studio catherine griffiths

A—Z, 1—10 Catherine Griffiths, 1984

Shots in the air
Just 36 frames for a (typo) exercise in photographic restraint

Back in 1984, before Wellington Polytechnic had computers, Visual Communication Design students spent big on course materials. One tool our tutors encouraged us to buy was an SLR camera, analogue then — either that, or borrow a school one for which there was a queue. Somehow, I scraped together enough for a Ricoh, a leap on from my Kodak Instamatic and its small, square format, prints with rounded corners.

The camera (and the darkroom processes in league with it), we discovered, was especially useful — photography brought to light new ways of seeing, and unexpectedly introduced us to other expressive disciplines — in this case, Lettering and Typography.

It’s a clear memory, being briefed in class, one sharp Spring morning, to photograph the alphabet A-Z, followed by numbers 1-10. We loaded up our cameras, each with a roll of 35mm black and white Ilford film, 36 frames (not 24), and headed into the fresh air to go looking. Seemed a simple task, erring on the side of boring, we thought. Good excuse for a percolated coffee downtown at Suzy’s. But, there was a catch. We were to shoot a sequence accounting for the way the six negative strips of six frames would be set out in the easel and printed as a standard 8x10 proof sheet (portrait format), reading A-Z, 1-10, left to right, top to bottom.

Spotting a nifty ‘W’ on a red bus (the Wellington transport logo), when actually I needed a ‘B’, called for restraint over impulse — the shutter was tantalising. But no screw ups, one film only. No chance to review, delete or cheat. This was a real-time wander around a small city of letters and numbers — a serendipitous composition of forms and figures on film in the dark of a camera, idiosynchratic records from the mind’s eye, of a time and place.

Catherine Griffiths, Eye Blog, January 20th, 2011

04 writing & critique

Walk With Me
by Stephen Cleland
curatorial essay, »Catherine Griffiths: Walk With Me«, Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery, Aotearoa NZ, July 2025

Blood lines
by John Warwicker
exhibition review, »Catherine Griffiths: Out of Line«, Eye Blog, UK, June 2025

On the Expanded
by Megan Patty
curatorial essay, »Catherine Griffiths: Out of Line«, The Design Gallery, University of Melbourne, Australia, May 2025

The Shapes of Sound
by Ela Egidy
curatorial essay, »Catherine Griffiths: Out of Line«, The Design Gallery, University of Melbourne, Australia, May 2025

Read this space
by John L. Walters
book review, »catherine griffiths : SOLO IN [ ] SPACE«, Eye, UK, Spring 2023

Shots in the air

by Catherine Griffiths

Eye Blog, Jan 20, 2011