Jaunt II: walking home from school one day

 

I love a contact sheet

Contact sheets are my favourite things to make in a darkroom. The photographs are so small you can't really see the imperfections that you know are there and you will eventually see when you enlarge them. On the contact sheet every image looks like a perfect little self-contained universe, neatly arranged and segmented along with the others around it. They tell a story in a way the single image can only really hint at - like the short synopses you'd read at the start of each chapter of old adventure novels. Plus, they're real easy to make and sort of satisfy the need for instant gratification...

These are all quite badly 'scanned' (I just photographed them with a digital camera), hopefully I'll get to use the scanner at school and get some decent files, but for now I just want to make sure I've recorded them. The one above is about the trip I took to Limerick and Cork supporting the 202s and Patrick Kelleher. About half the images were destroyed either by my increasingly fault-ridden camera or just by a freak roll of film, which is pretty disappointing but I'm happy with what wasn't destroyed.  

Christmas at home, taken with a borrowed camera.

I had the idea one day when I was home and killing time before work to just quickly take vertical photographs of windows, but it branched out to include rivers and archway entrances, and then I kind of forgot about the windows a bit. I had the resulting contact sheet in mind; I think I liked the idea of applying uniformity to subjects that were only tenuously related... I had the word 'Ways' in my head while doing it. It was fun, running around trying to spot specific subjects, and I tried to continue taking only vertical photos for the rest of the roll, though I obviously forgot what I was doing at one point.  

Stranger and stranger

It's been pointed out to me that taking these kinds of photographs can be construed as creepy. I suppose I thought I would be immune to the accusation of invasion of privacy as I wasn't photographing the person's face, so they wouldn't be identifiable. But there's the odd reasoning that says it's still unethical, as the person has no chance of being aware they're being photographed, and so have no say whatsoever. When I think about it that way I see these photographs as what they represent of me, what they say about my personality and how I view other people, and relationships in general. The half-wayness. Or I dunno, maybe I'm reading too much of a muchness into it, I'm tired and grumpy today.

I didn't consciously realise I had taken so many photographs of stranger's backs until about a year and a half ago when I started looking back through the photos I'd taken to that point - I was in search of a unifying theme to make up a series to apply to an exhibition proposal. I was a little surprised to see how many I had taken, especially without having been aware of it. Looking back now I wonder what effect that knowledge has had on me when taking these photos now. I think I actually started taking more of them, but now I had a frame of reference. I became able to recognise what it was I actually thought would make (to me) a good photograph, or at least a photograph that said something. I still wasn't, and am not, sure what exactly that is. My reasons are still at the subconscious level, and while they're there all I can do is guess.

I don't think there's anything sinister in it, or creepy. I can see where the thought comes from but my intentions, though vague, are definitely not malevolent. On a practical level taking photographs of people without them even being aware of my presence is a way to avoid any sort of confrontation. But that raises the question of why I feel the need to include people at all. Why, if I'm so shy or scared, do I just not bother at all and stick to scenes bereft of people? Landscapes, still lifes etcetera. The simple, and honest, answer is that landscapes bore me and still lifes seem like too much work. But in relation to what? Which just brings me back to the question, why this necessity to include people?
I do know that if I'm looking at a series of photographs in a book or on a blog or wherever I spend more time looking at those that feature people in some way. I'm pretty sure I've always felt that way. I think the reason I preferred looking at, and later taking myself, these photographs is because of the variability, of expression (literal and figurative), of size, shape, race, gender, whatever. It's like every photograph of a person is somehow more new than a photograph of the moon or a field or a river or a building or a spider's eye or a monument or a flower or a tree or a dead animal or a cloud or a gravestone.

I still do take a lot of these photos (most of the ones here are from the last year or so) but I do take plenty of people directly within their line of sight. It's not a case of doing it once and then being able to do it always; I find that more than any other type of photograph this is the most dependent on my own mood. I generally have no problem asking someone for their photograph (again, depending on my own mood) but I find I don't do this very often, unless there's a specific reason. There's something about the person looking at the lens that lacks mystery. Maybe I just can't take those photographs. 

Rest bite

I really haven't got the time to be making this post but what the heck; if you can't have a biscuit with your tea then something something something free.

   

More from those couple of rolls of last year.

These three I suppose are of pretty significant occurrences/non-occurrences, for an assortment of reasons, none of them overly pertinent to... anyone? Nevertheless, the photos were taken and still exist.

This week, I have been mostly reading too much about ROBERT FRANK. For an oral presentation I have to give tomorrow. Though he is legendary and amazing and tragic and gifted I've had only a week to prepare this thing and most of those days were spent in buses/work/practice/gig/buses
[or is it "busses"? "Buses" makes me think it's pronounced like Gary Busey].
Hence the lack of time.
The high of an excellent gig/night had completely dissipated by yesterday morning, to be replaced by a sort of grim and petty irritation, giving way to outright joylessness and curmudgeonability. PLUS IT'S STILL REALLY COLD WHAT THE HELL.  But I digress/depress. More gigs in Cork and Limerick and I'm excited and buoyed, like an exciting buoy. And a friend has promised some free film for me this week! YESSS.

Ghosts of Miscellaneous Past

I developed some rolls of film that seem to date back to as far as maybe May last year. Lots of stuff forgotten and forcefully remembered; other stuff just confuses me - I wonder what the heck some of the photos are of.