Documentation of Scrapbook, 2021, Handbook, 2019, Bits, 2019
Scrapbook, 2021
Scrapbook, 2021
Hand C-type prints, B&W hand prints, photogaphic test strips, photographic negatives,
unique chemigrams, polaroid film and backing paper, card, book cloth, PVA, ink-jet print
for the text
A scrap can be a small amount of something - something that has been left over, after the greater part
has been used. It can relate to food - the uneaten bits left after a meal, or bits of the fruit you choose
not to eat. A scrap can emphasise the smallness of something, whether it’s breaking up something or
disassembling it. To scrap something, can mean to discard or eliminate it - it is located amongst the
realm of removal. In terms of scrap metal, its intention is to be kept, suitable for reprocessing, and
recombining for greater volume. This accumulation of bits over time, is how the growth of a Scrapbook
can form.
Scrapbooks tend to be associated with mismatched, random, pasting in of ideas or materials that somehow,
perhaps sentimentally, are worth keeping. Scrapbooks can share a story, preserve an item or restore it.
They can be random or personal, documentative or sentimental, and can be just as chaotic as how the
scraps came to be.
This Scrapbook is a collection of discarded photographic material. From snippets of film collected on the
ground, to unexposed sheets of film, chemical leaks, or light fogging on photosensitive film or paper.
Each mark made through the developing process, disregarded and un-used, has been collected from a
Photographic Lab and from the Artists personal archive.
Removed and displaced from the Photographers intentions, teeth marks appear from the clips used to hang
a roll of film on its loading rack.There are glue marks that attach film to its backing paper, and circular cut out
shapes on the end of a 35mm roll of film. If the film is old and is so thin you can sometimes see the paper
packaging directions come through...These references and potential images, have been revived in a process
of handprinting, to form their own unique shape and purpose as a Scrapbook.
A big thank you to the following participants of this Scrapbook:
Carl Randall
Artful Dodgers Imaging
London Centre for Book Arts
Wojciech Kawczyk
Handbook, 2019
Handbook, 2019
c-type hand prints, card, book cloth, acid free tape, acrylic paint
Salvaged from discarded rolls of film at a lab, the images in this book
have been cropped and detached from their original scenes... Selected
hands are touching - connecting actions of the people in the scenes to our
own daily actions, from bookmaker to book beholder, to our devices and
vices, and to the anonymous photographer who has offered each potential
of image.
As a very intimate part of our body, an extension of our insides, used to
hurt or to heal, our tool, speak language or to signal - our communication
is held within our touch.
A special thank you to Artful Dodgers Imaging, Rabia Kader, Wojciech Kawczyk
and Carl Randall for making these boxes possible.
Bits, 2019
Bits, 2019
c-type hand prints, card, book cloth, acid free tape, acrylic paint
A bit can be atomic, it is the smallest unit of data in a computer. It can be a unit
of information or it can be a description of a piece, like a bit of chocolate or a bit
of a walk... but this is then relating to time, like saying “the film went on for a bit
too long”. I could bite my lip but then if it was in the past I would say “I bit my lip”.
A group of 8 bits come together to make 1 byte, and a group of 36 photographs can
come together to make 1 exposed roll of 35mm film.
This is a book of bits.
With unwanted film off-cuts being caught between being packaged or binned at the
lab, this photo album resurges potential images, left over material that has been
rescued bit by bit.
Too Many to Count : Kevin O’neill, 2020
This box is a home for unique artworks made by Kevin O’neill.
The collection of artworks, or ‘working sheets’ in this box, have developed over Too Many to Count
photographs, worked on throughout Kevin’s extensive career. Each spray, spot, brush stroke, blotting
and fold, brings reference to the enormous variety of photographs that Kevin’s brush has touched.
From hand colouring black and white prints, to toning, masking, restoring, spotting, ‘Improving’ or
accentuating (or de-accentuating) details, this craft is a fascinating practice that reminds us of how
vision is entangled with touch.
Starting out as a Junior Retoucher in 1971, Kevin O’neill became an ‘Improver’ til 1975, and, since then,
continues to work as a Retoucher today. With a career spanning 50 years, Kevin’s artform remains an
integral part of analogue photographic process and preservation. Post-production, since the early 19th
century, has always come hand in hand with the visualisation of photography, and continues to do so
today. In 2021, manipulating photographs is typically associated with the digital hand, however, ideas of
perfection amongst a way of ‘seeing’ has always been present both within and beyond the development
of the photograph.
Other materials involved in the making of this box, include book cloth, card, PVA, and digital C-type
prints of both a retouching brief and a digitally retouched, and ‘improved’ version.
Bringing Figures, 2020
Bringing figures, 2020
2 bus routes, upstairs and 6th seat back, London
C-type prints, card, book cloth, PVA, mangets, digital c-type print for the inlay
The Chosen Ones, 2019
The Chosen Ones, 2019
34 hand c-type prints sewn with card and thread , collage map is a double sided c-type digital print
box made from book cloth, board, PVA and ink
All photographs have been tracked by memory of location using Google maps
Undercover, 2018
Undercover, 2018
c-type and b/w unique photographic prints, card, book cloth, PVA, thread, personal diary
Please find out more about the Undercover project here:
https://katrinastamatopoulos.net/Undercover-1