It’s all a blur: recalling a memory (2024)

Jack Henry | ARGUS

It’s All A Blur: A Collection, 2024

Pinhole Camera, Silver Gelatin Prints

‘It’s All A Blur’ is a pinhole camera study done to portray what memory feels like. Through lack of stabilization of the camera; the stability being controlled by the stillness of the photographer, a dreamy, greenish hue; to portray the memory of a tree and the color that may come to mind first for an individual, and many a few marks and imperfections from the photographic and developing processes, Jack takes what it means to remember a thing or place and forms it into a physical image. The images progressively come into focus, departing from a motion-warped state into a clearer and more still one, showcasing the sharpening of the mind and visualization that happens when you dive deeper into your thoughts and memories, remembering even more detail the more you process them.

Cocooned Contemplation (2024)

Jack Henry | ARGUS

Cocooned Contemplation, 2024

Canon AE-1 Program 35mm film

Nature is all around us, it encompasses so much of our time in this life we have been given. Feeling the embrace of the nature around him, Jack takes self-portraiture into an overgrown field, taking shots wrapped in a white sheet. ‘cocooned’ is a nod to how nature embraces all, it wraps its being around what inhabits it, making those feel like they may be wrapped in a cocoon. Only those who desire to change and grow can emerge a new being all together. In the photographs, the subject represents that very idea; ‘contemplation’ of growth and change, while physically representing a cocoon like state (while in nature, naturally). These pieces also represent an emotional/metaphysical control of growth in humankind compared to how nature continues to grow around us without a second thought.

Statuesque Eclosion (2024)

Jack Henry | ARGUS

Statuesque Eclosion, 2024

Set of Seven Silver Gelatin Prints, 11” x 14”

Behind the scenes photographs on 35mm film by Rebekah Harper

Eclosion is an emergence, specifically that of an insect from a pupal case when becoming something new. Inside, the insect is melting, metamorphosing and reforming into what it must become. Moments of solitude, whispers of growth and the promise of change, all melting together and on display for all to see. Cocoons or chrysalises are created for protection while a being is in its most vulnerable state, only emerging beyond the walls when it has refined the chaos it once was and physically manifested into a state it needs to become. The confines and pressures of society provide reasoning for encasing ourselves into a protective state―when we decide to grow beyond what energies push against us, what could we become?

Taking chiffon fabric and dramatic but soft lighting, I have created a series of 35mm film images printed as silver gelatin darkroom prints to represent that very motion; eclosion. The statuesque imagery creates a sense of stillness―the subject in the photo has been dormant in a state of contemplation, unable to move from its isolated space; also represented by the dark background. This work also alludes to the idea that others have carved what you were but you are becoming what you believe you truly are and should be.

Emotional Anastomosis (2025)

Jack Henry | ARGUS

Emotional Anastomosis, 2024

Set of Seventy Silver Gelatin Prints, 8” x 10”

Often, when individuals experience a ‘grey area’, they feel alone or isolated, this is represented in the images with a single subject and dark negative space. Additionally, the series and more specifically the subject holds a higher tonal range, this helps physically show the ‘grey area’ that the subject is experiencing. As an adjacent project to ‘Statuesque Eclosion’, ‘Emotional Anastomosis’ is a set of 70 silver gelatin prints that take a deeper look at the inner workings of an individual experiencing vulnerability and concealment, more specifically those feelings that occur when breaking free of any constraints put onto an individual by means of self-infliction or external pressures.

Anastomosis is a connection or opening between two things that are normally diverging or branching, such as between blood vessels, leaf veins, or streams. Such a connection may be normal or abnormal; it may be acquired or innate; and it may be natural or artificial. We, as humans, often express any emotions we feel in the moment. What happens when we sit there in those streams of emotions? Do we become numb or void? Do we succumb to those overwhelming feelings? Or do we just simply remain in a limbo-like state? A ‘Grey area’ is a term in which we use to describe those very indescribable feelings or spaces, the series ‘Emotional Anastomosis’ attempts to physically show what it can be like existing in an emotional ‘grey area’, constantly phasing through the array of emotions we feel.

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