- SNAPSHOTS -
INTRODUCTION
Having previously avoided 'silent films' where possible due to a general lazy 'that will be far too much effort' kind of attitude I took it upon myself to break the habit of a lifetime and approach what had so frequently scared me away; I am a product of the digital age and the idea of something stripped back to black and white and complete with authentic film grain and erratic shutter twitches could seem frightening to many of my peers. Team this with a lack of narrative guidance and electronic sound effects one might feel like they were entering the unknown and therefore veer away from anything frighteningly prior to their era. It is in an idealistic world that we would expect to sit down in front of something and for it to be an entirely visually engaging and insightful without the human brain having to put in a little bit of work somewhere. So, instead of flopping back into my duvet den and mindlessly tuning into an ambling story with a beginning, middle and end that would leave me feeling, perhaps, a little under whelmed. I decided to go against the grain, clamber out of my comfort zone, and - low and behold - lock my mind into 'A Man With a Movie Camera'. A silent film. This, however, is not a book about a film. I have merely watched a film that then opened up a pathway for me to begin to delve into thoughts and questions that I have and that eventually lead to me creating this book. A book comprised of a selection of photographs that give you a glimpse into my life and what I have seen but without narrative or explanation. So that you, like I did when watching that film, can let your mind wander and allow your own thoughts and imaginations unfold. I do not wish to influence you to conjure up any conclusions. I just hope that you enjoy flicking through a space in time.
INTRODUCTION.
When narrative doesn't exist and a story line doesn't immediately unfold before your eyes you are required to fill in the gaps with your own thoughts. Footage reaches out to you on a new, personal level that you may never have reached had you not been left to create your own pathway through the images. To be shown footage of a woman washing her laundry in the street and not to be told who she is, why she is there or whether she is sad or elated is a real treat for the imagination. You may not realise you are doing so but immediately you have given her a story. At this point, if someone was to turn around and tell you the 'real' truth, even after just minutes of viewing time, you may well argue that they are wrong. You have connected with her and her story on your own level and she no longer belongs to the film. A piece of her story belongs to you.
HAND IN HAND
It is very rare that those of us blessed with the strength of hearing are able to approach situations without the accompaniment of sound. If you were to attempt to differentiate each individual sound that reaches you everyday you would be immersing yourself in an impossible task. This means, that we are rarely able to separate what we see and the sound that we associate with it. The two come hand in hand, but if torn apart, a whole new experience unfolds. You sit opposite someone; a dear friend of yours even. As you listen to them talk you feel that you are focussed – naturally, you are trying hard to listen and engage with what they are saying. Your sight becomes the secondary sense and you become a little more blind to the movement of their features. I question – without sound to accompany them – do they seem different to you? You notice the way they move their hands. One slight twitch of a little finger becomes heightened as you engage with the movement of even the tiniest muscles. We move so much without realising, but we are a masterpiece. And the way in which someone moves their hands – if let alone to be silently studied – can be a work of art.
A PHOTOGRAPH OR A MEMORY?
Film and photography creates a vehicle for memories, beauty, intimacy, horror, spontaneity‌ a never-ending list of opportunities made possible by one of the worlds most treasured art forms. To live in a world without the ability to capture an image is a strange thought. We have a need for photographs. Our human feelings are so powerful and so strong that we yearn to be able to preserve parts of them onto pieces of paper. So fragile and yet somehow we seem to regard them as an anchor for our memories. Incase, something that seems so important to us now, slips away from us in later years and we forget the way the world looked on that day. It is funny, that something so decomposable becomes the preservation aid of our memories.
What do you trust more? A photograph or a memory?
It is interesting to consider that just because a photograph depicts a scene from a certain time, does not necessarily mean that you always look at it in the same way. A photograph of a loved one then could quickly become a photograph of a hated one now. It seems that the meaning of photographs house as much fragility as the paper they are printed on. And yet, here we are. Surrounded by them. If someone were to steal your photographs, you would still have your memories. If someone were to steal your memories what would you be left with? A heap of images of people and places that no longer mean anything to you. Though, that is not to say that they don’t mean anything to someone else. You have a photograph of view in Paris. You took the photograph, it belongs to you. But Paris is not yours. If you were to show that photograph to someone else who has witnessed that same view, the memory becomes theirs. This would be the same for many hundreds, thousands or even millions of people who, over the life-span of the photograph (however long that may be) took hold of it in their hands and remembered the time that they were there. I have never been to Paris. If I were to hold the photograph I would conjure no emotional recollection and instead I might wonder who the photograph originally belonged to and what meaning was held in place for them. It is all relative. There are billions of people across the world – different ages, races, cultures and lifestyles distinguish us from one another but behind the eyes from which we see there is a brain that recognises much of the same as a man standing on the other side of the planet. A smile is silent. But we know what it means, we have felt it our selves.
Whatever it is about pictures, photographs, it’s just about impossible to follow up with words. They don’t have anything to do with each other. William Eggleston
- A BEAUTIFUL LIE -
I think it’s much more radical to see and show things as they look instead of making them somehow subversive through alienation or estrangement. People should not assume that to be a good photographer you have to have the best cameras or years of experience. If there is passion behind the lense then skill can become secondary. There is no use setting out to achieve great photographs of glowingly beautiful landscapes or flowers or portraits of people. There are plenty of other people out there who will do that and they may do it better. Why compete with a million other photographs of the same landscapes when you can photograph a moment in time that is real and unique and special to you. I have seen hundreds of ‘beautiful’ photographs that evoke no feelings – no emotion. They are the photographs that people forget about. The photographs I remember are the mundane snaps that gave me a small insight into a moment, a time, a place, a person. Does a good photo make you a good photographer? What do you class as a ‘good’ photograph anyway? You can learn how to take a good photograph. You can study the mathematics behind the image and set yourself up on a hillside with a tripod and a big old Digital SLR and you can wait patiently for the moment when the sun dips behind the horizon. Once you are sitting there you even have the opportunity to retake the photograph several times if you wish until you achieve the ‘perfect’ image and if the colours are still not quite right or there is a branch obscuring part of the view you are even able to manipulate the image and tweak the colours until the branch is no longer there and the landscape is no longer real. It is a lie. A beautiful lie. A beautiful lie that will make money and be plastered up onto the walls of some ones beautiful house no doubt. Not my house though.
Wolfgang Tilmans
When a mother takes pictures of her children on the beach, she doesn’t take herself for an artist; she does it for love, which is an excellent reason, from my point of view. Martin Parr
- SNAPSHOT PHOTOGRAPHY -
Look up from where you are now, take in what is around you. A half eaten meal, a mug of coffee, an ugly old lamp, a loved one, a stranger… any of these things are what makes up your personal photograph and it is up to you how you frame it, which sections are important and which sections remain insignificant to you. You may be in the midst of a moment in time which suddenly becomes of huge importance in some way. This could be the very second that you realise the person you are sitting with is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. This could be the moment that you discover someone new. You may be eating lobster for the first time, or deciding to cross the bridge from life as a carnivore to a vegetarian. If you were to take a snapshot now you would create a window into moment in time that within seconds will be gone. Our obsession with photographs is a luxury that we are able to our need to preserve these moments and allow ourselves and other people to revisit that place over and over again. A glimpse into life as it happens.
It is interesting to further explore the idea that this photograph is still just a glimpse and although it may be more ‘real’ than studio shorts or staged shoots the end result is still only a section of the real picture. The viewers of this photograph won’t know what escaped the frame. They can only imagine the scene just left of the shot and likewise, they will never know the moments that surround it. A photograph will never replace a memory but the two edges can become blurred. Over time memories may fade and you might find yourself looking back over photographs and altering your perception of that day, that time, that feeling. Have you ever thought that you could remember something; convinced that you can see it so vividly in your mind that it must be a memory; only to realise that it is not the moment in time that you remember but the photograph itself.
Some of my earliest memories are not memories of times but of photographs. I can remember the photograph of me as a child in a cot, but can I remember actually being there? Sometimes it is impossible to tell for sure. Snapshot photographs are usually crude photographs taken without expertise on varying types of camera. The lack of ‘skill’ behind the image makes many of these photographs a happy accident. But are you any less of a photographer because of it? Some of the best photographers have no experience at all and would not ever dare to go as far as to give themselves a title but they are photographers none the less. We are all photographers whether we know it or not. Perhaps we are separated by those who photograph to make a living and those who photograph because they are passionate about what it is they are capturing.
- PERFECT IMPERFECTIONS The end of a roll of film – an unpredictable image. Often, one that is out of the reaches of your memory; The first photograph you have taken as you rush to wind the camera on to it’s starting frame or the last uncertain snap before the film is released to be developed. A lot can happen here. When making sure the camera is ready to shoot there are those first shaky few exposures that get wound on to enable position. There has been many a time where a pack of photographs have come back to me with the first one or two images being shots of my lap, or my feet or the out of focus view of whatever was in front of me at the time when I was loading up a new film; in a hurry to make sure the camera is ready to go a few starting photographs may fall victim to their fate as ‘the test runs’ to make sure the film is winding on properly, that the camera is working and the battery pack has still got life.
Sometimes, one is so bold as to start out a new film with a striking first shot. Here, there is often a beautiful spectrum of colour to accompany the image. Zigzagging down the side of the photograph and distorting whole sections. It is impossible to predict or control the nature of these photographs. They are the product of exciting accidents that occur beyond your control and more often than not they are the photos that hold the greatest puzzles. Half an image. Half a conversation cut in two. Half a landscape and half the story and yet so alive with colour. I wait in anticipation for my photographs so that I can see the treats that the end of the roll has in store for me.
look up
How often do you spend your day rushing around, eyes forward, only taking in information that is necessary. Enough to make sure you don’t trip and fall, or walk into someone. A view of the route ahead as you march on to your destination. Imagine all the things that you will overlook on your journey. I am not suggesting that you slow down to the point that you never arrive anywhere on time, nor am I expecting you to note down every crack in the wall, every mark on the pavement. All I ask is that every now and again you take the time to really look. Look up. No one ever looks up.
This has been a selection of some of the things that I have seen over a short period of time. To give a timescale would be creating some of the constraints of narrative and I do not wish to do that. Each image is my own, they are snapshots. I have not spent time deliberating over whether or not they will look right or whether they deliver a message. Some, I have not even allowed myself time to make sure they are in focus and yet each photograph has a story. Each photograph is a small segment of a bigger picture. I will continue to take photographs. Not everyday, but for as long as there are still cameras and I still have the ability to use them. Photographs do not constitute for memories. These are not my memories. These are my photographs.