Compass of  Time Watch of Space 

By its very nature, photography is not only a medium of light, but one of time and space. Specific time and place are almost impossible to obliterate when an exposure is made, and the believability of a photograph is inextricably linked to this fact. A photograph is always about something, and that something was in front of the camera at the time of the camera exposure. The intensity of this "stalling" of time in a photograph can be such that the observation of some images reveal a power, a potency, as if a re-exposure could empower the image, like a time machine, a Tardas that stands external to these forces, and bring that immortalized time and space into mobilization for the viewer once more; or perhaps reverse, transporting us back to a past era.

Historically the capture of explicit time and space have been seen as photography's greatest strength. At the time of its discovery, no other medium had immobilized time and space in quite the same manner that photography could, and it is this fundamental intrinsic quality, the accuracy of recording the present for the future, that has held the medium apart from other graphic arts. From the genesis of the medium, many approaches have been applied to the time/space specificity of photography, from the documentary genre, which relies wholly on this fact, through to directed images which often exploit a deceit of these truths through the recreation and fabrication of earlier or imagined times and spaces.

And in more recent times digital manipulation has comprehensively subverted the reality of the photographic. "Enhancement" of the photo image to a new crossroad. Visual truth no longer exists, it can be argued that the species is dead; a reverberation of Delacroix's statement, "From today painting is dead", echoes in every photolab. Photoshop is the collodian of the late 20th century, the painters days are done.

Although it can be argued that the truths of photography are indeed deceptions, all photography (excluding some digital) is in fact anchored to the elemental verity of time and space, and it is our perception that relegates it to a certain kind of believable reality. For instance the scene in front of the camera may exist only as modulating light from a mixture of sources projected onto a screen or film, or as an abstract variegation of light and shadow on the photographic paper, but the very combination of light that makes the final image also existed in time and space, and through a variety of separate circumstances the phenomenon is eventually altered or extinguished, to remain how ever be it in the form of the photographic image. Without light darkness prevails

.

Even the most manipulated of photographs need light. Light, time and space are essential to complete the exposure, and this amalgam in any combination is transitory. So inextricable is the nexus that it seems impossible to question if light can manifest itself without time and space in a type of E=MC2  latent phenomenon? Though the prospect might be intriguing, this aspect is beyond our perception, an idea, emotion or any nonphysical element, no matter how intense, focused or refined is not enough to stimulate the photographic emulsion into producing an image. Try as we might, there has to be some exposure to a tangible form of radiation to stimulate the process.

Apart from future seeking, and despite the subversion of its potency, photography remains the perfect medium to explore our present time/space relationships as a document for the future; it manifests as a facsimile, a tracery on the page of where we are NOW or where we have been. It can still be a visual legacy of people, places, events and time. There are two distinct aspects to this: not only the obvious confirmation of what was anterior to the camera lens at the time of the exposure, but the photograph remains as another evidence, it implicates something unseen, unrecorded, untraced.

While it becomes a record of the conspicuous what and/or who that was in-front of the lens, the photograph implicates the author by suggesting s/he also was present - a voyeur, from the Old French "one who sees". The photograph insinuates that the image is somehow from the author's perspective, what s/he has seen, found or set up, something s/he has found significant and worthy of recording. Someone had to commit the image to film, to ascertain what the photograph would be of, frame the image within the view finder, calculate the settings, take the photograph, be the activator, be the witness.

So, from this in-severable association, the photograph is a signifier of this fact, that the scene was a profound part of the photographer's experience, enough so for them to dedicate the image to film and freeze that particular time and space in the form of an image. Someone had to engage in the photographic ritual however un/ostentatious that may have been. The photograph is discreet evidence of the ritualistic activities of the photographer from simple incognizant act to the pre-planned activity visually explicit in the final image and undoubtedly, the success of the photograph depends upon the ability of this witness to pre-visualize how this inscribing of visual experience will translate through the optical/mechanical/chemical process.

But often there is a vital void between the intimate experience and the photographer's translation, the picture is undoubtedly not worth a thousand words. But even more often there is another inevitable disparity, that between the experience, the translation and the viewer's interpretation. For it is not only what the photographer brings to the image, but what the viewer brings as well that will determine the observer's explanation, and while the photographer has control over her or his aspect, there is little more than assumptions that can be made about the viewer's.

Years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, metres. For convenience, time and space are divided into logical, regular, linear intervals. The measurement of time, space and direction is an exacting science which has concerned Homo Sapiens for thousands of years, with each generation trying to define and preserve these measures more than the last. From the essentially of predetermining seasons prehistoric cultures developed solar and lunar calendars. Magic started with the light of the sun and a multitude of rituals grew as part of the seasonal predictability cycle. The magic of the photographic process and the inseparable relationship with light has encoded its own rituals.

Inconclusive
are the arguments of philosophers and lexicographers in defining time. Today various institutions have evolved to take extraordinary care to ensure our measures remain consistent and are defined more precisely than ever. Perhaps a minute or a metre is indeed longer than it was last year. With the use of satellites, lasers and electronics it has become possible to locate one's global position within a few metres. Navigation is no longer an extraordinary feat, but a conceptually presumed right. Knowing where we are and where we are going has become a primary function of society today.

Navigation and the constructs of time and space is an intellectual facility that allows for me to meet with you at a predetermined place and time: the steps of the Parliament Building at 10.30 a.m. November, 10th 1991, or the top viewing platform of the Empire State Building 12 Midnight December 31th 2000. We can plot a course using a compass and latitudinal and longitudinal lines to navigate the globe on which we live.  Map, compass and watch are the constructive tools with which we plot our course through time and space and there is little doubt of the value these measures have in our lives. Such is the completeness of this invisible tracery of binding that not only has the earth been bound with the physical barriers of civilization but also with imaginary lines of navigation! Colonization is a physical and metaphysical phenomena.

 
The pressure of modern life means we must conform more and more to this inter-braided matrix of imaginary lines that bring a sense of order to the chaos of time and space. The irony of the rigidity of abstracted reality. The very measures that we have devised for ordering otherwise confused space and time, an order intended to increase human freedom, may restrict us by dictating a very narrow path through the appointments and commitments that make up a sophisticated and modern life. One questions the contradiction of these imaginary tools to measure time and space as a means to find our way might have become so binding and restrictive that they created the circumstances where we have lost our way. Such measures or human inventions are arbitrary, and thus 'unreal', yet at the same time we feel them to be very 'real' parts of our experience.

These measures are of course both real and unreal: real in that space and time are barriers of a certain physical nature that can divide or connect us; unreal in that they do not exist in exact terms for the measurements and commitments that make up modern life are also bound to our natural senses of sight, sound, touch and smell, which present a different perception of time and space. Without the devices of measurement, our intuitive estimation and attitudes to exploring space and time can be entirely different than our relationship with exact measure, which is on an intellectual level and relies on device. The distance between our estimation and precise measured time can become discordant to the point where we miss the proverbial boat: an essential engagement.