Jeff Harris: Constructions of Identity 11 Years, One Photograph A Day

Jeff Harris: Constructions of Identity
11 Years, One Photograph A Day

Jeff Harris is an artist living and working in Toronto, Canada.

Harris is a 36-year-old, average guy living, like some of us, a relatively ordinary life. When he is not making art Harris works as a commercial photographer, following the entertainment, culture, and fashion beat.

He is an active outdoorsman: swimming, snowboarding, canoeing and kayaking are just some of the sports and leisure activities that he enjoys. Harris has on occasion been known to cut a hole through the ice just to take a cold dip. His interests go well beyond sports; he is an avid fan of pop culture and music. Harris was once a drummer in a band. He also likes to garden and spends a lot of time communing with nature.

Harris has an abundance of friends and is part of a close-knit family. Every summer he volunteers at a kid’s cancer camp and has done so for seventeen years.

He is smart, savvy, and keenly aware of everything around him. Harris also has a great sense of humour and sports a positive outlook on life.

In November 2008 Harris was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. He has spent much of 2009 undergoing radiation, surgery and is still in rehabilitation in the hopes of walking again. His life has changed tremendously. Yet when you look back on his life he is not a quitter nor would he ever want someone to pity him. He takes this setback in stride and manages to still maintain his humour.

Harris lives life to its fullest, at least until recently. He has created an extraordinary body of work spanning eleven years with no concrete plans to discontinue it. On the last day of 2009 Harris amassed 4,018 images of himself. Every day Harris has either taken a few photographs or depending on his situation, asked a family member, friend, or colleague, or when the need or opportunity arises, a stranger or a celebrity. Roughly one quarter of the images are by others. That’s a mere 1,000 compared to the rest of the images. From a few photographs taken on any given day Harris selects one for his series.

Harris is committed to using 35mm film; he uses a simple point and shoot camera. He has already spent a considerable sum on film and processing, scanning and uploading of images, and maintaining his website—roughly figured at $20,000 for the past eleven years. This figure does not include the huge sum of $30,000 he paid with the aid of sponsors to have large-scale panels printed, rental of display stands, and a galleria rental for an exhibition during the 2009 Contact Toronto Photography Festival.

Some may see his project as only a classic case of pure narcissism and self-conceit but it is not wholly that; Harris’s work also embodies the universal. Every day he constructs his identity in a new configuration. In turn, viewers are invested in constructing their own version of Harris’s identity. It sounds easy but with more than 4,000 images to look at and depending on the time one invests, it will soon be apparent that one is looking at a huge jigsaw puzzle. Every few images raise more questions, underscoring the complexities of the artist.

Harris also invites us into his life by moving the personal to the public arena. This is not that far removed from today’s public sphere of camera phones and recorders, and security cameras on streets and in public buildings. In putting aside our own bias towards those that focus exclusively on themselves, we can readily identify with most of the images. Beware though; Harris is so highly selective of the images he chooses to display that it almost seems one-sided. Other than a few photographs prior to his having cancer viewers will see only a few photographs that show signs of what is often perceived as negative emotions. Viewers are not privy to his anger or frustration that he may sometimes feel, and there is only one image in which we see obvious emotional pain on his face. Despite this viewers can, through his eyes, remember their own journey through aging, the births and deaths they have witnessed, and the years spent watching someone grow up, including themselves. Or they will remember something as simple as their own cuts, bruises and sprains that they have experienced. Viewers know what it is like to be lost in their own thoughts, to be alone versus being together with a loved one, family or friends. At its worst his work will remind viewers of the things or people they lack in their lives or further still those who do not have the power to make changes in their lives.

Many viewers will wonder if the work is staged. Definitely. Many other artists whose primary style is documentary have also staged their work. For example, Walker Evans documentary work was often labeled as “staged documents” because of its closely cropped framing and straight-on views. It is inconceivable that a premeditated self-portrait can be shot without the artist first setting up the camera and tripod. Harris has expressed that he wants every image to be unique and makes every attempt to not seem repetitive. This then raises the question as to how far he will go out of his way to take a photograph. In one image Harris is on an icy lake adjacent to open water. Will he put himself in danger for the sake of a photograph? In the end only viewers can truly decide whether some images seem plausible from one day to the next and others set-up for the desire to keep images unique.

Harris makes ample use of photography techniques. He occupies space in and out of the frame, fills the frame completely or disappears in something far greater than he. He explores the relationship between figure and ground. Harris also makes good use of unusual camera angles. He frequently poses himself within rich, colourful environments and uses hard and soft light to create an ambiance to each image. Harris also relies on a lot of available light rather than using a flash. Whether he is in the private realm of his bedroom, a large arena or vast outdoor panorama, he creates a visual dialogue between the space he inhabits and the space he frequents or chances upon.

Harris considers all of his images as self-portraits; even the images taken by and attributed to others. Other than a few images Harris directs the cameraperson to frame it a certain way. Harris has become a master at self-portraiture. The images shot by others and those taken by Harris are difficult to identify. At the beginning of the series Harris had a lot of difficulty with framing, light exposure, and focusing the camera. During the first two years some of the images of himself are more banal then others and convey a sense of not taking the project seriously enough or having little direction. Things began to change significantly in 2001 and by 2002 his perseverance paid off. His work became sophisticated, mature and incredibly seductive.

It is not difficult to figure out the artists that Harris most admires: Martin Parr, William Eggelston and Lee Friedlander. Both Eggelston and Parr are masters of colour photography. Parr looks to the people inhabiting local areas around him to photograph, always managing to catch a glimpse of something funny. Eggelston’s lyrical photographs sizzle with colour and are unusual in subject matter. He takes the banal flotsam and jetsam of life to a level in which most people rarely consider looking at. Friedlander is well known for his self-portraits as shadows or reflected in mirrors and storefronts.

As mentioned previously Harris organized a large exhibition of his work for the May 2009 Contact Toronto Photography Festival. The exhibition 3,653 Self-portraits was visited by hundreds of people. Situated in a large galleria at Brookfield Place in Toronto it spanned well over 400 running feet. Each image was 4” X 6” and displayed chronologically in grids.

There are times when an artist could use the advice of others or distance himself enough to consider more than one way to display the work and in this case the artist could have also selected single images and enlarged them, then displayed them as either single images or in groups. In the future and due to the amount of photographs, Harris needs to consider other options such as: decreasing the size of the images in the grids, selectively displaying some of the work in a given year rather than showing every single photograph or not show the photographs chronologically. It is not really necessary to show the images in this way as most images do not have continuity from one day to the next. Harris also needs to break away partially from the grid format and display some of the work into groups or as single images. Another possibility is to display images in conjunction with some of the observations made in this essay. As well it would be desirable to set-up a computer to look at images more intimately online.

Thousands have visited Harris’s website. It is easy to browse through singular images or by year or month. It is a large archive and depending on the time you spend looking at each photograph it takes anywhere between six and ten hours to look at all of the images. Harris has also included a journal, a place where browsers can write about a day that was important to them. In turn Harris posts their stories with matching photographs that he took on those days, providing that those days are not already taken. A part of the website seems unusual and unnecessary. Harris provides links to other Jeff Harris’ around the world.

Harris has created a unique body of work. He has invited us to share his world, albeit superficially. He purposely avoids including the darker side of himself. As well not all photographs are equal to each other; some do require text whereas others speak for themselves. Other than an excellent photo essay of his journey with cancer there is very little continuity between images. This sends a lot of mixed messages and may cause some viewers to barely look at his site. Another thing that Harris needs to strongly consider is the length of the project. By extending the project it will either become more solid as he ages or the project will become stale and more superficial in his attempt to make each image unique.

To view his work visit www.jeffharris.org. To see more of Harris' work please visit the post for July 25, 2010.

If you have comments or questions or would like me to forward any feedback to Jeff Harris please email pikeart@gmail.com. Please remember to include ‘Me and My Mamiya’ in the subject heading so that it does not end up in my spam box. Return soon as I have several more posts about the work of Jeff Harris.