January (typically something of a more relaxed wind-down point for us before gently floating down into a new wedding season) has this year launched like an absolute rocket. With February set to follow in much the same orbit I can only hope the rocket in question is a reusable model with precision landing capabilities. Currently the flight plan includes writing two new presentations for real-life conferences (remember those?) in Dublin and Barcelona, shooting some weddings, preparing a new website for launch, reviewing last year’s work, getting the studio back in order after a government-enforced hiatus and some exciting yet challenging projects that are already underway. So with the voyage exciting but boosters already preparing to jettison my first instinct about discussions of getting Kage creating again was “Houston we have a problem.”
I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge though and I’m thrilled that we are “getting the band back together” after one of the strangest spells in international living memory. And with no rules set to this particular Kage project I’ve decided that the best solution to force me to be more creative with less time is to take a slightly different approach to things.
The black-hole that consumes much of my time in photography (and yes there is still always enough time to torture a metaphor) is the development stage. Selecting and processing images is far from where my passions lie so for this project I’ve decided to remove that particular obstacle and give myself permission to just shoot by only using my Instax Mini 90. I love that the instancy of the self-printing camera means I can’t over-think it - there’s no possibility of rescuing an image in the edit, not even the leniency of developing the film to my own tastes. It’s just my eye to the camera - my world through a tiny window.
To paraphrase Bowie “I hope my spaceship knows which way to go.”
Dominique Shaw
January 30th, 2022