Christopher Handran

lux

2008-11-06T22:56:00.001-08:00

For the series lux, images from my past (including family photographs and personal snapshots) were faded into a variety of surfaces and objects that are also drawn from my past, such as book covers, boxes, cardboard, coloured paper, diaries, plastic objects and gift wrapping. This process of fading occurs simply through prolonged exposure (in some cases over several months) to sunlight. That is to say, rather than ink or emulsion applied to the objects, the image is faded into the surface itself. Produced purely through the action of light, the continued exposure of the works to light threatens to fade the image out, rendering them fugitive images.

imokyrok (double portrait) 2007 book covers

Sydney 2000 2006 book cover

London notes 2007 post-it notes, coloured card

time motion studies

2007-07-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

2006

type C photographs

50 x 40 cm

The series time motion studies emulates the early photographic studies of Eadward Muybridge and Jules Etienne Marey, recording the passage of a body through space. The photograph was taken from my point of view as I moved and the exposure was determined by the amount of time it took to travel a particular distance – for example up an escalator or down a flight of stairs. In the resulting overexposure, movement is rendered as faint traces within an almost white field.

instamatic

2007-07-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

2004-2010

video

instamatic is an ongoing video project, in which small, low-resolution digital still cameras (such as keychain cameras) are used to produce moving image snapshots. The traces of the equipment as it translates or ‘processes’ the imagery are part of the work; like a digital pencil of nature, shifting pixels take on the prosaic qualities of dappled light, rustling leaves or a gentle breeze.

untitled snapshots

2007-07-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

2002-5
type C photographs
50 x 40 cm

The ongoing series untitled snapshots utilises an ordinary plastic snapshot camera with its shutter removed to photograph moments from my everyday life. This intervention makes the exposure time dependent on my reflexes rather than on the mechanics of the camera, and renders the act of taking a photograph akin to physically grasping at the moment. This is an ongoing work, with hundreds of images in the series so far.

happy birthday to me

2007-07-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

2007
type C photographs
50 x 40 cm

Every year on our birthday, my family would go through an annual ritual of having our photograph taken gathered around the birthday cake. Looking back at these images, they afford an amusing archive of growing up. For happy birthday to me, I re-photographed photographs taken on my own birthdays, in a related manner to the series detail. Here, the macro lens was created using rubber bouncey balls – the fragmentary images that result appear to be in the midst of emerging or disappearing, indecipherable from close up and barely discernible from afar.

detail

2007-07-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

2002-2008

type C photographs

50 x 80 cm

For the ongoing series detail, I used a lens made from cheap plastic magnifying glasses to re-photograph details from existing photographs. These included family snapshots, found photos, advertising and media imagery, generic photographs produced for photo frames and photography manuals. Re-photographed using my makeshift macro lens, the image fragments are presented as if drawn from the same narrative, with a soft focus that suggests nostalgia and the vagaries of memory. There are approximately 100 images in the series.