Ramblings, musings, thoughts about photography, the moving image and story. I’m gonna find out what this blog is about as it winds its merry way up hill and down vale. I hope it answers a few of my own questions about photography and why I don’t do it anymore.
I’m gonna revisit some of the pictures stored away in my photo hoard , stuff that I’ve accumulated over 25 years of going snap snap snap through a plastic black box. I’ll explore my other love – the movies – to whom I turned after callously saying to photography “You know what babe? I’m just not into you anymore!”
Because at the moment I’m thinking: all that time when I thought I was a photographer I wasn’t. I was just a documenter of moments. A hoarder of memories. A stalker of expressions and emotions. Originator and curator of a visual diary that does what? – assert my existence? tell my story? Because you know what , I’m not convinced the still image does it for me anymore. Or more to the point, I’m not convinced that I’m good enough to nail it with a nikon, a cannon or even a leica. Every portrait I ever took ended up a picture of someone else. Every landmark a mystery. Every decisive moment an indistinct blur from some other time, another place. All of them lies. Everyone a stranger. None of them evoke a memory that I can truly savour and conjure up. I look at them all and think “Who and where and what is this??”.
And yet when i look at the smallest thumb nail of rubbish video taken on my mobile phone with all its noisy atmosphere and sounds and movements and changes and evolving unfolding moments I can appreciate again the feeling of being there, right then, at that time in that place. I can remember. No decisive moment just an endless stream of unfolding scenarios full of weather and noise and random chaotic intrusions. Real life. real people. My actual friends. My children. People I know. Places I’m at. Authentic and real. Every one a recognisable portrait of the thing they actually are.
So expect to see some short sweet videos down the line – once I’ve mastered the rocket science. And in the meantime here’s my chance to breathe some life into the rigor mortis of the frozen image. I’ll add some context, some thoughts, some ideas. I’ll invent and weave a narrative around them. Gonna have some fun. Pretend they are stills from unmade movies never made by a director who never existed. So please excuse the stolen blurbs from this years London Film Festival brochure that I have ..er… adapted and attached to some of these photographs. I adore the movies. My thefts are done with respect and love.
Please feel free to explore and comment. And down the line we can work out together what the war on story actually means. Actually I know what it means. Its just that it’s getting late and I’m tired.
