‘The Holga Experiment’ – photography exhibition by Glenn Porter – New England Regional Art Museum, opens 13 May
Glenn Porter is used to seeing life through a lens.
An Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of New England, Porter is a forensic imaging expert, highly trained in the technical aspects of imagery: how it is a science that can be used to both reflect and distort reality. He often finds himself in the courtroom on a murder trial or armed robbery case explaining to the court how the CCTV footage should be considered as forensic evidence.
But as an artist, Porter’s latest series of work, ‘The Holga Experiment’, to open at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) on Friday 13 May, deliberately eschews the pursuit of technical perfection that has become second nature for a “project of self-discovery”.
Ditching his usual hi-tec equipment, Porter created his series of 50 black-and-white works with just a digital camera and a $25 plastic “Holga” lens – a lens popularised in the 1980s with inbuilt quirks and imperfections – making it impossible to capture a ‘perfect’ image.
Instead, Porter’s images celebrate the joy in pared back photography. Focusing on simple structures and views around his home – from pine trees on a foggy morning, to light illuminating a bedroom window – they are, for Porter, the ‘perfectly imperfect’ things in everyday life that give it meaning.
The joy, insights, learning and creativity I was gaining from this new approach to photography turned an ephemeral experimental project into a more serious one for me.
“The joy, insights, learning and creativity I was gaining from this new approach to photography turned an ephemeral experimental project into a more serious one for me. The simplicity of it drew me to a more autobiographical connection with the space I inhabit and closer to photography as a creative practice,” he says.
“More importantly, I was able to realise that this passion I had for photography was more than a fascination, it was, from a Japanese philosophical perspective, my ikigai – my purpose in life.”
In creating the images, Porter was also strongly influenced by the concept in Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi – the beauty in imperfection.
“These images are an anti-technical statement. They might look like normal images, but up close you might see some fringing, blurriness, or something that doesn’t quite look sharp. Art is more about meaning and concepts, and imperfection does have a sense of beauty.
“Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. There are different ways of looking at beauty.”
Porter hopes the personal connection he feels with the art of photography and his urban and natural environment – or his sense of ikigai through imperfection – will grab viewers of his works.
“For people who have day job and also a photography dream like me, I hope to convey that the pull to photography is quite real, that there is something behind that.
“For other viewers, I hope the images convey that beauty is about your perspective and relationship to a place or object, rather than the thing itself. Viewed this way, you can start to see there is beauty in everything.”
Porter’s artistic photography work has been recognised in several prestigious awards as a finalist in the Head On Portrait Prize, the Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture, the Stanthorpe Photography Awards and the Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize.
The Holga Experiment, a photographic exhibition by Glenn Porter, opens at NERAM on Friday 13 May, 6pm and runs until 12 June.
For more information, visit the NERAM website: neram.com.au/event/glenn-porter-the-holga-experiment
Images from the exhibition: ‘The Gate, Armidale 2021’ and ‘Backbone Water, Commissioner’s Waters 2021’
