Stockland Martel

The commercial photo industry is naturally predisposed to discussions of gear and technique, so it’s nice to step back from that for a minute and look at something completely different—such as cameraless photography. Tonight, at Danziger Projects in New York, is the opening for a solo show of Christopher Bucklow’s photographs, which he makes without benefit of a camera—or at least a camera as we know it. For example…

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Christopher Bucklow, "Tetrarch, 2:29 PM, 8th October 2008." Unique Cibachrome print, 60 x 40 in. Courtesy Danziger Projects, New York.

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“Bucklow’s other-worldly photographs of radiant men and women set against grounds of color are made through a multi-step process that is both complex and laborious,” explains James Danziger at his blog, The Year in Pictures. “Bucklow begins by projecting the shadow of his sitter on a large sheet of aluminum foil and tracing its outline. He then makes about twenty thousand small pinholes in the foil silhouette (one for each day of the average human lifespan).

“Using a contraption of his own device that places the foil over a large sheet of photographic paper, Bucklow wheels his homemade “camera” out into daylight and pulls the “shutter” to briefly expose the paper to direct sunlight. Thus each finished picture becomes a kind of photogram silhouette composed of thousands of pinhole photographs of the sun. The intensity of light on a given day and the length of exposure create unique color variations on how the resulting piece appears.”

Here’s a little more Bucklow…

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Christopher Bucklow, "Tetrarch, 4:44 PM 7th April 2008." Unique Cibachrome print, 40 x 60 in. Courtesy Danziger Projects, New York.

Christopher Bucklow, "Tetrarch, 3 PM 17th November 2005." Unique Cibachrome print, 40 x 60 in. Courtesy Danziger Projects, New York.

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“We may not readily associate photography and the mystical or spiritual,” writes Danziger, “but Bucklow’s work asks us to start by appreciating the surface and then to dig down into all the layers that lie underneath.” Digging into the layers underneath—it’s sort of the opposite of what we do in commercial photography, where the surface is designed to inspire an action between the viewer/consumer and a company/product, not between the viewer and the image or the viewer and him/herself. Notes Danziger, “It’s a journey worth taking.”

Christopher Bucklow, Sept. 10 through Oct. 23, Danziger Projects, 534 W. 24th St., NYC.

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