Catskill Waters: Jojo Ans Photography
I photograph with a pinhole camera. The images are exposed on film, and printed in platinum/palladium. “Primitive” by today’s standards, this traditional technique is a conduit between the past and the present.
I can’t frame the photos; I can’t see what they will reveal. It is as if I stand in a place between the practical and the mystical. With the long exposure time, and the slow process of making the prints, I stand against the rushing tide of instant gratification.
So in using this camera and process, collaboration begins between nature, the camera, and myself. Since the print is processed in sunlight, I am not confined to the darkroom; also not confined to what I think, but guided by my intuition, the environment, and surprise.
I also contemplate the archival permanence of the prints and the impermanence of what I capture. These photos are revelatory moments, a border-state awareness. The images themselves are not artificially created, but caught in a moment of transition, a time-lapsed moment. Thus conceiving a dialectical relationship between the craft and the unconscious.