And I had to write a Description of Practice

Believing that there is no such thing as a coincidence I have crossed my fingers and put in a dossier for a Masterclass with Gregory Crewdson.


I had to write a "Description of Practice", here it is now, I hope it doesn't sound too...


Dear Selection Panel Members,


Photography is a vital part of my daily life.  With it I write my own stories.  I collect images, take them, develop them, scan them and index them, give them key words, and move them around from one selection to another.  Through Photography I ponder upon where I am, I look at where I have been and try to imagine to where it is that I am going.


I practice photography because I need to, because I love the medium, for all of its subtleties and contradictions.  I find that the questions posed by photography and the objects it engenders escape beautifully solid definition allowing and encouraging processes of thorough, deep, and I believe important questioning.


The photographic experience is one that is hard to define in words.  I have stood before photographic works looking for the words that express my reactions to them, I have seen others, seasoned pedagogues and commentators rubbing their fingers together, waving their hands around as they blubber banalities in search for something to express their reaction to a photographic work.  Perhaps one of the most effective dialogues I have seen about photography and the visual arts at large is contained in the publication 272 pages, an extremely refreshing and original dialogue between German artist Hans Peter Feldmann and Hans Ulrich Obrist presenting the works of Hans Peter Feldmann.


I am interested in what it is that images can say.   I am amazed by the myriad of links that are attached invisibly to each and every photographic object and the power that they have to form all sorts of connections.  Using these connections I explore my place in this world, be it by looking into the past at images that I have not taken but which have ended up for one reason or another in my hands, or by using my own photographic apparatus to create my own links with my experiences.


As an art student I was struck by an introduction we received to the works of Joseph Beuys, particularly in regards to his ideas on what it meant to be an artist, I have remembered that in essence every man is an artist, and that the essence of each mans work as an artist is to transmit, indeed to teach, to share ones experience and knowledge.  My photographic practice provides me with some good occasions not only to learn, but to share my experiences, and I feel that in doing so I have, and am sharing things that are in some way important.


Edward Weston said:


“Putting one’s head under the focusing cloth is a thrill…
To pivot the camera slowly around
watching the image change on the ground glass is a revelation,
one becomes a discoverer… and finally the complete idea is there.”


This quote expresses beautifully just one part of what makes photography such an important part of my daily life, the processes of looking, of searching, of taking are to be found in all of the many steps that constitute my work as a photographer.

I take photos, I collect them, I use many different tools to do this with, Cameras of different shapes and sizes, digital and analogue, black and white and colour, and all these images I store preciously with the knowledge that somewhere along the line they have a life of there own, my capacity to control their destinations and their sense for each person that discovers them is extremely limited.  Yet these photos are undoubtedly mine, I can choose which photographs to place together, and I have some consciousness of what it is that creates some kind of visual identity that is mine, and what it is that my work may signify to others.  I love my photographs, and I love it when others understand them somewhat, and are touched by them.

Enough bla bla.  I invite you rather to look at a selection of my images either in the 15 images that I have sent in with this application, or on my website which is to be found at http://charlesklein.viewbook.com/

Sincerely,


Charles Klein