Why do I do this?
Projects are a pain, they lock you into a prolonged effort that becomes galling once you realise the subject of your project doesn't hold water somehow. I'm bad at projects because my entire life as a photographer has been that of an observer, I can adapt to any environment and any subject, nearly always working in available light. I like to observe and react, and I'm too addicted to the immediacy of what is around me, which doesn't lend itself well to consistency. And I'm impatient, so to force a long term 'theme' onto my work puts a big strain on it. But I do keep trying, hoping that something that might be loosely described as 'my style' carries me through.
Significant moments can tend tip me into bad thinking, and when such moments arise I'll maybe invent some 'clever' (read: half arsed) project, sometimes I will actually start it, but weeks, maybe days later I'll lose interest or find some reason why it's not working and stop.
I remember when my father died I promised myself to take my craft seriously, and devote to him something worthy, something to honour his years as an avid Kodachrome shooting amateur. A hugely ambitious plan that was doomed from the start even though he was the man who put my first proper camera in my hand, a fact I still feel needs marking in some way.
The camera he gifted me was a Praktika, a camera made in communist East Germany. I find that gorgeously ironic because my father was, politically, as reactionary a man as you could get. I remember him as much as throwing me out of the house once when I challenged him on his opinion about the causes of the Irish Troubles. I like that Erich Honeker got one over on my dad.
It seems to be that with some of the cameras I buy, particularly ones I will not be using commercially, I pledge to use it as an artist would: seriously, with intent. Why? Well, because it's a good place to start, like a fresh note pad, but mostly I've always had this crazed idea that I would like to leave a legacy, and as the years persist in slipping through my fingers, the idea to at least do something that might possibly become a legacy gets even more pressing. So here I am again...
Not only do I have a new camera, but I've rediscovered black and white, and why not? Stephen Shore broke the B&W mold in the 70s, that was even before the Praktica was dropped into my eager hands. By the mid 80s I'd upgraded that camera and was a freelancer working at The Guardian and later The Observer. I shot black and white film as that was how to tell a news story in pictures and I recall vividly the collective howl of despair when The Independent began using colour news photography. [Rant alert...] Why did they do that? Not because stories could be told better in colour, but simply because the technology had been developed for colour in newspaper printing, which was attractive to advertisers. I suspect the management issued a decree saying 'from now on, the smudgers only work in colour'. Just having the technology to do something is no reason to do it. It is still painfully clear that black and white is the best medium for news photography, that it's not used is sad, as sad as the newspapers' slow descent into regurgitating bland images provided by new services instead of using staff and freelance photographers to establish and perpetuate a house style...
I feel a diatribe coming on, but I'll resist.
Where was I... oh yes, new camera, and black and white.
Here we go then, allow me, my dear, but undoubtedly imaginary audience, to invite you along for the ride...
Here's the first behance gallery that inspired the project.
Tricycle, Memphis, by William Eggleston, 1969-1971
Above, image of Praktika MTL3 courtesy joomspirit.com