Working with found photography - Mort Marsh

1. Exercise Using 'found' images 170_171
Working with so-called ‘found’ images – becoming a participant in the
bought through Internet auctions or at compositional process. Nothing is 'right'
tabletop sales – is becoming very popular. and nothing ruled out. Marsh has
Many buyers simply collect images on a experimented using both presentation
theme: photo-booth images, pictures with software and websites.
shadows of the photographer in them,
vintage wedding or confirmation pictures. This particular selection – from a much
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For others, these photographs can be a larger body of work – uses personal 14
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rich source of new compositional material family photographs, mixed with found
for montage or, as here, for narrative and constructed images to produce what
sequences. Can it ever be 'legitimate' to is in effect a portion of a fictitious family
compose with other people's imagery? Of album. The fact that we have taken this 9
course. sequence out of its original context
re-purposes the images yet again. The
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The images here are part of a project by aim is to make us question how we use
Mort Marsh, who has been working to photographs to build, rebuild, deal with
create fictional chronicles – a description and remember family history. There is
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of a particular series of events. Her aim is also a bigger question being asked here.
to compose 'documents' that can be Why in the era of Photoshop and digital 10
read and re-read in any number of ways, post-production, when the meaning and
allowing the viewer to create their own content of images is often uncertain and
meaning and narrative from the material. can be transformed so easily, do we still
The viewer can work through the material treat some images as if they are imbued
in any order they choose, making their with an element of unquestionable truth?
own connections and effectively
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« The case for composition The rules Viewpoint »
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Photograph She’d Cut Out His Head. The Family album
Caption to come.
Photographer: Various unknown.
4 Technical summary: None provided.