The rain had soaked the emulsion film to such an extent that it seeped through it, peeling layers and forming strange patterns, like children scribbling or painting abstract expressionisms, or microscopic images of tissues, or some patterns inspired by nature like veins of leaves or tectonic faults. According to Buddhist ideas, reality is multi-layered and our undeveloped minds and senses perceive only its superficial layers.
However, in the arts, a genius learns from nature, from himself. The talent is constrained to simulate the existing cultural paradigms. We all grow up on fixed ideals and wrong stereotypes about everything, and rarely, in the words of Schoenberg, do we find the courage to present reality as a multitude of view points, excluding only the observer and the mere act of observing.
Perhaps photos reveal to us that other layer of reality hidden beneath the veil of Maya, but which is still in close contact and constant interaction with the visible world. The avant-garde, since the beginning of the last century sought to expand our perception and vision of the world as an organic whole, to break the world beset by the fabric of ordinary language, to poke holes in it through which one can exude the pure “first reality”. In some pictures from Nepal we see such glaring failures, black holes. Their very existence can be perceived as an act of aggression, an attack on the familiar reality. However, we feel that it is not. In all items, there is a small, almost imperceptible harmony. Void and emptiness is transformed into the visible reality of the objective world only for it to later dissolve into the darkness. Water is the main creative element, a primordial matter, from which all forms are born and to which they return, either due to a disaster or gradual regression. So, we are obliged to start afresh every time from the beginning, forgetting the past and the future, feeling “eternity in the moment”.
It is an often forgotten truism, expressed in one of American classics: a photograph bears no relation to reality. It is not an impartial document. It is not news. Beneath the surface of each image is a hidden set of processes, seemingly beyond the boundaries of what is depicted - not just the scientific processes of physical and chemical interactions, but also sacral time and energy.
Photographer is a slave to technology, a captive of the program embedded in the black box camera; and his real problem is to break out of the scope of the program, to overcome it. Thereby, we find ourselves in the vast field of opportunities, that includes ourselves in the so-called “aesthetics of flaw”. Many photographers, amateur and professional, having studied the details of manual processes, as if to reject received knowledge, refuse to control many processes, letting it all flow with behavior of chemicals (emulsions, developers, etc.) and revealing the act of “providence”. Many people try to make this their method. And then, there are the experiments using water - bathing the film in seawater so that the emulsion forms salt crystals, or distorting using water or otherwise the already developed negatives. But talent without imagination becomes a slave to technology again, the form of technology notwithstanding.
Photographer and artist M.E. fell for the idea of a 'metaphoric connection to another world' through photography. In his work he plays with the most unusual techniques - for his project he shot on medium format DS4 film that had expired 30 years ago. He then buried some of them in a local cemetery as a symbolic gesture to connect the past with the present.
Dazed Digital: Your images are like looking through a forbidden key hole into the world we actually live in. What does this layering of your work mean to you? ME: Everything in the world streams from one source and each object regardless of time, source or place is unique but bears a particle of commonality. I'd like to find the connection between me and the world around. The photographs are findings I like to share, each one a detailed description of the whole.
DD: What is your art theory and which artists fascinate you? ME: My approach is to experiment with any type of image, digital or analogue. The emphasis of transformation, the creation process itself is what fascinates me. For example, Stan Brakhage surprised me with his experimental take on the medium film.
DD: What is the concept of your actual work? ME: ***The concept of my current work is the appeal to nature and its primary elements. I like to integrate my work with the elements – I want to show the fragility of our world, the depth and timeless beauty of nature.
It just happens. Or not happens. I like long processes with surprising results. Jump in your hollow, my friend. Show me your waste. Hold on. Take time. You can`t waste it, just be focused. You can`t stop – all you got is now
Documenting the Reality of Brewing: Letting the Medium Speak
While photographing inside the brewhouse facilities, my aim is not only to document the visual reality of this production space, but to conduct an experiment in which the very product of these halls—beer—directly and physically alters the image itself.
By submerging film in beer, I allow external elements to damage the emulsion, causing it to peel, dissolve, and transform. The results are unpredictable: strange patterns emerge, reminiscent of children’s scribbles, abstract expressionist paintings, microscopic images of tissue, leaf veins, or even tectonic fractures.
In Buddhist philosophy, reality is composed of many layers, most of which are inaccessible to our undeveloped perception and intellect. So too in art—the true artist learns from nature and from within, whereas mere talent often follows established paradigms, becoming a copier rather than a creator. As Arnold Schoenberg once said, we grow up with ideals and hold false notions about everything—rarely do we have the courage to approach phenomena in a way that transforms them into moments of exception.
Philosopher Vilém Flusser wrote that the photographer becomes a prisoner of technology, enslaved by the “program” encoded within the camera's black box. The true task of the artist is to break free from this program—to go beyond it. This opens up an infinite field of possibility, one that includes what’s often called the “aesthetics of error.” Many photographers, both amateur and professional, after mastering the intricacies of analog processes, seem to deliberately relinquish control. They surrender to chance, treating the behavior of chemicals—emulsions, developers, and beyond—as a kind of providence. Some immerse their film in seawater to form salt crystals on the surface; others distort their negatives after developing.
This reflects a deeper contrast between Western and Eastern philosophies of creation, as described by Alan Watts. In Zen, there is no duality or conflict between the natural element of chance and the human element of control. Western artistic forms arose from a spiritual tradition that separates spirit from nature, where the mind descends to dominate inert matter—hence Malraux’s idea of the artist as someone who “conquers” their material. For Chinese or Japanese sensibilities, this sounds absurd. When climbing a mountain, it is not only your legs that lift you—but the mountain itself. When painting, the result depends not just on your hand, but equally on the brush, the ink, and the paper.
And so we arrive at the idea of artistic asceticism—a surrender of ego. Here, the artist steps back to allow chaotic natural forces to leave their mark, to affirm that the environment—not the author—is the determining force in contemporary art.
