In 1839, when Sir John Herschel coined the term ‘photography’ and announced the innovation of ‘painting with light’ to the public, people almost instantly started exploring its use in science and fine art.

Nobody seemed to be stunned by the idea nor the perfect replication of ‘reality’ using light. Today, in the omnipresence of digital photography, smartphones and social media, humanity has never gotten a greater abundance of visual imagery. Throughout the history of photography, attention was placed on the possible application and commercialization of photography, everything but recognising the photograph itself as a visual miracle.

Being the last generation to witness the whole transition from analog photography to digital photography, photo albums to profile pictures, I want to remember that excitement of looking at a portrait of my younger self taken by my mother, the enchantment of seeing a developing image in the chemical bath. Photography, first and foremost, is about the photograph – the paper and the image.

(PHOTO)graphy re-examines photography as an expressive medium and photographs as surrealistic objects. Each work in this series plays with some aspects of photographs – the compression of dimension, the signs and symbols, the appropriation of reality etc. It is an imagination of the photograph from a perspective with which photography is a foreign concept.

Photographs & Text: Sheung Yiu | Website: www.sheungyiu.com

(相)相 姚尚勤
「相」是相⽚片的「相」,「相」也是眾⽣生相的「相」。

相中的影象雖然如此栩栩如⽣生,但終究⼈人們還是沒有把相⽚片誤認成真相。
這是因為相⽚片留得住的,只是⼀一刻的殘象。
影象本⾝身沒有空間,時間,⽋欠缺完整的事實。
理解攝影媒介的限制,拆解光影和符號,成為現代⼈人的共有知識。
似乎⼈人類已經忘記了相⽚片曾是⼀一種視覺奇蹟。