The Camera Trap: When is Art Surveillance?
PHOTOGRAPHY BY John Dowler
Street photography is a transgressive act that records people in their daily environment and historic period. But is it wrong to take photos of people without their knowledge or consent?
MAY 26 - June 13, 2022
ARTist pARTy:
Saturday, May 28th, 2022 from 6-8pm
Bar & Refreshments with DJ Yeshe
Snug Cove on Bowen Island
Gallery Hours: Open daily 11 - 5 pm (Closed Tuesdays & Wednesdays)
Facebook Event: HERE
Zugersee Timewarp
During the Covid lockdown in Switzerland I walked by the lake in Zug. People were subdued and spread apart. The usually busy stream of people was sparse, and groups gathered to talk and absorb the tales from Italy - only a couple of hours away on a direct route - of rapid spread and many deaths. This is a composite of about 20 photos reflecting the surreal feeling of those days; both peaceful and haunted.
Zug, Switzerland, 2020
Archival ink on Hahnemühle Rag
Image width 56”; framed 60”
JOHN DOWLER BIOGRAPHY
Ever since I first took to photography in a high school darkroom it’s been one of the most compelling through-lines of my life. I studied music at university, and was a musician and composer during the 1980s. I had to make my own posters, and this led to an interest in design. I bonded with the internet early, and with the advent of the worldwide web in the early 1990s I taught myself the various threads of digital design, including building websites, using photography and graphics, video, drones and writing to promote ideas. I’ve advocated for a range of environmental initiatives, particularly on Bowen Island, where I’ve lived for twenty years. I was able to contain my work on a laptop, so offices were the café, coastline cliffs and rainforest - wherever I could get a signal. Photography is a moving art; a kind of combination of dance and painting. Years of street photography taught me to find the decisive moment where body language and environment come together to communicate a feeling or idea. It’s all about time, making aesthetic decisions quickly and intuitively; planning seconds in advance of inspiring alignments; hunting colour and special lighting conditions like rare plants; and seeing more deeply than I think I ever would have without a camera. I owe it a lot.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Street photography is a transgressive act that records people in their daily environment and historic period. But is it wrong to take photos of people without their knowledge or consent?
Unlike wildlife photography, candid pictures of humans elicit empathy and cause us to consider what privacy means in the age of ubiquitous security cameras and data-hungry social media. When a stranger takes our photo it can feel invasive in the moment. But we often don’t compare that with the vast range of data we permit to be collected about us daily, online and in the streets, by faceless corporations and governments – nor the way that data is used.
This show is a product of that tension. As you look down the centre of the gallery, you’ll see a contrast between right and left. On your right are sharp portraits of people in conflict in public. Also, wide street scenes are peopled with portraits that were taken at different times, made simultaneous through composite editing. On your left are colourful abstractions of people, blurred in time, blended by the motion of the person and the photographer. These preserve anonymity, and have a much different effect but a beauty all their own.
All the portrayals are equally real, recorded using precision optics. But they each treat time differently, and the emergent aesthetics are very different as well.
The show includes a pop-up studio with a camera trap: walk in and a long-exposure photo is taken, appearing to smear you through time. Elsewhere a security camera follows you, providing that hint of suspense that surveillance brings. Other interactive elements help you feel as well as consider the dilemma of privacy versus art, which has changed my approach to photography over 45 years.
LEARN MORE:
https://dowler.photo/camera-trap
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