How to kill lifeless?
(Janko Belaj for first announcements)
I use photography to document diverse scenes to address customer preferences, or to document landscapes in which I find myself, but with a collection titled "Samoubojiti Kosturko" (Suicidal Mr. Bones) I set out to explore the outcome, which I am not trying to define in advance. The original concept of following Mr. Bones as a suicidal character from comic book “Alan Ford”, who is irrevocably lost in the reality that surrounds him, unsuccessfully trying to kill himself, becomes a sort of consideration of the alienation of the individual in general. In short, I leave my Mr. Bones, after all that has happened to him, to pick himself up and “survive”, and the final reception of his fate no longer depends solely on my authorship of the concept but Mr. Bones appears as active co-author – finally, those are his bones.
Due to adverse reactions, creative interpretations and completely conflicting emotions of people to whom I showed segments of the collection, I just decided to "cover up" the original guideline for some photos, and only the title of photo leads the viewer to eventually go through a process that I imagined. In doing so, of course, I do not want to condition the way viewers see or “hold their hand", nevertheless I enjoy their interpretations of both individual segments and the whole collection. In this way, the final result of the project justifies the initial “self-abnegation,” because it offers relevant insights into the coexistence of the author, characters and audience.
Techniques of creating collection
For “Samoubojiti Kosturko” (Suicidal Mr. Bones) I chose a shallow large-format (I use 9x12 cm b&w film) camera obscura (3D printed by my own design) with a wide viewing angle to use more opportunities that pinhole cameras provide. Finely etched small pinhole (0,2 mm) gives the sharpness to the image to which we are not usually accustomed while using Camera Obscura, and at the same time that allows the manipulation with lighting and shadowing during the exposure. By using extremely wide viewing angle (camera’s focal length of 40 mm is like 12 mm in the “Leica format”) I manage to accentuate small figure in space and by the time compression during exposure I accept additional light sources, while the motion parts of the scene blur and add some mystical spice to the shots.