Loading...
Animals Wild: Photograms and Photographs
Zana also photographs wild animals with a traditional 35mm Widelux panoramic camera and mak... more >> Presented for the first time, Academy Award-winner Zana Briski's photograms of wild animals are unique in the history of camera-less photography. From the jungles of Borneo to the forests of New York, Zana sets up giant sheets of light-sensitive photographic paper and waits for an animal to pass by before making an exposure directly onto the paper.
Zana also photographs wild animals with a traditional 35mm Widelux panoramic camera and makes prints on custom hand-made Japanese papers.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I have always had a deep connection to animals and the wild. My imagery inspires in others the deep wonder and awe I feels in the presence of animals. My dream is to create a world where we revere nature instead of destroy it.
I have traveled to 80 countries photographing animals big and small. I use only traditional macro and panoramic film cameras with 35mm black and white film. I use alternative processes and printmaking to make large-scale prints on handmade Japanese papers, sometimes coated with beeswax.
Pushing the bounds of the traditional photographic process, I have recently abandoned the camera altogether in order to get closer to the animals I so love. From the jungles of Borneo to the forests of New York, I collaborate with wild animals to make unique photograms – photographs made without a camera.
Working patiently on moonless nights, I lay out large sheets of light-sensitive photographic paper and wait for an animal to pass by. Sometimes I wait all night. Sometimes I wait night after night. I do not use a hide and I am in full view of the animal. This takes tremendous trust and stillness.
When an animal passes in front of the photographic paper, I make an exposure with a flashlight. I collect the paper and later develop the photographic print in a traditional darkroom, toning it with pure gold.
The results are magical photographic artworks, each a unique impression of an individual animal.
BIOGRAPHY
ZANA BRISKI is an Academy Award-winning director and photographic artist.
Zana’s documentary film BORN INTO BROTHELS won 36 awards and was the culmination of ten years of work, which began with her own photography in the brothels of Calcutta before teaching photography to the children of prostitutes. She founded Kids with Cameras, a non-profit organization which taught photography to marginalized children around the world.
Zana’s current project REVERENCE is inspired by visions of a praying mantis. REVERENCE will be a traveling exhibit of large-scale photographic artworks, a film and music housed in a 10,000 square ft. movable structure designed by Pritzker Prize-winner architect Shigeru Ban. Bringing us face to face with insects as individual sentient beings, REVERENCE inspires wonder and awe, challenging us to re-envision our relationship to the earth and her creatures. REVERENCE will travel to city parks around the world.
www.reverence.org
