I was uploading another image to my etsy shop today ArtPhotoDesignbyB and it got me to thinking. My camera is probably my oldest friend, I don’t mean the same camera, No I definitely upgraded from the boots diskette camera my parents bought me in the late 80s for my eighth birthday, but it has been my longest relationship besides my parents and sister.
I have always loved the image, whether art or photography, cartoon or straight. I remember being involved in an assembly when I was six and we had to show what we wanted to be when we grew up. Even back then I wanted to be involved in working with the image, at that point it was a painter. My dad was always a great amateur artist and he dressed me up in one of his old shirts, gave me a beret and made me a palette out of cardboard and I pretended to paint a picture in my assembly. I can still see my little swamped frame pretending to be a great French artist even today, why French I don’t know.
As I grew up I was never without my camera but it wasn’t until I hit 18 that I got my own SLR camera, I borrowed family members’ ones before, and I was more hooked than ever. I specialised in photography at Uni and then again at MA level, coupling it with graphic design. Yes, for my final project I created an arts magazine based around situationism and subvertisements…. a bit of a large task for one person but that’s me all over, I don’t do things by halves.
There are many reasons why I love photography. One of the main reasons is that to me they symbolise life. The good and the bad parts of it, including its end. I love how something which looks like reality can be melded to something quite different but unless it is unbelievably blatant, people will just accept it as a fact. I love that when you look at a photo you get an emotion, whether positive or negative, it leaves an imprint on you.
Although I work mainly within the realm of fine art photography, I love photographing everything, especially my family. To me photographs are memories. When I look at them I replay the entire scene in my head, I hear the words and feel the feelings I felt. When I look at photos of people I love but who are no longer here it is almost as if they are still alive. For that brief second captured by my camera they are alive and happy and it is as if nothing has changed.
My love of photography is catching, my four year old son is already on his third camera (he has autism and broke the other 2) and makes us watch him photographing anything and everything he can. If his camera is out of batteries then he takes his innotab and takes pictures and makes films using that. It is so wonderful to see the enjoyment it gives him and it is something that bonds us. Photography means that he doesn’t have to worry about understanding what is going on; he doesn’t have to worry that he can’t draw a face of sorts like his peers, he just is and the images he captures are just what they are too.
