Domestic Rituals

1979-83

This project grew out of my fascination with the snapshot as a vessel for, and shaper of memory, and my abiding interest in the straight photograph as a seemingly truthful and precise record of an event. The work began with the systematic documentation of daily routines (cooking, eating, dressing, etc.). I sought out particularly banal situations and posed my subjects to appear as if they were truly engaged in their activities. The pictures, which have a quasi-documentary look about them, resemble a kind of tableau-vivant. The tools I chose to use--a large format camera, black and white film and diffuse flashbulb lighting--further enhance the stylized look of these images. At once, this body of work attempts to question the nature of photographic truth while using the iconography of middle class customs to comment on societal values and systems.

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