Consistently fluctuating between teacher & student identities
Bingham Finding A Path
He discovered the joys of facilitating adolescent movement from Point-A to Point-B while working with the Kooch-i-Ching Camping and Education Foundation in early 1990's, leading young men into the Canadian wilderness by Canoe and Western US by foot. It was also during this time he began to discover the power of 35mm, 110mm, & disk negatives. He limited himself to 35mm in the 1990's, but found it easy to reflect upon his teenage years using other film formats. Trading photographs with fellow explorers was a frequent event, an exchange of experiences.
It wasn't until graduate school in the late 90s, studying "Social Foundations of Education", that he converted his bathroom into a darkroom, with a Besseler Cadett II & a developing bag. At this time he began to believe in the raw power of film & its ability to answer complicated questions using elegant resolutions.
Bingham's photographic drives followed him to NC where he took a middle school teaching gig as an 8th grade Algebra I teacher. Feeling frustrated and lost by the time winter break rolled around, he changed [pedagogical] course. Each of his Algebra students had the opportunity to take a 35mm camera home for the weekend and shoot 36 exposures; parents donated their [dusty] 35mm cameras to his cause. Students would then choose (from their contact sheet) which image he'd print in his darkroom, again located in his bathroom. All student 8"x10" images were hung at local coffee shop in Burlington, NC. He continued to use the same shooting assignment with his college students in New Mexico, albeit they had access to digital means, grossly minimizing his amount of work to achieve equal outcomes.
Bingham purges his work. Once he tires of storing his art, he makes a trip to the dump. He's disposed of 100s of 16"x20" silver gelatin prints, along with many of his larger scaled paintings. He does regret trashing over 1000 negatives (35mm & 120mm); he can't access old data sets.
However, for Bingham, it's the aha of a process, discovering an unfamiliar system of seeing, or experimenting with a new style of exhibiting, that he just won't let go of. His wife, Elizabeth Depew, calls it post modern subborness.
