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In October 2008 I photographed my friend Karen while we were hiking around northern Michigan. It was a beautiful day and the scenery was beautiful. We were on top of a huge sand dune and her size gave the landscape a great sense of scale. The photograph was used in the March 2008 issue of Lakeland Boating (top of page 44) for the article ‘The Sun Also Rises.’ No credit was given.

Lakeland Boating, March 2008. Photograph on top of page 44 of the article ‘The Sun Also Rises’, Not Credited.

Original copy photography

As a student at the University of Michigan I worked in the History of Art department processing images for the online study galleries. It was here that I learned extensive techniques for retouching images that had been scanned from discolored, damaged, cracked, and dirty slides as well as accurate colour matching. In addition to learning Photoshop skills we were trained in the art of copy photography which has been an invaluable technique to my employers. At my past job as an assistant at an urban art gallery I was asked to photograph our stock by the artist Banksy to have full resolution images for publication. These images, at the time that I shot them, were the only high resolution images available. My images were printed, without credit, in U Magazine, Time Out Hong Kong, Ming Pao Weekely & Harpers Bazaar Hong Kong.

Harpers Bazaar Hong Kong, June 2008, Copy Photography of Banksy’s Monkey Door 2, Bird with Grenade and Kate Moss.
Time Out Hong Kong, May 2008, Copy Photography of the four Banksy images of Kate Moss
U Magazine, May 2008, Copy Photography of the Banksy Canvas Bird with Grenade

Ming Pao Weekly, May 2008, Copy Photography of the Banksy canvas Rat With Saw

Hirst’s Formaldehyde:  The End of a Chapter
Article written 18 September 2008

It seems that everything Damien Hirst touches is first pickled and then turns to gold. His widely successful auction ‘Beautiful Inside My Head’ topped £111 million making it the most successful single artist auction ever and recently he announced that he would stop making his formaldehyde works, a move that many animal rights activist will look upon with a sigh of relief. Hirst’s art, centered on themes of life and death, is no stranger to controversy and is well versed in shock tactics.

Shock has been used as a mode of recognition and a sure-fire way to acquire an audience but its redundant use by many conceptual artists has made it into a cliché. Regardless it remains a central part of Hirst’s work and from sharks in formaldehyde to cows sawed in half, Hirst is au courant in working with animals. However, working in this ‘medium’ draws upon many ethical conundrums with animal rights taking center stage.

Although Damien Hirst was quoted by the Independent in 2002 as saying “I haven’t killed anything for art” it is common knowledge that he paid £6,000 in 1991 to commission a fisherman to catch a shark specifically to be killed for the work The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Hirst had to replace the shark in 2006 and another was caught off the coast of Queensland because the first shark had rotted from the inside out. This is not the only work which features a tiger shark and Hirst continued to use them although in 2000 the species was included on the ICUN’s red list of threatened species.

The shark achieved Hirst’s tradmark shock factor but more issues swirl around this ‘art’ medium that are of environmental concern. The case for his 1995 Turner Prize winning work Mother and Child Divided began leaking the toxic formaldehyde onto an Oslo gallery floor in 2007. Formaldehyde is known to cause several types of nasal and throat cancer and can cause serious health problems even in small amounts of contact. With so many ethical, environmental, and health issues surrounding these works it is a wonder that there is an ever-ready market ready to snap up these ticking hazard bombs.

Throughout his career, Damien Hirst has worked to push the boundaries of Contemporary art and to tackle elusive themes in his work. With his formaldehyde series finished it will be a wonder what he dreams up next to shock and probe us both artistically and environmentally.

For exactly one month I photographed the same patch of sky at the same time every morning to track the variations in colouration.