by Evangelo Costadimas

Destination is a solo exhibition of photographs by artist and architect William Lim comprising photographs culled from his recent trip around the world. The word “destination” may conjure up images of travel for leisure and holidays in glamorous picturesque locations that result in dozens of holiday snaps neatly filed in albums. However, this is not Lim’s motivation. He likens this body of work to a string of incidents or landmarks that dot our lives, as for him “life is a journey searching for a destination”1.

Although a number of his destinations were predetermined, Lim often stops along the way to photograph places that were not on his itinerary. He stops because he suddenly sees a scene that catches his artist’s eye, as he is at the right place, at the right moment. The time of day, the colour of light, the atmospheric conditions, the viewpoint, a certain movement, are all parts that form the image he visualizes. It is this image that he sees in his mind’s eye that compels him to stop and setup his camera.

These unforeseen and serendipitous ‘finds’ yield some of his most interesting work. There is an element of chance involved, but also destiny as these moments do not occur simply due to random choice. This surprising outcome suggests the emergence of the notion of ‘destiny’ in the life-is-a-journey metaphor. The words “destiny” and “destination” share a common root in Latin (destinare, to make firm, to establish), and therefore it could be argued that there is both an intrinsic and a semantic relationship which links them. It could very well be that the destination and destiny can be seen as intertwined, particularly if we examine this through the basic belief in fate; in other words, the conviction that there is a preordained course of events which define one’s life.

Destiny aside, there would be no great journeys if there were no destinations. We travel for various reasons but what is the significance of travelling and what is its significance once we arrive at the place that we call the destination? For instance, there is a difference between those who call themselves travelers as opposed to merely tourists. To the traveller, the journey matters more than the destination. The significance of the destination may not be fully realized even at the moment one reaches it.  It may delight or disappoint. Either way, the journey acquires and accumulates meaning through what occurs along the way. The ‘getting there’ is the fun bit. The more challenging or adventurous the path leading to it, the more significant it becomes. The journey in itself becomes the destination or as Baudelaire put it “But the true voyagers are those who depart for the sake of departing”.

William Lim photographs locations, movements, earth, sky, the deepness of colour, the absence of colour, light and darkness. Like Baudelaire’s voyagers, he moves for the sake of moving. His photographic destination can be a famous site like the Pyramids or a side street in Liverpool. When he is there, he knows why he wants to photograph it. He is not interested in how photogenic the scenery is, he is interested in what kind of feeling he gets from it. He is looking for ways in which to capture the essence of the feeling that emanates from that setting at that very moment. Regardless of whether the locales depicted are historical or insignificant, monumental or mundane, well trodden or our of the beaten path, all of his images speak the same language.

Most of the photographs in this body of work were made either around dusk or dawn. Daylight is about to break or it has already died leaving behind a few vanishing tinges. It is what landscape photographers all the magic time, it only lasts about five or ten minutes. It is as if a magic wand suddenly transforms everything in front of the camera lens into a beautiful and idyllic setting, regardless if just moments before it was a boring or ugly sight. The painter James McNeil Whistler put it aptly when he said:

“And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy land is before us”.

It is quite impossible to pin down Lim’s work formally, or to categorize it as several -isms may apply. Some of the photographs in this body of work identity with pictorialism yet some are semi-abstract and bordering on representational expressionism. Others fall under minimalism as abstract compositions presenting us with fields of colour reminiscent of Mark Rothko.

All this is by design. Lim sets out to manipulate each image and give it a certain amount of ambiguity that could easily cause it to be mistaken for a painting to the casual on-looker. He does this on the spot and in-camera by his masterful control of focus. He makes use of an architectural shift lens, which is designed to correct perspective and to prevent the distorting pin-cushion effect that you may get with wide angle lenses. But by breaking the rules for how it is supposed to be used, he is able to shift the focus so that only part of the image is sharp while leaving the rest of the image largely out of focus so that only part of the image is sharp while leaving the rest of the image largely out of focus. Deciding where to place the sharp and blurred areas is where the artistry comes in. The lack of detailed information caused by blurriness is what gives the images their painterly quality. In Japanese the word for blur is “bokeh”. In true Zen-like fashion, some Japanese photographers dedicated their entire lives to “bokeh”, forever exploring expressiveness through its sfumato effects. Lim achieves his effects right on the camera and not by using computer software in the post production phase. As such, he can see the image through his viewfinder and make adjustments until the image looks exactly the way he wants it before ever releasing the shutter.

Lim is also concerned with the tactile qualities of his prints. For Destination, he has selected specific images to be printed on specific materials such as photo-rag fine art papers, or in some cases to be printed on artist’s canvas. He feels that the texture of the print surface for his images is one of the most important factors in enhancing the effect he is trying to achieve.

William Lim’s photographs capture the spirit of a scene in all its emotive colours and shades while evoking ideas of both the modern and the romantic from his journey of life - his path that winds from destination to destination in his search for meditative, introspective images.

1. 1.The Journey is the Destination is the title of art journals , published  by Chronicle Books presenting a collection of collages by photojournalist Dan Eldon who died at age 22 while covering events in Somalia.
   

2. 2.“Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent pour partir”, from Le Voyage by French poet Charles Baudelaire.
   

3. 3.James McNeil Whistler, Ten O’Clock Lecture, delivered in Cambridge, Oxford 1885. From The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, 1892, p135-159.