SCHMID~Joachim, Tausend Himmel.
Author: SCHMID~Joachim
Publisher: The Photographers Galery, London
Year: 2007
ISBN: 9780907879794
Joachim Schmid, Tausend Himmel.
Full colour 60-page artist booklet featuring images from the project of the same title.
Tausend Himmel Published by The
Photographer???s Gallery 2007 may be
the first project by Schmid which is entirely his own photography. Made to help him deal with a hearing condition called hyperacusis which is when the tolerance for everyday sound collapses,
rendering most normally ignorable sounds as unpleasantly loud. For this project, whenever Schmid heard a helicopter flying by, he took photos looking up at the sky. The resulting clouds, skies and helicopter photos are as Schmid puts it, ???photographs of sounds.???
Schmid???s work invites a very interesting question. With all of the images that exist, is their continued proliferation necessary especially in a time now where cell phones now have cameras? We are producing more images than ever, could the reliance on images and visual material alter our vocabularies and evolution of our ways of communication? In a way, Schmid was being a bit tongue in cheek when he requested a stop of production of photographs until we have used the ones we have already made but then again was it? Is this all just one more metaphoric example of how we do things compulsively and fill our lives with objects that we tend to store away and ignore until we decide to clean house? So the next time you aim the cell phone camera or put the Leica to your eye, consider what it is that you are bringing into this world. Is it necessary? Will you love it and take care of it? Or will they fall into the hands of others to see what we can no longer see?
