Artist Blog

Every week an artist whose single image was published by Der Greif is given a platform in which to blog about contemporary photography.

For my first post, I thought I would share some family snapshots, which were a huge source of inspiration for 21, and much of my work involving my family. I'm interested in how the snapshot appeals to the viewer as an unaltered document. As we've consumed so much imagery since the birth of the photograph, we've come to accept a level of artifice in all images, especially those we consider as art. Yet, why do we not bring this same critical eye to the snapshot? Perhaps because I had been raised with photos like these, I've accepted these photographs as more innocent. There's no conscious attempts to trick the viewer, no playing with perceptions. But as I've looked through the same archive over and over, I've begun to see that all of these photos can be so easily construed into something darker, just with sequencing and tiny manipulations. I adopted a kind of snapshot style because I think there's a kind of effortlessness to looking at them. The manipulations that I'm making as a photographer become disguised, my intentions seem innocent. I become a trustworthy narrator somehow, even though I leave things out and add things in to suit the narrative.