Book Review: Picture Summer on Kodak Film
Jason Fulford. Image from Picture Summer on Kodak Film (MACK, 2020). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.
Written by: Alyssa Monte
Jason Fulford’s latest book published by MACK, Picture Summer on Kodak Film, transports you to an imaginative realm created by light and shadow. The pictures included were taken over three years as Fulford travelled across Canada, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. The photos urge readers to make connections and wander through this timeless space.
Jason Fulford. Image from Picture Summer on Kodak Film (MACK, 2020). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.
Comprised of short phrases, a poem by two sisters from Toronto fosters a conversation with the photographs throughout the book, as both elements inform the other. The text is purposefully open-ended so the viewer is not told what to think; instead it creates a rhythm that guides the viewer through the book. The title and cover of the book were inspired by Kodak advertisements from the 1980s.
Fulford thinks of himself as a collector — gathering compositions as he stumbles upon them and decoding their meanings after the fact. He opens a portal to a world that doesn’t really exist by drawing from fantasy, memory and the abstract nature of our unconscious mind. Ambiguity drives Fulford’s work as he desires to create a distinct experience each time the pages are turned.
Jason Fulford. Image from Picture Summer on Kodak Film (MACK, 2020). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.
Sun-soaked and uncanny, Fulford’s photographs tiptoe the line between dream and reality as he captures everyday oddities: a close-up of a metal watch worn over a wristband, saturated text advertising signs and linear patterns of light washing over kitchen walls. Each photograph feels slightly peculiar in its own realm and creates an obscure narrative that seems to shift the longer you look at it. Despite the intriguing aspects of these photos, Fulford pays close attention to many standard elements of photography such as line, shape, texture, form and color. The compositions feel very clean, while the subject matter elicits experimental qualities.
Jason Fulford. Image from Picture Summer on Kodak Film (MACK, 2020). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.
Picture Summer on Kodak Film is about the practice of looking. The book also possesses a certain postmodernist element, seemingly asking its readers: “What do you want me to be about?” Fulford’s viewers are active participants in this project and have the power to guide the work in whichever way they see fit. Fulford pushes his readers to get involved, to dismantle the rigid ways of overthinking and to dive into the mindset of a curious child, allowing themselves to get lost and daydream along the way.
Jason Fulford. Image from Picture Summer on Kodak Film (MACK, 2020). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.
