"Doppler"

gelatin silver print on baryta on cardboard

Signed, titled, dated and numberd on verso

A simple, found everyday object, the Doppler bottle (Fritz Simak grew up partly in the Weinviertel) becomes the object of photographic investigation. Simak stored his fixer for film development in the bathroom in a Doppler bottle. The bottle stood on the window sill and the opaque glass of the bathroom window created reflections of the louvre blind in the bottle. This accidentally found setting let Simak experiment even further. He did not change the point of view and perspective of his camera or the object itself, but only the incidence of light through the blinds on the window behind it. By using different contrast filters when enlarging, a varied series of the same motif is created.
Simak thus penetrates behind the object actually depicted, behind the subject, and depicts the photograph itself, as a literally translated light drawing (from the ancient Greek φώς [phōs], in the genitive φωτός [photós] for light and γράφειν [graphein] for writing, painting, drawing, thus "drawing with light").
(Christoph Fuchs, 2021)