STEVEN PHILLIP HARRIS

In this ongoing series of unique prints titled, Water’s Edge. I use found objects collected from the shoreline of New York City to make a tangible connection between the natural and the urban environments via the black and white analog process. The prints are a montage of these objects along with projected images and photogram techniques that speak directly to the materiality of the photographic process that started in the 1830s. A photographic record is made of the debris discarded from the urban world and remnants from the natural world washed up together along the shore. I wish to focus the viewer on the many visual modes of production analog photography can occupy, disrupting the familiar everyday experience with an enigmatic trace of the mind's eye.

With the Spheres series, I merged ideas of the early photogram process from the 1830s, and combined it with light painted onto photosensitive fiberbased paper. This process illustrates how photographs can be constructed to simulate imagery that moves beyond the capabilities of normal human perception and enters the dimension of fictive or otherworldly space. The surrealist relationship to camera-less photographs is a key aspect for me in this series. By experimenting with the chemical process and materiality of the black and white photographic medium, these images play with modes of perception in an unexpected spontaneous style.

When we say of a landscape that it has a romantic character, it is the secret feeling of the sublime taking the form of the past...

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The connection to Goethe is reflected in this work as visual translations of landscapes and cityscapes that convey an uncommon pathos for the natural world. Time and the use of a somber, tranquil palette, along with careful attention to process and materiality are present here. The prints are created from instant Fujifilm with a lensless camera, scanned and printed on 24" x30" archival watercolor paper in limited editions. 

Polaroid images created with B&W and color integral film using extended time and or multiple exposure; combining two or more views of a scene as a conceptual variable. Although this film was originally called SX-70 “instant” print film, used by many artists including Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Lucas Samaras, Ansel Adams, Maripol, and Dawoud Bey among others, the newly developed film from Polaroid takes about 10-20mins to fully develop. This approach using analog instant Polaroid print film increases elements of chance and unexpected outcomes in this aesthetically captivating process. Using landscape and analog film as metaphor for the recording of place and time, this photographic medium, employed in this most basic snapshot style, (almost) instantly reveals it to be a profoundly mysterious process that connects us to the optical unconscious. I wish to focus the viewer on the many visual dialects and modes of production analog photography can occupy, disrupting the familiar everyday experience with a unique translation of the mind's eye. Steven Phillip Harris

These images are a continuing landscape series shot using outdated gelatin silver photo paper. Created using a large format camera, the paper neg is then printed in the darkroom to create a traditional black and white print. Paper negatives were first invented by W.H. Fox Talbot who developed the salt paper process in the 1830s along with other important scientists of the day. This series connects to the arc of history via this early photographic process from the 19th century. The analog process of gelatin silver is one way to return to a liberating experience of physically creating and viewing a photographic print that is more than just a fleeting image flashing by on a screen. The gelatin silver print takes us back in time through working with a light sensitive material; by crafting these images on older outdated paper, it also connects us to the past. The experience of seeing and touching a physical print that captured light on paper holds a magical moment that is tactile and deeply felt. This experience of seeing and holding a print returns us to a view of landscape that reflects a period before the digital age of technology completely changed the nature of our visual world.

Sequences and Intervals: A Lyrical Study in the Rhythm of Three

This is a portfolio of images that was centered around triptychs of cityscapes in and around NYC with a rhythm of 3s. Each print contains a series of nine images in three vertical sections much like a strip of photos from a photo-booth. I began thinking about creating visual arrangements that resonated with a musical theme and chose a method of using the iPhone to create sequences; much like images from early amusement park photo booths. I decided to employ stylistic elements of music by incorporating time signatures, which are classically based on 3/4 or 4/4 time, into my image making process. I related the idea of “timing” in a piece of music, reminiscent of classical and jazz music scores, to the “beat” or a visual interval in a series of images. I photographed multiple sets of images using an app that captured images in one strip with a time delay between each frame. By creating these “lyrical studies” of New York, printed digitally on archival watercolor paper, I have put forward the idea of a visual correspondence to the rhythms and beat of the city, resonating in a mode of sequential observations, or Visual Moments in 3/3 Time.

Photography of art, performance and objects produced for clients on location in New York City.