'Krappy Kameras' shoot fine
prints
15 March 2003
By MITCHELL SEIDEL STAR-LEDGER STAFF
REVIEW Fifth
Annual Krappy Kamera Competition What: Photographs made
with toy or homemade pinhole cameras Where: Soho Photo Gallery,
15 White St., Manhattan When: Through March 29. 6-8 p.m.
Thursdays, 1-6 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and by
appointment How much: Free. Call (212) 226-8571 or visit
www.sohophoto.com.
Many photographs on display this month at Soho Photo Gallery are
strangely exposed, not in sharp focus and generally lacking in technical
ability. They are, in a word, "Krappy."
That is the point to the cooperative gallery's fifth annual Krappy
Kamera juried contest, where technical skill takes a back seat to raw
aesthetics. The images - all produced by toy or pinhole cameras - make
focus, exposure and lens quality a "krap" shoot. The idea is to challenge
photographers to create original images without the luxury of fine optics.
Even with all the technical handicaps, Bob Gervais managed to capture a
remarkably sharp black- and-white multiple exposure in "Grand Central
Outside/Inside," in which the activity of the main passenger concourse
melds with a twilight view of the station's facade. Inclusion of black
negative borders, usually an affectation, actually helps to frame the
layered imagery created with a plastic-bodied medium format Holga camera.
Mark Dungan's photogravure representation of "Eiffel Tower, Paris
Texas," with its dark areas, uncertain focus and vertical scratches,
recalls early experiments in photography. In a bit of whimsy, the model of
the famous tower wears a hat, à la Maurice Chevalier.
Similarly, Tim Timmermans' "Crypt," a giclee print from a Holga
negative, recalls early photography with its vignetted edges and albumen
print-like tones. The title subject, an ornate gazebo-like structure in
the center of the print, retains sharp focus while standing out against a
hazy background.
Gisa Indenbaum turns three children into six with her "New York
Dreams," another Holga-crafted work. The children are seen in multiple
exposure running through sheets on a clothesline. One of them, a boy
wearing an old-fashioned cap, makes it seem as if they are ghosts from the
1920s having a romp in the yard.
Susan Bowen's "Reflection to Go" uses the Holga's multiple exposure
capability to create a panoramic-like strip of overlapping images of
buildings reflecting on a Volkswagen Beetle. The curvature of the
reflections allows the images to flow almost seamlessly into each other
while the formal geometry of the building's windows bends from one end of
the print to the other.
The competition is augmented by a members' exhibition of their own
"Krappy" camera photographs, just as appealing as those in the juried
show. There is strong use of color film, to the point that it is difficult
to determine if the cameras used really were all that shoddy. A particular
favorite is a display of black and white paper negatives alongside
snapshots of the photographer with the devices that created them: pinhole
cameras fashioned from food tins.
NOTES: CABLE CONNECTIONS(Jerry Krupnick appears regularly in The
Star-Ledger.)
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
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