WALLACE KOOPMANS
All content copyright Wallace Koopmans
Photography can be a way of representing the world so others can see it as the photographer has but sometimes
you may want to create images that expand the visual language beyond what a straight photography might allow.
One of the challenges is the representation of time in a static two dimensional format.
One way I have tried to accomplished this is by creating series over time where multiple images together form
one work.
2:44pm, 4:31pm - 2011
Pair, digital prints each (30.5cm X 30.5cm)
Eight Months, - 2011
Pair, digital prints from C-41each (25cm X 25cm)
While I mostly shoot film and try to create images with a single capture such as with the next image.
The inevitability of Piss Shark in the mind of somebody - 2017 (25cm X 40cm)
It’s fun to find solutions to create images that you first concieve in your mind. With the next one I created the
smoke in a seperate vertical oriented image and composited it with the horizontal portrait. This allowed for
the smoke to appear to be blowing into the frame rather than rising.
Suppress- 2017 (25cm X 40cm)
Another thing I like to do is use the medium itself to remind the viewer that they are looking at a
representation of reality and not reality itself. You should always question what you are looking at.
Here I’ve used the Sabattier effect of instant film to create images where extreme exposure causes
areas to develop as dark subverting what the viewer expects.
Besides looking cool light leaks are another way of reminding the viewer that the image is mearly a
representation of reality.
In 2013 I created “Not My Memory” which is a mosiac of hundreds of cell phone images. The idea
behind the image is that as we create more and more images they have less and less meaning. The
question to be asked is will all these images help to create memories or harm the process of
establishing real ones. I’ve purposefully stayed away from viewing the images that make up this
work with the intent to revist it in the future. At that time if I can not recall the context of an image I
intent to replace it with a black space. Future interations of the work will therefore represent the
changes to my memory. I have no idea how this will work out but I look forward to finding out. I think
2023 would be a good time to revisit it for the first time.
Not my memory- 2013 (152cm X 101cm)
Thanks for exploring some of my more experimental photography more can be found on my blog
My Notebook