Objectivity


"I believe that photography loves banal objects, and I love the life of objects."

Josef Sudek


The images here celebrate and explore the secret life of inanimate objects. In German they would be called still-stehende sache, things standing still, in French nature reposée, things at rest. Such terms imply that these objects, once in motion, have merely paused to present themselves to the camera. Even so we may call them inanimate objects but equally still life, hinting at a secret existence beyond our view.

The valuable and the valueless, prized possessions and detritus equally jostle for attention. Here we can gaze at the overlooked and make no judgement as to their worth. Each object asserts the fact of it's being and says "Here I am and this is how I look photographed".

What invisible quality qualified them for selection? Why this object and not that? Was it just for their looks? Is there really no more than meets the eye?

Still nothing in a photograph is ever quite itself. A pipe is forever not a pipe. These objects have become merely shadows, an arrangement of light and dark on a surface.

The rest is silence.


Banality

Seen and Heard