Turquoise Studies: Photographs 2018
In April of 2018 I visited the Turquoise Yachts construction yard in Istanbul Turkey. While there, I toured a 74-meter yacht that was under construction—the enormous steel hull and superstructure were taking shape behind a web of scaffolding. On my tour, I discovered some very curious details in the steel plates that were forming the bulkheads and floors of the yacht’s upper decks.
There were myriad weld lines forming zigzag and spiral patterns contrasting with swirls and arabesques probably formed by a grinder as it smoothed out joints and imperfections. The ambient light reflected off these details in quite beautiful ways lending hints of color and brilliance to the dull gray surfaces. Occasional black lines, numbers, and words appeared as marks within these details, obviously information left by the contractors during the process of the build. I was told that the weld patterns were added to the steel to stiffen the panels preventing “oil canning” or waviness in the finished surfaces. The chance combination of these iconographic elements created for me a fascinating pictograph.
Within the overwhelming scale of the yacht itself, I found these tiny visual treasures and knew that I would like to do a series of photographs of them. Recently, I have been eliminating contextual information in my photography by filling in background areas in solid black or white. I’m doing this to strengthen and simplify certain details in the image, make it more abstract and perhaps to create some mystery or ambiguity in the remaining iconography.
