Bojan Salaj/Focal Camera

Snapshots

what

Snapshots is a project first realized in 1993 and is still in progress even though some specifications of medias which are involved changed a lot. Final material objects are photograhps mounted on aluminium on the back side and plexy glass on the front. Dimensions are various, From 30 x 40 cm to 120 x 160 cm. The ratio 3 : 4. (TV screan ratio) is important and is used all the time. Some of photographs are related and presented in a series and Instaled in a gallery like big video walls.

how

The project was made from very comfortable position in my living room. I simply took photographs from television screen with Nikon 35mm camera. To be more specific, I placed tripod with camera at the front of a television and waited for a moment I thought it is a decisive and took a picture. Later I developed colour negatives and made enlargements from them.

why

There was a war in former Yugoslavia in early 90ies. And that was the time when television was the most important mass medium. Journalist from all over the world were coming to report about the event. But actually these reportings were more about producing news. Even more, news become very valuable material, some spectacular visual material especially. From the very begining my basic interests about photography was how to cross the border of the medium. Through appropriating some visual material and later recontextualization I wanted to point out the spectacel we are facing it.

Interiors/ corespondences

It is an installation made from 4 wooden objects 240 x 180 x 30 cm placed in a big hall. Objects are painted in medium grey colour.They are set opposite each other and between them there is a place to come into the center. From that central point one can see a photograph hanging on each of the objects. Subjects on these B/W photographs are interiors of four institutions: Slovenian Parliament, EU Parlliament, UN General Assembly hall and Nato General Assembly hall. Photographs are mounted on aluminium and framed in natural wood. There is protecting glass in front of the frame. Dimensions of each photograph is 120 x150cm. Digital camera was mounted under the roof of the place and observing and recording the situation all the time. How I used 8 x 10 inch large format camera for taking pictures of mentioned interiors. B/W negatives were digitalized (scaned) and photographs were inkjet printed . Digital camera view was programed to record every move in the space beneath and at the end of the day a computer generated image was produced as a consequence of any kind of the movements. Why The ambition was to present different stages of technological history of photography and at the same time also to requestion the rules of institutions which are so important for our everyday lives. There is a conection between the very beginings of photography and constituting the institutions as we know them today. They all are a conseqence of Enligment and Photography is accompaning and creating modern age as all these presented institutions are. I wanted to involve the whole proces of how the meaning of photographic image was producing and developing and tryed to reflect and presented it´s latest structural and formal occurrence.