I hope to hear about (learn about) disposable cameras, because during the
last few years of his life and art, Ray Johnson photographed his long
farewell letter and suicide note with disposable cameras. The camera is an
image conveying significant ideas. In my current notes, "The photograph was
taken with a disposable camera, that is, a camera which for an uncertain
period of time contains images, but then as the vehicle or container is
discarded. With similar cameras, Ray photographed his own face with camera, an
image as a temporary reflection in both glass windows and mirrors." After Ray
drowned (in his own private developing fluid at Sag Harbor), a person
retrieved the last 2 rolls he had left for development at Genevese Drugstore,
but refuses to show them to anyone. In one of his photographs with a
disposable camera, inspired by some AUTO-MOTIVE, he positions on his AUTO an
AUTOBIOGRAPHY written (in some sense) by Richard Avedon, who is associable
with the most expensive cameras and avant-garde technology in developing
negatives and in producing enlargements (printing by expert printers under
detailed instructions and paid by the hour? The task? And how much?). Ray's
photographs are going to pull the history of photography away from Avedon's
calculations toward Ray's visual meditations, which even choke down Avedon
and his technologies. With Ray, the disposable camera is also a
communication and a message. He frequently photographed his disposable
cameras as
conveyances of messages about meanings and values. Happily for me,
implications of other uses of disposable cameras will help to widen and to
deepen
ideas about Ray, just as he might clarify implications of other uses and users
by having photographed with disposable cameras in parking lots and
cemeteries, often with a photograph of Andy Warhol photographing ... Thanks
always to Tamara for rhyming with camera... B.W.
