When I began my adventure in photography, I used to find the cheapest option to produce my prints, I used to order them from the UK or print them locally. I obviously had my reasons, which essentially was the fact that I wasn’t selling anything, so my actions were somehow justified.

Next up came the first exhibition. I realised this was now a totally different ball game. When participating in an exhibition, one has to produce something that is sellable, and that others will view as being of high enouh quality to buy. I realised that attention to detail and perfection were of the essence, and I needed as much control as possible on the final product. The simple fact is that I never got it. I spent days at the printer’s to try and get results which were identical to what I had designed originally,  but that never came. Having no alternative, I produced the best possible results I could achieve, and stuck to them. Thankfully the result was still pleasing and the exhibition was a success.

It was then that I realised that commercial laboratories would never be able to give me the results I needed. By this I do not mean that commercial labs are crap, but simply that the machines they use have their limitations in terms of resolution, and especially in terms of tonality depth. I wasn’t worried much about colour prints, because they can be reproduced relatively faithfully, but black and white is next to impossible to reproduce to a level which could rival hand-printed black and white.

It is now clear to me how important it is to have full control of the process, and the reason is very simple. In today’s world, photography is made of digital files. Negatives and slides are slowly fading away (and those that remain, still get scanned anyway). The raw file is not really tangible, and is certainly not something that can be purchased (in the sense of a unique entity, such as a negative). In painting, sculpture, etc, what you work on is what the client purchases, and it stops there. In photography, you work on something intangible, and then can only sell the “reproduction” of that work, which is the print. Therefore, the client, or viewer, is really only concerned with the final, tangible, sellable product, which is the print. It simply makes no sense to have full control over the entire process from capture to edit, and then relinquish it during the final stage, at the point where the intangible becomes tangible. This is where inkjet technology comes into play.

Today’s darkrooms have been converted into lightrooms, and the printing methodology has changed completely. I had already seen some work produced using fine art inkjet printers during the time spent helping my uncle set up his exhibition, and the results were astounding. Unfortunately, I had a very hard time finding somewhere or someone able to produce fine art inkjet (or, as I’ve seen it being mentioned, “pigment on paper”) prints, so I had to dig into my not-so-deep pockets and get myself a printer. Again, this turned out to be an incredible headache, as I had suspected. Very few companies import large format fine art printers here in Malta, since nobody had ever purchased them. I was initially looking towards the HP Z-Series, which gained very positive reviews and were only recently put on the market. These were way too expensive, though, and I could not afford the cost. I immediately ruled out the Epson printers, which at the time could only house either matte or glossy black, and one needed to swap inks at great cost and wastage. This issue has now been resolved with the next generation of printers, and I have read very positive reviews from pros that use them.

Finally, I opted for the Canon iPF6100 which had received very good reviews, and comes with the best support out of any of its competitors, here in Malta. I’ve been printing work on the printer for quite some time now, and I can say that it is brilliant. It takes experimentation to get things right, particularly for black and white, however now that I got used to it, I can say that it produces incredible results, with fantastic tonalities and incredible detail. Mind you, it has got its defects which are sometimes irritating and fustrating, however its good points definitely outweigh its bad ones.

I finally feel in control of the artistic process. I have the advantage of being able to print on a variety of papers, including fibre-based photo paper, art paper, cotton-rag, etc. The best papermills, such as Hahnemuehle and Museo, all produce a range of papers for fine art printing. These papers can be quite expensive, but they produce stunning results, and incredible light-fastness, which according to research institutes, can surpass that of traditional prints.

Today, most fine art photographers have moved into pigment-on-paper prints, since the technology has advanced enough to be able to compete with the results obtained through traditional darkroom printing. It is a natural match for the photographic artist working in the digital age, and it is well worth the trouble and cost it entails. I know I will never look back, because now I can stand firm by my work and say “I have produced these, from start to finish”.

I have recently been involved in a very interesting project, which I will not reveal details of as yet (suspense!). What I can say is that it was a challenge, since, like most other things, the theme has been visited quite often. In these cases (and not only), is way too easy to fall into cliches and two-dimensionality, when on the other hand we want to engage the viewers and invite them to delve into the photograph – to feel part of it.

Although the theme might be brimming with emotion, as is this case, it is still challenging to find a way to strip off the “excess”, leaving only the bare essentials in the image. I speak on a personal level, however I am pretty sure that any photographer would be hard pressed to achieve this. The medium being photography is also another limit. I wanted to try to achieve my goal on-site, and not in post processing, since I felt that in this particular case, it was a little bit like cheating. I have absolutely no issues processing my photography until it has very little to do with what it looked like originally, however in this case, I felt that I should be true to the moment, which obviously made the whole exercise even harder.

I do not know whether I have achieved my goal. That is something which is up to the viewers to judge, however I can say that I am quite satisfied with the results. The theme in question involves movement (that’s quite a hint), so it was clear that I needed to portray that, since in the end, it is the subtleties in the motion, and the interaction between the participants that makes the image, and not the people itself. I searched for details in expressions, movements, sequences – trying to identify the subtleties that externalise the emotions which are being exchanged.

By now it might be clearer what the theme revolves around, however I will simply conclude with a couple of images. I will add more as they materialise. Comments, as always, are more than welcome.

[View with PicLens]

Looking back at these images, I can see the way the idea developed, from capturing the bigger picture, to a detail, and finally to a purely conceptual level, which although containing nothing much which is recognisable, still conveys the mood and emotion of the moment – or at least, that’s the intention. Each of these images has got its own value in my mind, and I am not stating that any one is better than the others. As it happens, however, a concept takes shape across time, leaving its milestones along the way. Each of them are equally important in order to reach the destination, if after all there is one to be reached.

]]> http://sergiomuscat.com/2009/04/21/uncovering-the-emotion/feed/ 1 http://sergiomuscat.com/2009/04/16/the-power-of-a-fresh-mind/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://sergiomuscat.com/2009/04/16/the-power-of-a-fresh-mind/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:13:17 +0000 admin http://sergiomuscat.com/?p=155 I take many photos. A good number of them will never see the light of day, however I discard very few photos outright, for a very simple reason. Every photograph I take is associated with a memory, an emotion. When I look at my work, it evokes the memory or emotion associated with that shot, and that is similarly what I look to achieve in those who look at my work. Being the person who lived that emotion in the first place, however, puts me in an awkward situation, since it is difficult to judge the strength of an image in its own right when the emotion or memory is fresh in mind. I very often tend to look at my work at a distance of weeks, months or even years. I tend to go through them various times at different time lapses, and it surprises me how every time I seem to find something I had previously overlooked. The images I pick tend to vary according to the mood I am in at the moment, or the final objective I have in mind at the time. I was recently going through the images I had taken of Rome (still my absolute favourite place – more about it soon), and I came across an image which reminded me of Leonardo Da Vinci’s codex on the flight of birds. The codex is a brilliant piece of work, a treasure to humanity and the work of an undeniable genius of his time. This photo is but a humble tribute to the man who changed art and science forever.

I must admit that for some time I did fall into the machine-gun trap, but eventually I realised that the more I fired away, the less the quality of the output. It is not easy to hold back your finger from the trigger and force a thought process before taking a photograph. It is even tougher when you are capturing things which exist only for a split second.

Alas, the bottom line is that all this is just an excuse – a comfortable scapegoat for those who do not want to admit that, in the end, the only ones to blame for the state in which photography is today, are the photographers themselves. Photography lost its art simply because ph0tographers stopped being artists. Let us be honest – photography has transformed itself into a craft – and sometimes, to my utter disgust, not even that. The result is that those few remaining artists out there who use photography as their medium get the cold shoulder.

It is a long, tough road ahead. There is still a great deal of talent which can emerge and hit the art scene like a ton of bricks, but the change must start from within. There needs to be a deep-rooted cultural change, and it must start from those photographers who have been practicing for years, and who are well established. Unfortunately, I am afraid that some of these have today become “unrecoverable”, however, some have the capability within to rise to the challenge.

Whether they are willing to make the effort, is a totally different story.

My father is a photographer. It is the only thing he has done since he was 14, and I can say he’s pretty darn good at it. But it was his work, he had been doing it for over 40 years, had been disillusioned by this island’s aversion to change and new things, and ended up hating it. I could never dare follow in his footsteps. I was directed towards the sciences, which I did enjoy thoroughly. Today, I understand that they fascinated me because of the workings of nature, and when I chose to move into IT, it was because I was fascinated by the creative aspect, and the control it gives you over the creative detail.

I had always been playing with cameras, since I was a kid, and a little more seriously since I was 16 and got my first Minolta SLR. During university photography took second stage, but the key moment arrived shortly after graduation, when I decided it was time I tried digital. There came a day in my life, when I realised that I could express myself,  communicate through a photograph. At that point, it wasn’t photography any longer. It was art. The medium takes second stage – the end justifies the means. Finally, what you use to achieve your goal is irrelevant – in my case, it was simply the fact that I felt comfortable within this medium; it fit in with my character, and my existent skill set.

It took a few years, and a lot of experiments gone wrong, to get to a point where technique took second stage, but it it something which every artist should achieve. I learn new things every day, and will do so for the rest of my life, but these are simply new tools which are used to achieve what I want. I am no photography guru – far from it. Coming to think of it, one of the key difference between an artist and a craftsman is that the artists learn what they need to achieve what they want, while the craftsmen achieve what they need with what they know. It is “the end justifies the means” vs “the means justify the end”.

This brings to mind an eternal battle which is raging all over the Internet (and beyond, if there any such thing), between the “film” and “digital”. This brings me back to my point. There is no such thing as film or digital. There is photography, or actually, there is just art. I would use film if I thought that it would bet the right medium for me to create what I needed. Until now, digital has served me well, but who knows what will boil up in my brain tomorrow?