Manifesto

Under construction

Welcom to my website.

This website is about my vision on photography. Photography is a form of registration and a form of art that differs from all other forms of art and written registration. 

 Photography is in my view the only art form that reveals the  present in the physiological reality that’s surrounds us. In the time between the opening and closing of the shutter a short moment of reality, a slice of timespace, is captured. This moment approximates the abstract concept of the present. In this moment the subject, for instance the swan on the second photograph, breathes, tastes the grass in his beak, blood runs through his vessels, all kinds of electro chemical brain processes are taking place in his head and body. There are shadows, there is a certain temperature, there is wind or not etc. etc. etc. Most of these physiological processes are not visual in the photo but they are taking place between the moment the shutter opens and the moment the shutter closes again. They are embedded. This say 1/60e of timespace is captured in the photo. You can photoshop a photo as much as you like. You can change the truth in the photo but you can’t change the moment in reality between the opening and closing of the shutter. You can't change reality. Of course every photograph shows us the vision of the photographer as a painting shows us the vision of the painter.  The photographer chooses his framing. He picks a pleasing or important frame. He picks not only the decisive moment but also the decisive frame just like a painter. It doesn't matter if its a very abstract picture or not. Even in a shot of a white wall is the physiological reality, the physiological present embedded. But in a painting that is not the case. The physiological present is not included.  Let me give you an example: What you see is an image of the famous painting of Jan Asselijn, a 17e century Dutch painter: ‘De bedreigde zwaan’ ‘The endangered swan’. The next image is a photo of a swan I photographed myself.  No matter how beautiful and how well painted the work of Asselijns Swan is, it isn’t an image of the real moment in the present. There is no physiological reality embedded. It's a perception of Thomas Asselijn of a swan. My photograph is also a perception but the photograph has this extra dimension. 

So why is this important?

Is there a diffence between truth and reality? If we go back to the swans then you could say that the swan of Thomas Asselijn is a truthful representation of a swan in distress. It's the perception of Asselijn of a endangered, frightened, angry swan. The message Asselijn wanted to bring to the spotlight is very clear. There is truth in the painting but no embedded physiological reality. The very boring photograph I took has a lot less story, a lot less message. You could ask rightfully ask what was my intention by taking this picture. Which truths I wanted to convey. Well there is not so much truth, not so muchg story in this photograph. I wanted a nive photo of these two swans. But there is a lot of embedded reality. Because the light that bounced of these two swans and of the grass end the tree

I want to try to work out the difference between truth or in other words subjective reality and physiological present or objective reality 

Interesting concepts in this context are the by Harari introduced intersubjective reality and imaginary orders (Harari)

Photography plays a role because reality in photography can be manipulated enormously and increasingly. It also happened in the past that, for example, a photo of Lenin with Troksky next to him is manipulated in such a way that it complies with the Stalinist truth and that Trokski is removed from the picture. On the other hand, photography is a medium by which a slice of time-space is isolated