I think this is some of the most original, evocative and technically savvy work I’ve seen in years.

I was absolutely captured by the ‘scyther’ image and both interested and confused by the others… Your work is rich and demands both time and dialogue – your written comments here support and explain – and still leave me wanting to understand more of my own response to these images. I wonder if I could ask your permission to use an image on photo-dialogue.com (will send a separate email).

Bob, your Jung quote is, I think, spot on.

Steve

My personal thoughts (I can and will only express my views,Eliza has her own) about producing an image with the intent of communicating what I can with sincerity, are based on my background and internal meanderings. Unfortunately we too often defend or define ourselves through criticism of the external and take umbrage at an opposing point of view. Hopefully we can all engage in sharing our ideologies without destruction and thinly veiled preaching. (Already this sounds preachy).
My first experiences with photography were in documenting people in other cultures as a student of Anthropology. I struggled with concepts of subjectivity, manipulation through foci and the exploitation of subjects – where no matter how sincerely I attempted to comprehend or portray their reality I was merely providing my own interpretation. In many instances I was consciously or unconsciously cherry picking the “right” moments for portrayal, imposing my cultural bias and perhaps adding to the endangerment of their well-being, either real or imagined.With all due respect to the world of documentation and photojournalism, I stepped aside; my epiphany being that for whatever reason, something about my approach was not sincere within me. I think that photojournalism and documentary photography’s capabilities are by far the most substantive and important historical attributes of this mechanical wonder; the camera. With that being said I would emphasize – in the hands of the appropriate practitioner. I think this site demonstrates the abundance of those practitioners. From my roots, in concert with Eliza, evolved a highly stylized, craft oriented vision of a world that I (we) could feel comfortable portraying. I feel that the “medium” of photography is just another technological tool to deliver whatever message can comfortably fill a frame. Maybe the work that Eliza and I present would be better described as subjective narrative and printmaking. To me photography is a manipulative medium that is essentially stilted, contrived and narcissistic by virtue of it’s subjective focus. For us the process of selectively creating an image of an interpreted past is purely an element of fantasy with (hopefully) a wink and a nod to the pomposity and pretense of the antecedent framing that has been handed to us through the medium’s short history. In posturing this way I hope as much to present an “objective” question to the viewer about the “importance” of an image in its message as well as its pretense about being an “object of art” if it is interpreted to be subjectively “beautiful” . Hopefully our collective whimsies as photographers can allow us all to experiment and accept success and failure in our attempts to communicate. At least it’s fun and challenging to try………

Again, thanks so much to everyone for taking the time to look.

all the best

Jeff Charbonneau

On another note, anyone who thinks they’re doctoring these beauties with Photoshop is a moron by the way. They are a few of the only exceptional photographers I know who use a darkroom – and use it well.

In essence, I just love, love, love their photography and am always looking forward to whatever they might come up with next.

Truly,

Eliza

Like some comments above, technically superb but since it’s conceptual and I don’t get the concept (the statement doesn’t help much either) I’ll pass. Beautiful images, very personal I reckon, I’m a different person with a different background.

Some of those remind me of Bergman though, and that goes a long way as a compliments. I wish the best for the future…

Thank you so much for inviting us to share our work with your readers. I did read the responses today and was pleased at the mention of Wisconsin Death Trip. When Jeff and I met and fell in love he showed me this book for the first time, and it touched me deeply. A copy of it is on my desk at all times to keep me company. The other comment that I liked wasn’t a positive one, but nevertheless it provoked a good memory. Whoever wrote it expressed that they would perhaps like the pictures if he/she was in love with the girl next door. It reminded me of a day at the gallery during our last exhibition when a class of young women artists came for a tour. They were “girls next door”/ teenage/ early twenties. They were riveted to the room. I could see them seeing something they had always wanted to but hadn’t. A certain expression of pathos and the courage to identify with our own fantasy of ourselves. Perhaps this wouldn’t be the coup de grace for many of your photographer colleagues, but for me, inspiring young women to want to shoot and create and to let their fantasy lives loose was fulfilling. We saw fire in their eyes.

The dialogue portion of your site seems to be a haven for strange, sometimes ungraceful acts of the ego, and I’m not sure I comprehend the use of it. I do, however, think you are doing an amazing job with your curating, and always look forward to checking in to see what’s new. Best wishes to you in every endeavor and thank you again.

Eliza French

Congratulations for being published here.

I’m afraid this does not speak to me.

It is very hard to do this sort of work without looking…well…silly. These are reasonably well crafted images, and are likely commercially saleable, which is a good thing. Perhaps pushing them a little harder in that direction would not hurt.

What falls down for me is that for the most part the images look a bit slilted and self conscious.

I love the idea of story-telling. Art Kane was a master of this. He would make up a little story, then use it as inspiration for a series of photos. He also did a marvelous series using Song lyrics as inspiration. The results were often beautiful and magical. In contrast, the work here seems a bit awkward and contrived.

I like the idea, and the direction and would love to see more.

Blimey what a difference a simple spelling mistake can make………..

As objects I am sure the big prints are impressive, beautiful to behold and have an impact in exhibitions. Beautifully crafted hand printed traditional prints have a depth that is hard to beat.

There seems to be a real fawning whenever anyone mentions that hand made black and white prints have been done in the darkroom, people seem to fall over themselves and turn into dribbling wrecks just because the prints have been done by hand using a traditional darkroom. Yes I agree hand made prints are great (I spent years working in private darkrooms printing for photographers, and still don’t consider myself as skilled as the greats who can really make a dull neg spring to life.)

Over the years I have tried to understand this type of photography, I have admired it and wondered at it but have really been moved by it, to me it just seems a bit introspective or self indulgent.I am just not hard wired that way.