Exhibition 2011

Feeds:: Posts; Comments

Exhibition 2011 – Part 2

song exposure [sawng ek-spoh-zher]: a photograph created by opening the shutter at the start of a song and closing it at the end

Exhibition Dates:
May 5th – July 25th 2011
(5pm until late every day except Mondays)

Opening Reception:
Thurs May 5th 2011 6-8PM

Location:
The Workmans Club, First Floor Bar, 10 Wellington Quay, Dublin 2 (beside the Clarence Hotel).

After a successful run at the Fumbally Exchange, the Traces Of The Real exhibition moves to the Workmans Club in Temple Bar. Traces Of The Real is an exhibition of song exposure photographs taken by Hugh McCabe over the course of a year in Dublin music venues. A song exposure photograph is a photograph of the performance of a song, and is created by opening the shutter at the start of the song, and then closing it at the end. The resulting images capture the stages and equipment in vivid detail but cast the performers and audiences as fluid, transient and ghostlike presences in front of the lens. The aim of the series is to explore the notion of temporality within photographic representation, and to question the idea that photographs should correspond to discrete, frozen moments in time.

The inspiration came from renowned Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Theaters series. In this project, Sugimoto set up his camera at the back of ornate movie palaces in New York and other US cities, opened his shutter at the start of the film, and closed it at the end. The light from the projected movie becomes the light source for the photographic exposure and illuminates all corners of the theater over the duration of the film. Traces Of The Real started as an exploration of how this idea could be applied to live music concerts and evolved into an attempt to answer the following questions. Can one take a photograph of a song? If so, what would it look like?

The photographs were shot in a number of different venues: including Vicar Street, The National Concert Hall, Grand Canal Theatre, The Village, The Button Factory and Whelans. A wide variety of artists were photographed in this manner: including The Frames, Adebisi Shank, Villagers, Whale Watching, Beach House, The Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra, Sea Dog, Yeh Deadlies and many more.

The images are created using a mix of old and new technology. They are shot using a large format film camera fixed onto a tripod on the balcony. This produces a 5” by 4” negative which is digitized to give an image of enormously high resolution. These images are then printed by fine art printer David Monahan and mounted onto aluminum compound (dibond) panels. Following the Fumbally exhibition, the photographs will be on display in The Workmans Club on Wellington Quay, Dublin 2.

Biography:
Hugh McCabe was born and lives in Dublin. He has spent more than fifteen years involved in the music scene, mainly as a musician but also releasing records and organizing gigs, before turning to photography in recent years. He completed the Certificate in Photography and Digital Imaging at NCAD in 2010 and has participated in a number of group exhibitions. Traces Of The Real is his first solo exhibition. He lectures in Creative Digital Media at the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown.

Official press release in PDF format is here.

Contact Hugh McCabe: hmccabe at gmail.com or +353 87 2995233

Sample Images