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Second Nature
Author: Thomas Lord
Supervisors: Mark Bolland Michael Greaves
29 August 2025
Lord, T. (2025). Second nature [Master's thesis, Otago Polytechnic]. Research Bank. https://doi.org/10.34074/thes.7304
Abstract
This project unpacks what it means to me to practice photography not as a form of capture, but as a dialogue with the world. Within the darkroom and out in the field, I’ve worked to shift the emphasis from taking images to receiving them. Through slowness and attentiveness, the resulting photographs are not treated as fixed records but as traces that emerge through encounter and the material processes that shape them. My work brings theory and practice into conversation, along with personal stories from the time of exposure, darkroom rituals, and the atmospheric qualities of the landscapes I’ve spent time with. Throughout, I draw on the ideas of Diarmuid Costello, Kaja Silverman, and others. As well as Māori concepts of time and mauri. These frameworks come to form through slow photographic processes such as long exposures, large format cameras, and cameraless techniques that require repetition, waiting and attention. The exhibition includes a combination of new works and selected images made over the course of this research. Prints vary from gelatin silver to pigment and C-type, often made in response to specific encounters. Whether a pinhole exposure of Piopiotahi, a ginkgo grown from a Hiroshima survivor seed or a prolonged exposure of a gorse bush in fog. Together, the works reflect an interest in time as layered and fluid and in photography as a way of forming ethical and poetic relationships with the world.
Keywords
photography, analogue, art, slowness, large format camera
License
This thesis is publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International. This licence applies except where otherwise indicated, especially for images.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
