Thinking About Photography
Dedicated to expanding our ideas about photography
Sally Chapman
© Sally Chapman, #4
Living in the Bubble
The Living in the Bubble series portrays my interior experience of isolation in my home while the world and its problems are outside the walls. I experience time as a loop that morphs through various rhythms as the objects of home and memory rearrange and repeat in various patterns as they drift though my awareness and focus. All is familiar but becomes detached within the varying arrangements.
© Sally Chapman, #6
© Sally Chapman, #3
I began exploring 19th century processes as a way to reconnect with the handmade aspect of printing photographs, particularly cyanotype. There is a physicality through the process of applying the sensitizing solution to the paper, setting up the exposure, and washing the prints.
© Sally Chapman, #7
© Sally Chapman, #5
As the coronavirus put us into isolation, I picked up pastels and started making marks on paper. From there I began to apply oil pastel to the paper before coating it with the cyanotype solution. The oil pastel acts as a resist to the cyanotype and allows the brilliant colors to compliment the blue of the cyanotype. This way of working demands a slowing down. I gave myself space and time to stop rushing and worrying about what I was going to do next. The mind became quiet with the simplicity of living within the current limitations of movement.
© Sally Chapman, #8