A photographic movement that began around 1885 and declined after 1914, Pictorialism’s practitioners tried to emulate painting and etching so as to “legitimize” photography as an art form. They used soft focus, special filters, and lens coatings paired with extensive darkroom manipulation.
How like Hedges’ work. He uses seconds-long exposures, adjusting the focus and changing the focal length, and swaying and jolting the camera. The Pictorialist’s darkroom manipulation is a direct ancestor of Photoshop.
But unlike them, Hedges’ goal is not to approximate fine art—that battle having been won. Instead his techniques transform the mundane into the mysterious.
Still like the Pictorialists, Hedges has an affinity for Impressionism, which aimed to capture the shimmering light of the moment—or moments. Think of Monet’s many views of haystacks, the Rouen cathedral façade, and water lilies. Hedges collapses all of those moments into one image, recording light as a temporal event, and giving new meaning to “speed of light.” His zips of light infuse his images with energy like a comet streaking through the cosmos, a strike of lightning, or a jolt of electricity. This might be the photographic equivalent of action painting.
Although Hedges uses the real world as his subject, he is not documenting it. He’s far from Eugène Atget who recorded Paris at the turn of last century, or, a little later, Berenice Abbott, the American equivalent.And unlike another street photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Hedges does not seek to capture the “decisive moment.” He admits he is “not interested in freezing a moment in time.” Instead he records “possible moments that did or did not exist.”
Although Hedges is fond of gritty street scenes, I prefer his views of nature. Sweep with its stand of slender trees with a foreground of tall grasses is haunting.
But then so is Enter& Exit. A “doorway” of pulsating light becomes a spectral presence, but what is to be made of the nearly parallel streaks of light on the right-hand side? He leaves that to the viewer to decipher.
- Karen S. Chambers
Joe Hedges: 'City Lights: Abstraction & Absence' at the Artisans Enterprise Center, 25 W. Seventh St., Covington, KY. Through April 9, 2010.
Photos: Enter & Exit, above, and Sweep, below. Photos courtesy of the artist.
Joe Hedges is a musician as well; visit his site by clicking here.
There will be a free artist panel (featuring Joe Hedges and Holland Davidson) on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 from 6-7pm at the AEC.
