Phenomenology and the Photographic Scene
FEBRUARY 2021 ● JOURNAL
Phenomenology is a concept describing the happenstance of specific (often aesthetic) events which occur in curious simultaneity. Assigning no magical causation to the structure of the perceptible world, phenomenology dovetails with Camus' absurdism, except that phenomenology is not concerned with lamenting the awesome ridiculousness of existence as much as it is accepting it for educational (didactic) value. Rather, the resulting phenomenon (the "things happening" in a photographic composition) from the converging material structures present in the makeup of any photographic scene is the whole point of the theory (and proof of life's reckless silliness).
In film photography especially, a long sequence of processing steps exists between the original scene and the final tangible photograph: the scene, you might say, is best when it seems that it could not appear under any other terms than those presented, locked in awkward, quantum time with all parties present (living or other). The intimate nature of film photography gives us the chance to analyze phenomena rather than simply observing its passing in everyday life.
Continue reading the full article in the Y35 Mag Issue No. 2 and be sure to check out Ryan’s Instagram feed.