Keep me focused and shooting..

Resident Alien. Part 12.

Harvey Benge, Part 1.

“My interest lies in the strange anthropology of cities, observing and making photographs of the unusual and overlooked in the human landscape where nothing is as it seems.” – Harvey Benge

Harvey Benge (1944–2019) was a prolific photographer and committed maker of photobooks. Working between Auckland and Paris he published over 70 titles, often in the form of limited editions. This photo is from the Auckland Art Gallery where they were on display after his passing.

I don’t think it is possible to talk about my own photography between 2008-2013 without mentioning the influence of Harvey Benge upon it. I first became aware of Harvey’s work when I was at college in 1998 where he gave an artist's talk. His book ‘Not Here, Not There’ had also not long been published and one of my housemates owned a copy and I loved it. It was a book full of signs, symbols, puzzles and labyrinths, but it was also pretty wacky. Harvey's notion about the “I-ness amongst other-ness” was an idea that resonated with me from the moment I heard it and it has stayed with me ever since. It was responsible, in part, for my future explorations into Psychogeography, which has since become integral to my own work. I am presently writing about this subject in more detail, with posts scheduled for next month.

photos by Harvey Benge.

In 2008, when I moved to the US, I saw some of Harvey's new projects online and decided to reach out. I had not long bought my first digital camera and I had been shooting a lot with it, but I was feeling despondent by the technology. I was also living in a new country and didn’t really know many people and I missed the creative connection of like minds in real time. I was a fan of Harvey’s work too of course, and I wanted to simply tell him so. I remember that he replied the next morning with a friendly email and asked me to send him a link to my photos online. Harvey and I stayed in touch after that for about 5 years and he became a mentor of sorts and he helped keep me focused and shooting with genuine encouragement through some difficult times during my immigration process. I am grateful for his friendship.

 

photos by Harvey Benge.

I later heard he had mentored other photographers at that time too and this does not surprise me at all. Harvey had such an open and generous spirit about what he did and he wanted to share what he knew with those that reached out. He used to say, “The world of our photography is a small one” and it's a statement which I have never forgotten and am frequently reminded of, even just as recently as yesterday. It grounds me in my conduct with my own global community of mostly online virtual locals sharing the same photographic passions as myself and in-spite of its dispirit members, the community is indeed a small one. The first time it proved true for me was when both Harvey and I were invited to become members of the same photo collective, Get the Picture, by its founder, Damien Lafargue in 2011. 

Recollection show, Paris, 2013. Work on right by Marcus Haydock.

In its time Get the Picture was a rich and enjoyable experience for me to be part of, I learned a lot and was shown some true faith. Damien was enthusiastic, driven and my friend, and we once spent a memorable day shooting together in St Louis, Missouri. Sadly we are now out of touch (but not so much as to still be able to link his Instagram here. That small world again..) A book was published with a nice selection of work from it's members and there was also a group show in Paris in 2013 which I was regrettably unable to attend, but my mother and brother met Harvey and the rest of the collective there at the opening. Harvey is much missed today and these are just a few of my many respects..

Harvey Benge.

Time has grown wild in my bones..

 Resident Alien. Part 11.

For the last few days I have been using the Flickr Organizer’s “randomly arrange” button again. The Resident Alien photos were the first images I posted online (between 2008-2013) and back then it was new work that I was sharing. When I returned to Flickr 7 years later after not being able to access my account this series was still there waiting for me and one of the first things I did was delete ¾ of it. I then added my favorite pictures from what was left to a separate album. It was this album containing 500 images which I loaded into the organizer to be randomized. 

I’ve called this process slot machine sequencing and assembling an edit this way crosses wires in my head thinking about it. I am both near and far from this work. Far meaning in terms of years that I have been separated from it and near because in that time it has grown wild in my bones. The chance pairings that this randomizing process generates and the eerie coincidences of form, collisions of colour or subject, forces my attachments to the photos, whatever they may be, to separate from any trace of narrative I may have already imposed on it. I am seeking to disrupt my relationship to the edit and see it from an alternative perspective, to see it as a whole somehow, unfamiliar and strange and without bias for its individual parts. It stirs up ideas and feelings which I believe lay at the heart of its making and opens up the spaces between the photographs, where I lived my life at that time.

This is how I hope the work's true narrative will emerge, but right now it is too soon to say. This randomizing element is essential for me, it forces me inside myself to make new connections between the photographs. The more random the combination of images together, the harder I must try to connect them. It is like a narrative building work-out, a storytelling improvisation that pushes against my instincts and asks questions about my intentions for it. It highlights images that I have always loved and wanted to keep, that I felt belonged there, but now no longer have a place. 

Most of these random sequence spins are without much revelation, but now and again something interesting happens (and all 10 of the previous posts concerning this series are illustrated with examples of this randomizing process). What I will eventually use in terms of sequencing remains to be seen at this stage, but the process itself feels like a necessary one. It is a game of chance that uses impulse, intuition and sometimes intoxicants to play by rules I cannot put into words to an end I cannot yet see.