A note on practice and process
When people ask what “searching for [▫️▪️▫️] space” means, I often pause. It’s not a simple answer—and that’s intentional. The phrase sits at the center of my practice, holding together different threads: the physical spaces I photograph, the conceptual frameworks I work within, and the literal space required to make this work happen.
The Physical Search
My work moves through cities—San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, and beyond. I’m drawn to architectural details, street rhythms, the pulse of urban life. But I’m not documenting these places as a tourist or even as a traditional street photographer. I’m searching for something specific: moments where identity, futurism, and the built environment intersect.
Often, this means looking at overlooked spaces. The corner where morning light hits a brutalist façade. The layered history visible in a doubled exposure of old and new buildings. The negative space between structures that says as much as the structures themselves.
The Conceptual Framework
The phrase “searching for space” also engages with critical spatial theory, particularly around Black spatial politics and place-making. Works like In Search of African American Space: Redressing Racism inform how I think about the relationship between identity and the built environment.
Space is never neutral. Cities are designed, zoned, and lived in ways that reflect and reinforce power structures. My practice asks: How do we document these realities? How do we imagine alternatives? How does image-making itself become a form of claiming space?
The [▫️▪️▫️] pattern in my bio isn’t decorative—it represents the gaps, the negative space, the voids that need to be filled or acknowledged. It’s placeholder and question mark. It’s what we’re searching for.
The Technical Space
There’s also a literal dimension: the physical space required to do this work. The darkroom where film becomes image. The letterpress studio where type becomes print. The table where screens are pulled, where cyanotypes develop in sunlight, where risograph drums spin.
These are spaces I’ve had to find, build, or negotiate access to. They’re not guaranteed. They require intention and often resourcefulness. The studio—MacMartin studio—is both real (the physical locations where I work) and conceptual (the framework for this practice).
Process as Inquiry
I work across multiple analog and alternative processes: film photography, darkroom printing, cyanotype, letterpress, screenprint, risograph, and experimental techniques with laser printing. Each process offers different possibilities for thinking about space, time, and materiality.
Double exposures, for instance, allow multiple realities to coalesce in a single frame. They compress time and space, letting one moment speak to another. They create images that are simultaneously documentary and speculative—what is, and what could be.
The physicality of these processes matters too. Film photography forces intention—you have a limited number of frames. Darkroom printing is unpredictable, chemical, time-consuming. Letterpress requires setting type by hand, one letter at a time. These constraints shape the work in ways digital processes don’t.
The Ongoing Search
“Searching for [▫️▪️▫️] space” isn’t a question I expect to answer definitively. It’s an ongoing inquiry. Every roll of film, every print pulled, every city explored adds to it.
The search is for:
- Physical spaces that reveal something about how we live
- Conceptual frameworks that help us understand place and power
- Technical spaces where image-making happens
- Visual languages that can hold complexity and contradiction
- Ways of seeing that acknowledge both what is and what might be
It’s about documentation and imagination. Memory and futurity. The real and the possible.
Why It Matters
In moving from @datproofsheet to MacMartin studio, I’m marking an evolution in this practice. The datproofsheet era was about searching, experimenting, working through process. Those proofs and experiments were essential—they taught me what I was looking for.
MacMartin studio represents the next phase: having done that searching, I’m now building the space where this work can continue and deepen. The studio is the claimed space—literally and conceptually—where the search happens.
But the inquiry continues. The brackets remain. The [▫️▪️▫️] is still to be determined, still being sought, still open to interpretation.
A Note on Process
For those interested in the technical side, here’s what the practice involves:
Photography:
- Shooting 35mm and 120 format film
- Hand-developing negatives
- Darkroom printing on fiber-based papers
- Alternative processes like cyanotype
Printmaking:
- Letterpress (relief printing with metal type)
- Screenprint (serigraphy, hand-pulled)
- Risograph (digital stencil duplication)
- Experimental techniques with laser printing
Documentation:
- Every roll of film is logged: camera, lens, film stock, ISO, lighting conditions, development notes
- This documentation becomes part of the archive—not just images, but the process of making them
Locations:
- Urban environments (streets, architecture, infrastructure)
- Natural landscapes (coastal areas, national parks)
- The in-between spaces (transit, thresholds, edges)
The work is slow by design. Analog processes require time, attention, and acceptance of unpredictability. This slowness is itself a form of resistance against the speed and disposability of digital image culture.
Looking Forward
As MacMartin studio moves forward, the core questions remain:
What does it mean to search for space in 2026? How do we document and imagine the built environment? What can analog and alternative processes offer that digital cannot? How does image-making intersect with questions of identity, memory, and futurity?
The search continues. The space is being claimed, frame by frame, print by print.
— EM
This is a living document.
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