“I came to Australia with a backpack and a camera, sure the camera would show the truth. I ended up thinking maybe there's no truth to catch. We all talk in borrowed words. The mirror was always dirty, and pretending it wasn't was the lie.”
A homemade instant camera housing built around a salvaged Instax Mini 40, with two LED bike lights for flash and all the hardware on show. A small, quiet camera lets everyone pretend they're getting the real moment. This one is so weird nobody can pretend. People know it's there and act like they know. It provokes them, and so do I holding it.
Camera companies kept promising smaller, quieter, faster cameras so you could finally get the real moment. But what if there's no real moment to get? Just people performing, using borrowed looks and words to say what they mean, and it never quite comes out right.
THE DIRTY MIRROR
I've carried a camera since I was 17, and not as a hobby. When I moved to Australia I brought a backpack with clothes, a toothbrush and a camera. The camera came because I needed it. It's how I recorded the move, made sense of what was changing and held on to what mattered.
For years I shot thousands of street photos on a Ricoh GRIII, small and quiet so people wouldn't notice, Moriyama style. Catch people when they don't know, get close to the real thing. Most of them on King Street in Newtown. I thought I was getting real moments because nobody knew I was shooting.
Then I tested this camera in Newtown, where everyone's meant to be their true self, and I saw it. I wasn't getting real moments. I was photographing people dressed as characters out of a catalogue. Punks from the 70s, goths from the 90s, mods, Ivy League types. All dress-up.
They weren't fake. They meant something real, they just say it with a borrowed look. You feel alienated, so you go goth, and now what people see is "goth", not what you actually feel. It's like saying I love you with a Hallmark card. The feeling is real but the words are someone else's.
While I was building it, I was vacuuming and mopping and singing Zero by the Smashing Pumpkins on repeat, the bit about the dirty mirror. That was it. The camera is a dirty mirror. It can't show what's real, not in them and not in me.
“My quiet Ricoh GR III and this weird thing shoot through the same dirty mirror. This one just admits it.”
EVERYONE'S IN COSTUME
Then it hit me that my own look is borrowed too. The work clothes, the "honest materials", the maker thing, all taken from Rams and Japanese craft. The whole "photographer showing what's real" idea was a costume as well. It went full gonzo. I couldn't watch from outside because I was in it.
Camera companies kept selling quieter shutters, faster focus and smaller bodies, and every new one promised that now you'd get the real moment. But what if there's no real moment to get?
The camera has two flash modes, white and red. A small, quiet camera lets people pretend you might catch them being real. This one is so strange they have to deal with it. With the red light on, nobody can pretend. Every time I swing the ND filter in, you can see the camera changing the picture.
Baudrillard wrote about this: the copy comes before the real thing, the map before the land. Building this camera, I finally felt what he meant. People are already performing before any camera shows up, because that's how people are.
They mean something real, like feeling alienated, liking something or wanting to rebel, but the only way they can say it is with a borrowed look: goth, a varsity jacket, punk gear. The look can hide what they meant.
My father used to say "la otra cara de la moneda", the other side of the coin. Same dirty mirror, two sides of it.
I asked myself what my real portrait would be, me with nothing on. Maybe it's this camera. Weird, obvious, made from borrowed parts and borrowed ideas, and it works even though it's held together with whatever I had. Maybe that's the only honest portrait there is: you can see how it's made, borrowed bits put together into something that works, saying what I mean with borrowed words that never quite get there.
The series ends without an answer. Borrowed parts, borrowed words, always performing, and you keep going anyway. What the fuck else is there? Keep going.
Red flash on. With the red light, nobody can pretend they haven't seen it.
An Instax Mini 40 in a plywood box, with two LED bike lights for flash and the ND filter swung out.
Side on. All the hardware on show, nothing hidden.
Close up of the box. Borrowed parts and borrowed ideas, held together with whatever I had.
Materials: Salvaged Fujifilm Instax Mini 40, plywood box, two LED bike lights, hinged ND filter mount, wooden rods, toggle clamp
Size: 25 cm high × 15 cm long × 11 cm wide, handheld
Box: Plywood, with holes for the viewfinder and the film counter. There's room at the top for the photo to come out. A toggle clamp opens it quickly. Standard tripod mount underneath.
Flash: A hole in the box for the built-in flash, plus two LED bike lights on wooden rods that I switch on by hand. White light, or red light when I want to make it obvious.
ND filter: A hinged mount I made that swings the filter in and out. Still easy to hold, no light leaks.
Status: Works. It takes photos, and it doesn't pretend to show what's real.
Context in Series
#12 of 12, the last one. The Last Brew asked if Rams' principles hold up after his dream fell over. This one asks something harder: maybe everyone's always performing, and borrowed words are the only ones we've got.
My quiet Ricoh and this weird camera shoot through the same dirty mirror. This one just admits it. I came here with a camera, sure it would show the truth, and ended up thinking there might be no truth to catch.
The series ends without an answer. We keep going with borrowed parts and borrowed words, always performing, because that's what people do.
We mean real things, like feeling alienated, liking something or wanting to rebel, and say them with borrowed looks, goth, a varsity jacket, punk gear, that get in the way of what we meant.
What the fuck else is there? Keep going.