Though once revolutionary state-of-the-art tools, in their current state these cameras are relatively obsolete and nostalgic.
I took the photographs of a camera collection in the Malibu canyon with natural light and the latest digital camera. In my digital darkroom, I painted, colorized, and added Photoshop filters as well as retro photography graphic elements to emphasize the nostalgia these cameras often illicit. Then Fuji C-prints are made and mounted with a protective lamination coating. The photographic prints fused to the tool-of-the-trade light boxes is a reversal, full circle, reversed-engineered concept art, camera light boxes. This art is also available as limited edition prints 20×16″ and large mixed media art pieces.
I exhibit this work to speak to an equivalency as well as an utter contrast with the smart-phone camera photography. And am honoring the incidental beauty of the equipment in these images as messengers of replaced technology by making material photographic prints.
Within the camERA photographs there is a momento moreé, a ghostly figure of the photographer, a self-portrait. The images speak to the presence of the photographer, authenticating the inadvertent self-portraits.
Once prime technology and the center of creativity, the mid-century rangefinder cameras are rendered as contemporary photography. My consistent original, photo-based pop art style is exemplified in this series. I have pioneered the controversial digital art as fine art and photography.
Conceptual thread through all my series: junkyard cars, antique typewriters, mid-century cameras and radios is the equivalency and utter contrast between the analog media of industrial and digital ages. My work has a philosophical anxiety producing component by the image of this sentimental first camera or car or writing machine turned into a colorful contemporary art.
