Photography: Absence Portraits

Vernacular photographs have intrinsic qualities that shape our perception of an image and inform our understanding of its time, place, and socioeconomic circumstances. By literally foregrounding the background of a series of nineteenth century portraits I am attempting to expose the dynamics underlying the creation of these images. I decided to digitally remove the person from old cabinet card portraits to reveal the artificial environment created by the photographer to heighten the perception of the subject.

Bereft of the individual, only a stage remains. The tension between presence and absence is heightened by the placement of objects that were meant to compliment the body of a person no longer there. Hand-painted backdrops create the illusion of elite homes, pastoral landscapes, or trompe l’oeil effects. Strange juxtapositions of props are revealed. Straw mats are placed in mansions, or chairs and pedestals in front of a scene based in nature. The stage that we see is a perfect tableaux of projected desires and fantasies. In an attempt to transcend class and location during a time when photography was mostly restricted to the studio, a virtual environment is created which seems to eerily resonate with our digital age.