“The term ‘photography’ simply does not suffice when describing the body of work by Lard Buurman. The 21st century, for all its advances and overload in terms of the availability and retrievability of information, is severely behind regarding the necessary (re)definition of descriptors for hybrid artistic practices, of which Buurman’s systematic photographic constructions are a noteworthy example.” – Alexander Opper 1
This quote, from the essay for my publication written by South African architect Alexander Opper, expresses my search as a photographer for new and hybrid forms of storytelling. In my work I bring together the documentary aspects of photography with the fictive aspects of image manipulation. I do this by recreating the photographic image through many different exposures made from the same perspective. Thus I create, in retrospect, the photographic moment. One could say that in this way I undermine photography’s claims to truth. Even though we live in times in which we all know that a photograph is not reality, in documentary photography manipulation of the moment is still considered taboo. Erroneously, I think, because each photograph is a manipulation of reality. The recorded, frozen moment itself is a construction of photography.
In my photographs I do not so much want to record the reality of the moment, but rather the everyday reality of the place. By the combination of images out of multiple ‘documentary’ photographs, a hybrid form between documentary and staged photography comes into existence. At the same time I play with the possibility of a crossing with cinematography. I connect the static immediacy of the singular photographic snap with the energy innate to the movement of cinema. In this way I developed a personal photographic language.
1) Alexander Opper, “Recognizing and revealing the public in the photographic constructions of Lard Buurman”, in: Lard Buurman, Africa Junctions – Capturing the City, Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, expected publication date April 2014.