windows and mirrors

Chair

Wish you were here.

The Mirror and Window analogy offers a valuable framework for analysing and questioning a practitioner’s perspective. Applying this concept to images allows us to uncover additional, often hidden layers of meaning and examine artistic intentions. However, I consider photography as a two-way mirror, facilitating a conversation, an open dialogue

My practice explores the human condition, and the abstract nature of my subject means I often steer away from literal imagery. I employ interdisciplinary methods; collage, layers, paint, and text, to holistically capture human experience. Here, the concepts of windows and mirrors merge. I increasingly find the deeper I explore my subject matter through my practice the more my personal responses become embedded and intertwined within the work. This could be due to the secondary nature of the process. It could be argued that I objectively shoot an image and overlay, adapt, edit it with my response condensing the two to a singular frame.

When examining other practitioner’s images, I find that alongside their objectivity, the window aspect, I am compelled to ask questions like: What does the practitioner want me to see? Why this particular moment or event? Why this perspective? These inquiries alter my response, allowing me to experience the work in a two-way stream of intention.

Recognizing both the subjective, personal reflections "mirrors" and the objective, direct representations "windows" is important for a deeper reading of images. By applying this concept, we can uncover hidden layers and question artistic intentions. Some practitioners lean heavily towards one side of the lens, while others create an engaging challenge by balancing both aspects.

In my projects, I often see my images as invitations to a conversation. Rather than controlling this dialogue, I am more interested in the viewer’s individual response, whether it’s to connect, find empathy, or provoke thought.  

During research for my previous projects, I explored the subject of photo-therapy. Jo Spence and Rosy Martin noted that a photograph can serve as a transitional space (2003:408), safely allowing exploration of subject matter and experience from a distance. This creates a duality, where the image is both objective and reflective. Langue describes all photography as self-portraiture, describing an element of empathy a photographer needs to adopt, in order to represent “Rather than acknowledge, he embraces; rather than perform, he responds.” (1952). I also notice that the act of taking a photograph involves selecting, editing, and personally responding at the singular moment of pressing the shutter.

Separating the window and mirror, considering and understanding the difference in contemporary photography is an invaluable tool. I find it interesting and challenging to examine images from both sides of this concept.

REFERENCES

Dorothea Lange, daniel D. (no date) Photographing the familiar: Aperture: Fall 1952, Aperture. Available at: https://archive.aperture.org/article/1952/2/2/photographing-the-familiar (Accessed: 27 May 2024).

Martin, R. and Spence, J. (no date) ‘Photo-therapy’, in. 2003:408