Jennifer Geyman
Exploring the notion of the past is how this body of work came to be. I remember the exact moment I decided to create the first pieces. My grandparents were visiting from Indiana, and with them they brought stacks of old family photographs. Instantly I was drawn to the space contained within the withered, time beaten black & white images I held in my hand; the places, the faces, curious about whom they were and life at that particular time longing to see beyond just that single image staring back at me. I took mental notes as stories began to unfold while the photographs were passed around, and this body of work was born. This moment was just the beginning. Since the initial work began, final images have grown to encompass people and places unfamiliar to me. Ancestral histories of others and imaginative visual stories are expressed from the use of forgotten photographs found in garage sales, antique malls, estate sales, etc. Each one given a new home within the story the final image explores. Creating these images includes the combination of one or more of the following: old black & white photographs, found objects, and text. The process begins by scanning the photographs & objects into the computer and creating a digital collage. I make the negative by printing this collage onto transparency. The transparency negative is taken into the traditional darkroom and a silver gelatin print is created to form the final image. By combining the digital and traditional darkroom methods I am able to bridge yesterday and today, sewing my own reflection into the images and stories of those once known.
