The Alexandra clock

item details

NameThe Alexandra clock

ProductionPeter Peryer; photographer; 1988; Alexandra

Classificationblack-and-white prints, gelatin silver prints, black-and-white photographs, works of art

Materialssilver, photographic paper, photographic gelatin

Materials Summaryblack and white photograph, gelatin silver print

Techniquesblack-and-white photography

DimensionsImage: 406mm (height), 505mm (length)

Registration NumberO.003856

Credit linePurchased 1989 with Minister's discretionary funds

Overview

As the title of this black and white photograph taken by Peter Peryer in 1988 states, this is an image of the Alexandra clock. Built on one of the rocky hills that surrounds Alexandra in Central Otago, the clock is a well-known tourist attraction which is frequently photographed. The image is a landscape photograph, and Peryer has used a wide format in order to include the sweep of the dramatic landscape in which the clock is located. The photograph is one of a series of images from the late 1980s in which Peryer abandons his more usual square format in favour of a wider frame better suited to the Central Otago landscape.

The tourist image
In 1989 Gregory Burke suggested that Peryer enriched his seemingly mundane images by making reference to different genres of photographic representation. Writing in the catalogue for an exhibition called Imposing Narratives: Beyond the Documentary in Recent New Zealand Photography, Burke discussed the complex relationships set up in Peryer's photographs. According to Burke, Peryer 'explores the aesthetic styles and subject matter of the postcard, family snapshot, natural science or topographical photograph'. This is certainly true of The Alexandra Clock, in which Peryer has trained his camera on a well-known and well-photographed landmark. The photograph is undramatic, almost matter-of-fact in its technical processes - a black and white gelatin print with a lack of contrast, in which everything within the frame is treated equally. On one level, then, Peryer's image shares a lot with the genre of tourist photography through which the Alexandra Clock has achieved its status as a tourist attraction.

Playing with time
The seemingly straightforward in Peryer's work always has an edge, and The Alexandra Clock is no exception. Peryer's photographs are often stylistically distanced from the present through his flattening effects, muted tonal ranges, and engagement with scientific or tourist photography. The Alexandra Clock achieves this temporal distance not just through the way Peryer has printed and photographed the image, which references tourist images, but through the subject itself. As Burke wrote in the catalogue for Peryer's 1995 retrospective called Second Nature: Peter Peryer, Photographer, New Zealand: 'While the hands of this clock point to an undated time of 5.47, the styling of its dial insinuates a moment in the 1950s.' The Alexandra Clock is a heady mix of the history of photography and its intersection with the everyday, in which Peryer plays with the photograph's ability to freeze and distort time.