‘Award boy’, from a series of 3D images by Edward Smyth FRPS
274
/ THE RPS JOURNAL / APRIL 2020 / VOL 160
DISTINCTIONS
WORDS: RACHEL SEGAL HAMILTON
THE JOURNEY
Edward Smyth FRPS explains how a life-threatening condition inspired his Research Distinction VOL 160 / APRIL 2020 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 275
DISTINCTIONS
RESEARCH DISTINCTION
EDWARD SMYTH FRPS
‘A phenotypical curate’
276
That fateful day in 2003 began like any other for Edward Smyth FRPS. He rose and ate breakfast before heading out to get a tyre changed. At the garage, he was handed a coffee and directed to a waiting room where he could sit and read the paper until the car was ready. But something didn’t feel right. ‘I remember picking up The Times and thinking, “There’s something odd going on here,” he says. “My arms feel like lead.”’ A medical consultant for 35 years specialising in microbiology and infection prevention and control, Smyth had an inkling of what was going on. Ten days earlier, along with a group of colleagues, he’d had food poisoning while in Lyon, France, for a meeting. ‘I thought, “God, it’s Guillain-Barré.”’ Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare auto-immune condition which often follows an infection and affects the nerves, causing numbness and, in the most serious cases such as Smyth’s, paralysis. Most
/ THE RPS JOURNAL / APRIL 2020 / VOL 160
people recover but this can take many months, and for some it can be life-threatening. The next morning, Smyth was admitted to hospital, first to a neurology ward, then onto intensive care. Over the course of 24 hours he lost all movement in his body from the neck down. That first night in intensive care, his survival was in the balance. ‘That was the most peaceful night I’ve ever experienced,’ he says. ‘It was as though all the problems of life disappeared because they were irrelevant. It was curiously a wonderful feeling – it’s hard to describe. I wasn’t afraid and yet there was a chance I wouldn’t come out the other end.’ Fortunately, he did – and so began an arduous, gradual and sometimes traumatic recovery. ‘I received the best treatment and the worst treatment,’ he says, referring to the shocking lack of care shown by certain healthcare staff. ‘Some things happened to me which disturbed me greatly
and I had difficulty talking about.’ A year on he could walk again, although to this day he still suffers from muscle cramps, muscle twitching and fatigue. These experiences provided the inspiration for Smyth’s self-published book, Quantum of Time. Originally produced as part of a two-year master’s degree in fine art photography at Ulster University, which Smyth completed in 2018, the book led to an RPS Fellowship through the Research Distinction. Smyth rediscovered photography on retiring in 2010. As a student he’d been a keen photographer but ‘work took over and apart from the occasional travel photography or Christmas portraits, the photography fell away.’ A lecturer on a photography course he attended suggested he do a master’s degree. ‘I started to think that maybe if I looked at Guillain-Barré as my degree topic, I could exorcise the
‘The whole episode was so surreal, I thought, why not turn it into a surreal body of work?’ demons,’ he says. Initially he took a documentary approach, photographing beds, wards and medical equipment, but he found it wasn’t working. ‘The whole episode was so surreal, I thought, why not turn it into a surreal body of work?’ The images came first. Before becoming ill, Smyth had planned a bucket list of places he and his wife would like to visit during retirement. At the height of his illness this seemed like an impossible dream but since then they have ticked off everywhere on the list. Photographs Smyth had taken on these trips provided the background for each 3D image (which require red/blue cyan 3D anaglyph glasses to be viewed properly), onto which he added layered symbols with personal meanings. ‘People want me to take each photo and interpret it for them,’ he says. ‘I refuse to do that. I say just look at it and read into it what you want.’ The written part of the project was originally submitted, in an abridged form, as his MFA dissertation. ‘The writing doesn’t explain the images, it complements them, although it does contain
certain hints and puzzles for the reader,’ he says. Narrated by Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of cats, the book draws on surrealist influences in a variety of ways. Smyth converses with a toothpaste tube. Snippets of poetry or lyrics from Bob Dylan songs drift in and out, as in a dream. Music is important and each section has recommended listening, from Beethoven to
‘A tin rat flipped’
SO WHAT IS A RESEARCH DISTINCTION? • The Research Distinction recognises written research of a scholarly nature. • This may be an academic text, article, website or other format, but it must fulfill the RPS mission to increase the knowledge and understanding of photography, to promote the highest standards of achievement in
photography, and to encourage the public appreciation of photography. • Research might focus on an individual photographer, school or genre; photographic education; the history of photography; the conservation and restoration of photographs and photographic material; curatorial
accomplishments; new thinking about photography and photographic theory. • The text must be submitted as an electronic and a hard copy, along with a 500word summary. For more information and to apply, visit rps.org/qualifications/ research-distinction
Sting. Figures from the surrealist movement such as Dali and Magritte appear, along with other artists and thinkers, in a group Smyth calls ‘The Boys in the Band’ who support him through the toughest times. It was only in retrospect, while writing the text, that he realised this was a technique he had used, unconsciously, to deal with what he was experiencing. Nearly two decades after his illness, writing Quantum of Time was transformative for Smyth. ‘At the time, people asked me, “Why are you doing this now? We are talking about something that happened 17 years ago.” But I wasn’t ready until then.’ Gaining an RPS Distinction and a degree is an honour, and Smyth praises the support of his university tutors and classmates. But ultimately, he says, ‘I was able to stop feeling there was this weight hanging round my neck. The whole thing has been a cathartic process that has helped me immensely.’
VOL 160 / APRIL 2020 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 277