| 'Slow
Shutter' is a series of color-photographs taken in Cologne in
1991. The collection is part of an on-going series of carnival
that Hope Herman has been developing for the past decade. Her
life-long fascination with the vitality and subversive openness
of city streets is reflected here in the universal spirit of
carnival, which has always stood at the boundary between art
and life. So carnival for many people in the Rhineland stays
a moment in life when one can flee normal life, and publicly
appear and act as another persona, or emphasize aspects of one's
personality usually hidden to others. It is exactly this, what
Hope Herman Wurmfeld saw, understood, and knew to visualize
by here special way to photograph.It is typical for Hope Herman
that she never is a distant viewer of situations she is interested
in, but always goes out to be part of them. She has no fear
to provoke, and, by her open as well respective way to approach
people unknown to her, she always manages within moments to
gain their confidence – the very essential precondition
for photography in the street. Hope Herman literally takes a
close look of what she is observing; she makes her images, to
an extent, from inside the event, and, usually has the unspoken
permission of the portrayed who, however, in her photographs
typically do not appear to be distracted by being portrayed
but keep on doing whatever they are up to do. Hope Herman's
street-images are not snapshots; they rather appear in the mode
of snapshots, as images of lucky moments, on the side of the
photographer as well as of those being photographed: as moments
of an equally open as fulfilled interaction.To bring the double-voiced,
double-faced muse of carnival to life Hope Herman adapted technical
means, which would let her work in streets and in the dark bars
of Cologne without the added distraction of flash. As it so
often happens, this constraint, while limiting in some respects,
offered a solution, which reached beyond method to the heart
of the matter. Technically, a slow shutter exposes the film
in segments while maintaining constant light. Blur may also
occur when moving the camera. And both of these techniques produce
a flow of movement across the surface of the film, which may
isolate the image, suggest speed, or convey motion.Images produced
in this way play against the expected notion of the photograph
as a formal record or mimesis of the thing itself. Form softens,
shape mutates, and expectation and logic are defied - creating
an ambiguity of identity in a transitory world. It is this suspension
of the natural order of things, this world turned upside down,
which parallels, in a way, the revolutionary spirit that is
the historic root of carnival.In 'Horn-Blower', the fingers
of the young man are delineated, yet soft, accenting the upward
tilt of the head and heightening the sensation of sound. The
pair of dancers, the couple kissing, the man with the tray –
are images made strange by the subtle softening of form, light
and rich, unreal color. In this strangeness is revealed the
dark vitality, the tension – like a stringed instrument
that’s been strung a bit too tight – of worlds colliding,
the recognition of a suspension of the natural order of things.
The clown and the mustached boy – soft, but not blurred
– serve as parentheses to the anarchic frenzy of the revelers.
They become us, embrace us – as viewers and participants
– they invite us into the dream to find meaning and humanity
in these fluid spaces.
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