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Maggie Taylor
I rarely photograph contemporary people — I prefer recycling 19th century unclaimed photographs of unknown people. The young boy in “Boy who loves water” (used on the wine label) is from a tintype image from around the 1860s-1870s. I add the other elements in the image from scans and digital camera images. There is something dream-like and mysterious about the clothing and expression. People had a different attitude toward being photographed in that era — a trip to a photographer’s studio was an important occasion that involved long exposure times, contraptions to help the subject hold still, and painted backdrops representing aspects of nature and architecture. After work with Victorian portraits for several years, I began to hear from people who thought that my work shared some themes with Lewis Carroll’s classic story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Reading the story for the first time in many years sparked my interest in creating a series of images to accompany the original text. I also found it intriguing that Lewis Carroll himself was an accomplished photographer. I embarked on a three-year project which was completed in early 2008 and includes 45 images. Each of my Alices is a different Victorian girl-sort of an idea of Alice as “every girl.” I do not see this series as entirely different from my other images... it blends in with all of my other work even though it clearly represents characters and actions from Carroll’s story.” |
“For about 10 years now I have been using a flatbed scanner instead of a traditional camera as my primary image-making tool. I frequent flea markets and search on the internet for antique photographs, toys and other objects that seem to have a story to tell. Then in my studio I scan each element into my computer separately and begin to layer and arrange them along with some of my drawings and small digital photographs. Using my computer I am able to play with these layers in much the same way that I worked with objects in my studio for a still life photograph. Although my images are not traditional photographs, I definitely think of my scanner as a light-sensitive recording device which I use to sample bits and pieces of the world around me. 