This ongoing series represents an exploration of the history of photography and its temporal dimension by re-photographing a photographic archive. My interest in this endeavour was sparked by the maritime landscapes of Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884). The technical limitations that Le Gray faced in photographing both the sky and the sea on a single negative led him to conceive a solution that prompts reflection on the nature of photographic time.
During Le Gray's time, the sensitivity of photographic emulsions varied across the colour spectrum. This posed a challenge when attempting to find an exposure that suited both the sea and the sky. Consequently, Le Gray decided to photograph the sky and the sea separately, merging them in the printing process using different collodion glass negatives. This allowed the same sky, identifiable by its cloud formations, to appear in different prints from Le Gray's series of maritime landscapes.
This repetition suggests that Le Gray created multiple sky negatives, selecting and combining them in various prints according to his expressive intentions. What is fascinating about Le Gray's technical innovation is not only his ability to compose landscapes, but also how the solution he chose— combining distinct negatives captured at different moments with variable exposure times—invites reflection on the temporal essence of the medium. Le Gray's photomontages, which juxtapose views of clouds and sea, produce temporal collages where two distinct moments converge.
I have chosen to explore these questions through the serial reproduction of Gustave Le Gray's archival images of maritime landscapes. I project digital scans of these prints onto a surface and capture Le Gray's montages on 35mm film with high sensitivity to light (ISO 3200).
The next stage of the process involves re-printing fragments of sky and sea onto glass plates prepared with a silver gelatine emulsion. This produces positives that resemble a negative. The aim is to emphasise the moment that is photographed while adding an additional temporal and material layer resulting from my shots and the techniques I employ. This repetition leads to the creation of a new archive: an atlas that encapsulates various temporal scales.
This ongoing project continues to evolve as I continue research and experimentation.