These conceptually diverse pictures by Michael Collins explore aspects of the photographic tableau through the use of the Record Pictures aesthetic and the application of large format film and digital technology.

Record Pictures is the term that describes the apparently “matter of fact” aesthetic that arose from the practice of making topographically and architecturally accurate drawings, paintings, and photographs for documentary purposes. Historically, this aesthetic was co-opted by the authorities (military, governmental and industrial) as a means of imposing control. As with the history of cartography, the military, often acting as the spearhead to trade and industry, exerted a powerful influence in the evolution and exercise of this aesthetic in visual art. An early example is the seventeenth century series of graphite and wash sketches by Valentijn Klotz recording Netherlandish battlefields. In Britain, some of the first generation of Record Picture photographers were sappers trained by the Royal Engineers.

To achieve topographical and architectural accuracy, many artists employed the camera obscura. A secretive and contentious history, still subject to lingering prejudice, the role and influence of the camera obscura remains obscure (as does the significance of Record Pictures, which is often devalued as “applied” art). The photographs on this website were made with a view camera, the descendant of the camera obscura. A view camera is essentially a camera obscura with film. This photography is intrinsically part of the art history of pictures created with the aid of these optical devices. From the examination of monocular perspective (Vermeer) to the delineation of accurate and detailed topographical and architectural compositions (Canaletto), and the proto-cinematic envisioning of light, colour and composition (Caravaggio), the conception and composition of an image on the ground glass of the camera obscura or the view camera is a practice freighted with history. The Enlightenment and the evolution of the natural sciences placed renewed emphasis on art to record empirical evidence in the service of botany, geognosy and archaeology. These cultural developments found both an apotheosis, and arguably in respect of painting, a nemesis, in photography, whose emergence was contemporaneous with mid-nineteenth century positivism.

The Record Pictures aesthetic came to prominence in photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher and became synonymous with what was subsequently termed the Dusseldorf School. Michael Collins shares their interest in industrial structures and landscapes but has no typological agenda and works towards manifestly different outcomes. Citing the legacy of nineteenth century survey photographers, his Record Pictures take issue with Rosalind Krauss’ criticisms of this art in her essay “Photography’s Discursive Spaces”. This is further addressed in his book “Record Pictures: Photographs from the Archives of the Institution of Civil Engineers” (SteidlMack 2004). His photographs of the state of structures and landscapes find more relevance within the frameworks of Robert Smithson’s dialectical landscape.

The Record Pictures photography by Michael Collins employs this aesthetic to examine its legacy and explore contemporary iterations applied to a series of conceptual enquiries. While the photography utilizes a documentary aesthetic, and draws explicitly on photography’s indexicality, it has neither a documentary approach nor purpose. The actual photographs are 152 x 122 cm in size, extremely detailed and deeply defined digital chromogenic prints. Their true nature is dependent upon their physical presence, exemplifying the essence of what Jean-Francois Chevrier termed the tableau in contemporary art photography. These prints by Michael Collins have an overtly unusual degree of clarity and definition even at such scale. The expanse and content of the picture create what Michael Fried described as a “confrontational” experience. From observing the whole, their intricate detail encourages the viewer to draw close to see the minutiae. This counters Michael Fried’s dichotomy, the distinction between viewing a large print on a wall rather than looking at a small print or a reproduction on a page. As such, this photography by Michael Collins questions the possibilities of the tableau, including its encounter, enabling an engagement ranging between the monumental and the minute.

Michael Collins’ photography pursues modernism’s self-reflexivity by challenging such notions as the “flat” in photography. The depth of field in his photographs is used to endow the image with an almost sculptural quality. This apparent three dimensionality has become increasingly perceptible in his work in the last decade, initially in the studies made on the Hoo Peninsula, where the prominence of foreground detail has grown in significance. In naturally sculptural subjects (for example, the Parthenon sculptures and the various industrial structures) this aesthetic has opportunities to be more formally pronounced. More recently, Michael Collins has embraced the possibilities offered by digital photography in his practice by creating a manifestly greater depth of field to achieve a new form of “sculptural realism”.

Presented at tableau scale, this “sculptural realism” engenders an extraordinary sense of realism, with such depth and detail, the photographic depiction is almost corporeal. Michael Collins’ aim is to probe photography’s potential for multisensory integration – how such heightened visual awareness might stimulate the other senses and encourage greater psychological, intellectual, and mnemonic engagement. This exploration of perception is examined in “A Critique of Pure Photography” (2023) by photographically recreating the Molyneux Problem – one of the Enlightenment’s philosophical polemics addressing the relationship between the different senses and the nature of human understanding.

A range of Michael Collins’ photography is presented on this website in the following galleries:

A Critique of Pure Photography

Dialectical Sculptures

Entropy

Hodos

Paul Nash Reprise

Paysage Portrait

Polyphony

The Sublime

Vedute

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