It Comes & Goes
The ebbs & flows of a long term project.
Over the years I have had many, many fleeting interests, but the one that has always stuck with me is photography. Since being a curly-haired little kid, I’ve always found a way to get my hands on some sort of camera. The urge to document and create images has always been there.
My photography has had many focuses…. fashion portraits, interiors, blog posts, street photography, but what really lit a fire in me was documenting my life and travels on medium format film. It felt much more personal, and the phrase ‘photograph what you love’ always felt right to me. And medium format film is pretty unbeatable in terms of giving a particular depth to a scene, if you ask me. If you’re not familiar with the term, a medium format negative is bigger than a 35mm one, which means the image will be a lot more detailed and clearer. I’ve used a ridiculously cumbersome Mamiya RZ67 for about ten years now and will lug it around with me because the images it creates are just ‘it’ for me. When I see a scene and imagine it as a photograph, I imagine it taken with the Mamiya, in a 6x7 format. We’re a team.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years though, is that sometimes I just do not have the urge. I can have gaps of months, even a year, where the urge to document just does not hit me. It doesn’t seem to matter what’s happening in my life… I can be having an absolutely grand time, travelling Scotland in a campervan with not a care in the world, or I could be miserable going through major life stresses, there’s no rhyme nor reason to it. As someone who takes pride in having a consistent archive, and is a chronic oversharer, it can be hard not to get annoyed at myself for missing out chunks of time.
This came to light for me today, when I was looking through a few old folders on my hard drive. I’ve regularly set up scenes for self-portraits, and documented myself on film, but I noticed there’s a gap of about three years recently where I just stopped. This gave me itchy feelings… I wanted to be able to see the images in a timeline, see the changes in myself and my surroundings, but now there’s this huge bloody jump. Frustrating.
I went for a walk (Fox needs about three a day, he’s an energiser bunny) and had a coffee and dwelled on it. I think the way to squash the irritation is to think of the gap as part of the project. Life isn’t a perfect timeline, and a long-term photography series should reflect that.
For example, in my other long series ‘Following Steven’ I seem to choose very clean portraits of him, usually centrally composed with an angry lhasa apso at his feet (rest in peace Pim), but there’s one that jumped out at me on my hard drive that I hadn’t used. He’s knelt on the floor of our old house, visibly red in the face and sanding floorboards. The image is dusty and speckled, and I know it’s because my camera and film scanner and everything else I owned was coated in house renovation dust at the time. I never used the image because it was too dusty and didn’t fit my clean aesthetic, but today I’ve added it to the series. It reflects a messier time in my, and Steven’s, life.
I also had about a year of not touching my camera while I settled at a campsite in Aviemore. It was my first long term pitch in a while, and I threw myself into a nesting phase, creating a little home for myself. I always found it interesting that while I was in this area I met some of the most interesting people I ever had, but not once did I ask to photograph them. If you’d told me five years ago I’d be friends all these characterful Highlanders and not once shoot a portrait of them…. I’d have been livid.
Part of me is still a little put out that I haven’t shot as much as I’d like over the past few years, or at least not as much of my personal life, but I’m redirecting these feelings towards future Amy and using it as a spark to encourage me to start taking my camera with me a little more often, and I’m recognising that some parts of life are not meant to be documented on camera and it’s ok.
To dive into my film photography archives, head here…. Little Tin Houses.
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I'm a writer, not a photographer, but I do think with any creative thing our brains instinctively know when they need the world to be mulch, for it all to go into the heap to come out as something later. I think it's easy to think this is laziness or disorganisation, and maybe sometimes it is, but sometimes I think it's more that the creative brain is playing the long game and all those things we see/hear/think will become output of some kind, but not necessarily when we think they should or in the form we expect.
This was beautifully written, thanks! I agree - I’ve always loved photography that uses film. Photography has always eluded me skill-wise, so I avoid it and look at other people’s. There’s a nostalgia and warmth to these photos - look forward to seeing more of your work!