Le-donner-à-voir, essay
Concept & bookdesign
For years I have been photographing, mainly staged photography, using strategies that were never made explicit. Hence, the investigation I undertook. By coincidence I ran into David Campany's book about Jeff Wall's iconic photograph Picture for Women and it inspired me to take a closer look at my own methods. My purpose is twofold. I try to describe the process of image-making, i.e. how an image is conceived and the methods for creating it. And secondly I try to describe the nature of a singular picture or selfcontained picture within the photographic medium. My research, in both words and images, touches on the very core of what William Mitchell calls a metapicture .
The unifying theme of my investigation is a comparison between the above mentioned image Picture for Women and the famous Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez. Both images made a strong impression on me. These are two singular images which are found to be metapictures and also bear several similarities. What Campany writes on Picture for Women is surprisingly easily applied to the more than three hundred year old painting of Velazquez (provided a number of adjustments).
This lead me to a certain strategic dissection of the metapicture in both my investigation and in my photographic practice. Throughout my investigation I kept an account in order to have a feedback during the performance of my research in the improvised photo studio. This investigation demonstrates partly the impossibility to capture and to seize and even to understand images. A certain limited understanding of how images evolve and of strategies to get satisfying images was obtained, but the question of why certain images work is not answered at all.
The title Le-donner-à-voir is derived from the improper use of a term that Kaja Silverman uses in connection with her essay about Cindy Sherman: given-to-be-seen. I do hope my words and images may become a donner à voir, i.e. that they are able to transfer and display something to see, to ponder and to enjoy for she or he who bears a love for images.
