Acting as Exercise - Pictoral

Acting as Exercise

Nonyi Usua

    I got my first instant film camera as a birthday present over the summer of 2023; a Polaroid Sx-70 because I saw Andy Warhol's polaroid portraits and I thought they looked cool. The photos are technically... poor, but the collection is more of an attempt to explore space, composition, and physical expression as a way to process and understand (and express) my relationship to other people and how that manifests in my internal state of mind than a technical display. Which sounds like a bunch of nonsense, but it's the best way I can put it.

    I attempted to create an candid, but personally exposed feeling. As in the viewer feels, looked upon. There was one photo I attempted to take with everyone in the program looking at the camera, which I feel would've been affecting to a certain level, of course, I had just run out of film and the photo I had taken before that turned out to be an all white bust, which was a double bummer because I tried to take it like three different times and it would've been a cool photo, but I'm rambling. It's very short because film is expensive and I had no time, but I hope you can find it to be engaging to a certain level even though you have no context.

    

    Engage with the titles, timeline, people, locations, etc. Not so much my bad handwriting.

"Click"

Another coin in the pun jar.

 

"Jane Eating a Pickle"

One of the first photos I took. I was concerned it might come across as pretentiously literal, but simultaneously steeped in meaningless metaphor -- ala millennial performance art -- but after many months of deliberation, I've decided... it's not. Take it as you will, watchful eyed, anonymous.

"Driving"

The contrast in this one came as a surprise as a very inexperienced photographer. I think the darkened faces and the distance serves the photo positively. 

"The Line"

Only stares from beginning to end.

"Riley (1)"

Very delicate, I'm not entirely sure how much this once says inherently on its own, but contextually, somehow it lies as a charged sideways glance.

"Winds (2)"

A view from a distance, thickest air.

"Loveless Romantic (incapturable)"

I remember not being able to get this photo to turn out the way I was envisioning. The camera has distortion that made close ups a touch off putting, which could've possibly been resolved with the close up lens I couldn't be bothered to use. Difficulties aside, the photo is much more about the subject than about my issues with the camera.

"FUCK"

I think this was the first blank after I switched from color to b&w film, but I didn't think the camera would shoot out film in place of the cartridge cover since I had already used the pack. Money burnt.

"A Reach"

Something about connection.

"Boarded Lines"

Something else about castrated connection.

"My Reach (retake)"

I was iffy about the focus in the first version. Another attempt at "Reach" is slightly ironic.

Thanks for your eyes. Always open to questions/messages of any kind. This was many months coming, I am a master procrastinator.