Anthony Carr

Hi everyone, this is Anthony Carr, taking over the Photofusion Instagram this week. A little bit of background about me. I am a visual artist working with photography and sculpture, who was born in the UK, and moved to Vancouver Island in Canada in 2019, just before the pandemic. I have an experimental approach and am interested in and excited by the intersection of art and science and very much work in a lo-fi, labour-intensive and slow manner. I feel fortunate to have exhibited my work across the UK (including a few times at Photofusion) as well as internationally. When living in London I really enjoyed spending time in the Photofusion darkroom (having been a member since 2015), which is where many of the photographs I’m going to share were printed. I also attended quite of few member Saturday Sessions, run by Kim Shaw, artist and Executive Director of Photofusion. These were always a great way to hear what fellow photographers were up to, and were a valuable way to connect with like-minded people.

I want to kick things off by introducing an ongoing body of work titled Big Bar Lake Ranch Revisited, which documents an abandoned guest ranch in the rural Cariboo region of BC, Canada. I’ve been photographing this ranch since 2011, returning time and again to explore its interior and its setting within the slowly changing landscape. Using mostly homemade pinhole cameras and exposures of days, weeks or even months, I allow the derelict condition of the building to guide the look and feel of the photographs by harnessing the unusual interplay of sunlight that seeps through every crack, hole and missing roof tile, forcing its way into the shadows. In this way, I am looking to capture the intangible and the unseeable over time. Big Bar Lake Ranch Revisited, Camera 69 was included in my very first submission to Photofusion’s yearly SALON members exhibition in 2015, where to my surprise, it won the Hotshoe Photofusion Award.

Image 1: Big Bar Lake Ranch Revisited, Camera 69, b/w silver gelatin photograph, 2014.

Image 2: Big Bar Lake Ranch Revisited, 5x4 DS 5 Rev, b/w silver gelatin photograph, 2016.

Image 3: Big Bar Lake Ranch Revisited, C2 Ranch Camera, b/w silver gelatin photograph, 2016.

These images are from two interlinked works, both reflecting my interest in photographic ‘thingness’ or ‘objectness’ and celebrating the haptic qualities of the print. They also show my willingness for the print to escape the frame and exist in 3D space. 21 Arcs is a set of moontrail photographs (long exposures of the moon during a single night) arranged in a pattern of undulating lines, whose peaks and troughs resemble ocean waves and allude to the moon’s continuous influence on our planet’s tides. I then used these images (along with moontrail photographs) as raw material for a number of other pieces including Untitled (47 Rockets). Inspired by the theoretically possible (but wholly impractical) feat of reaching the moon by folding a piece of paper in half 47 times, I made 47 origami spaceships, rockets, shuttles and other lunar craft of various sizes from single photographic prints.

I’ve feel extremely lucky to have had a piece in each edition of the SALON exhibition since 2015 and one of my rockets was included in SALON/17. More of the rockets and a selection of the 21 Arcs prints were then shown in ‘Made in Brixton – After Dark’ at Photofusion in 2018. This show was in collaboration with the Museum of London and their curator of photography Anna Sparham, who were showing an exhibition titled ‘London Nights’ at the same time.

Image 1: 21 Arcs, b/w silver gelatin photographs, 2017

Image 2: Untitled (47 Rockets), folded b/w silver gelatin and colour c-type photographs and perspex rods, 2016-2018

Image 3: Untitled (47 Rockets), folded b/w silver gelatin photographs, 2016-2018 (selection) and 21 Arcs, b/w silver gelatin photographs, 2017 (selection), shown in ‘Made In Brixton - After Dark’ at Photofusion in 2018

Image 4: Untitled (47 Rockets), folded b/w silver gelatin and colour c-type photographs 2016-2018 (selection) and 21 Arcs, b/w silver gelatin photographs, 2017, shown in ‘The Stars Look So Different Tonight’ at Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna in 2019. (Image courtesy Michael Michlmayr)

This series began during the pandemic after I started growing windowsill peppers as a distraction and to be more resourceful. Inspired by NASA’s online Lunar Sample and Photo Catalog, I decided to make a detailed record of the peppers I was growing. One of the positives to come out of the pandemic was the raised awareness of climate change and as an analogue photographer I became more aware of the need to address my toxic footprint. This has been one of the guiding forces in my decision-making as the series evolved; from the creation of a plant-based developer produced from the stems and leaves of the actual pepper plants, to printing onto salvaged (long-expired) paper, the project has helped me examine sustainability within my practice. Exclusively shot on homemade pinhole cameras, including one designed with six lenses, and utilising unreliable materials, has introduced happenstance into the process, which is something I often seek out and embrace in my work. 

This is an ongoing series and at an early juncture when I was questioning its direction, I was given a huge boost when I was chosen as the recipient of Photofusion’s inaugural Glover Rayner Prize. The prize was awarded for Pepper005CTCC, which was selected for the SALON/21 members show. This recognition has helped fuel and support my practice both creatively and financially as well giving me the confidence to keep going, and I am eternally grateful to Photofusion and the prize backers for their trust and encouragement.

Image 1: The Homegrown (Pandemic) Collection, Pepper005CTCC unique silver gelatin photograph on 10x8in Ilford Ilfospeed Multigrade MG1M, medium weight, Gloss, (expired Feb 1980) RC paper, 2020

Image 2: The Homegrown (Pandemic) Collection, Pepper000ExpC, unique silver gelatin photograph on 10x8in Ilford Ilfospeed Multigrade MG1M, medium weight, Gloss, (expired Feb 1980) RC paper, 2020

Image 3: The Homegrown (Pandemic) Collection, Pepper010ExpC, unique silver gelatin photograph on 10x8in Ilford Ilfospeed Multigrade MG1M, medium weight, Gloss, (expired Feb 1980) RC paper, 2021

This is Anthony Carr signing off my takeover. Thanks everyone for taking the time, and thanks to Photofusion for letting me share a bit about myself and my practice with you all.

All images © Anthony Carr.