Mistakes – twng

Mis Take 03

MIS TAKE
148mm x 210mm
Print on paper

Failure is unintentional. It conveys the idea of process and progress. The beauty of failure is often overlooked, and is considered worthless. There exists the perfect imperfection of the human condition, evident in failure. This idea is expressed through a series of mistakes and miss-takes that are subtly connected with one another, bringing attention to the unnoticed.

To start off my project, I needed as many found images of bad photos as I could get. Robert mentioned something very true, which was that everyone definitely had a collection of bad photos in their phone. True enough, after asking around for help, I curated and shortlisted some photos which I felt could help with my project. Though I will admit that almost half of the photos were found from my personal collection, having to dig through the Photos app on my macbook, I guess it’s still considered “found”? 🙂

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I realised that most of the photos had no specific subjects, and many of them consisted of a form of blur distortion, but in various forms. I also noticed that most of the photos had a certain distinct colour to them. With this observation, I looked at the collection as a whole and came to the conclusion that all the photos had some form of relationship among them, although they came from different people and different period of time.

I tried arranging them in a spectrum of colour but it was visually distracting, because one would tend to look at the image as a whole, instead of focusing on the photos. After consulting Robert, he agreed that it wasn’t working well and suggested that I focus on one subject/effect or a range of effects instead. -idea scrapped-

Mis Take 01

I came across this book at a Basheer book sale at North Spine, and the title just really spoke to me. (I have this weird connection with failure that’s hard to explain, my friends always associate me with it.) It’s a book that is “dedicated to the art of making mistakes” by Erik Kessels. (I have no idea who he was until Robert coincidentally spoke about him during class the very next day.) The book shows the works of various artists and photographers that revolves around the theme of failure.

The book served as an inspiration for my project, revolving around the idea of failed photography and the beauty behind them. Most people tend to overlook these photos as “bad images” and never look back at it again or may have even deleted them from their albums. I would like to bring attention to the unnoticed, and remind them to be more aware. I am determined to find the photos instead of taking them on my own, because I feel that such photos have to be very natural, and not done deliberately.

Some examples of failed photography that might be interesting to explore:

Unintentional artistic bokeh effect