I recently found an old micro-SD card which I’d used once upon a time in my old phone. On it I found these pictures which I had totally forgotten about. These pictures are of an alley way (now gone), next door to the building where I used to work. There was nothing special about this particular alley, other than a cool coffee shop (frequented mostly by police officers) and some interesting street art as well as some odd bits of graffiti. This old alley had a lot of appeal for me; I liked the grunge, the textures and the general feel of the place which, I realise now, has mostly faded from memory.
The alley and all the buildings within it, have been replaced by a nondescript, modern office building made mostly of glass and steel. In other words, no grunge, not much in terms of textures and as far as general feelings go, well, not quite what they used to be.
Interestingly for me, this is one of the few occasions where I have made a number of shots, a series if you will, from the one place. That is something I’d like to do more of but for some reason I rarely ever achieve it.
That is some great graffiti, Cedric. Would any of it happen to be yours? :-) I feel sadness once in a while when I see or hear about old familiar places that are taken down and replaced by newer buildings. I like it as a series. Maybe a few more series of projects are in order.
I wish I was that good at graffiti :)
I know what you mean about feeling sad at change. There was a bit of that with this alley even though it wasn’t much of an alley. It didn’t have much going for it but for me it was somehow special. I liked it without really knowing why.
As for doing more series, yes, I would very much like to do more. This one was a fluke as I normally only take one or two shots in any one place but I’ll work on it.
That’s great, Cedric. Pretty cool to find “Never before published” photos of your own. Sounds like you have the makings of a small project. You can go back to the place where the alley was and show how the world has moved on. :)
Hey Paul, I’m sure you know where I got the title from :)
It is cool to find photos out of the blue. As for never published, I think one or two may have made it to some app at the time of shooting, straight from the phone but I don’t remember. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else ever took photos of of this alley. I guessing there would have to be a few photographers who knew about it but it was so unknown, so out-of-the-way and so featureless that I would be willing to bet that there wouldn’t be to many photos of it.
I think you’ve touched on something that is at the heart of why I do photography. It’s about memory. I photograph because it allows me to “see again” those things that mean something to me or that have stimulated my imagination. I don’t do it to “create projects” or to “express myself”. I’ve always been a little mystified, actually, by the Photography-as-Expression explanation for carrying around a camera. For one thing, it’s a little vague. And a little too easy. Personally, I don’t think I know what it means. Most photographs, after all, don’t convey easy to grasp messages. If you’re photographing the war in Mali or life in a coal mine, i suppose you can say that there’s an understandable message in there. But what about landscapes? Or portraits? Or even street photography? Not to mention abstractions. What, exactly, do they “express” to the viewer?
Your “lost” images are not only good (I wish they were a little bigger), they also apparently served to bring back some memories of why you liked that alley and why you captured those images. Is there a “message” or “project” in there? Perhaps. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. The images have brought back a piece of your life that had otherwise disappeared. In my opinion, a pretty damn good reason to carry a camera.
Thanks Paul. I agree whole heartedly about photographs being such wonderful little memory triggers, helping us see again as you put it. And with the passing of time the memories only seem to get better which is a bonus. As you know I don’t usually care much about the photographs once I have taken them, or at least, processed them but in this case, I find myself quite pleased to having found them. I’m not sure that I’ve ever photographed (family snaps aside) for the sake of bringing back “a piece of my life” as you put it (my reasons for carrying a camera are far removed from that idea) but perhaps there’s something to it. Who knows?
As for “photography as self-expression” I have to say that I tend to see photography as having to be one of the best mediums to express yourself if you allow it to be. Perhaps not always so that others understand what you are expressing (in that regard I agree, as a viewer, what we see in another’s photograph is far more likely to reflect on us than on the photographer), but I do think our own photography can offer wonderful insights into who we are. Of course this is not to say that every photograph says something about the photographer, that would be extremely unlikely, but I do on occasion tweak a scene (over or under exposing or blurring or whatever) for the specific purpose of defining a sensation or feeling that I am experiencing. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not. Would anyone else be able to pick up on it? I doubt it very much. If they did it would be pure chance I dare say.
Nice set of shots, Cedric. Series are a great way to form a cohesive, similarly themed group of photos. My only problem is finding the Exit sign and knowing when to stop.
Thanks John. I seem to have the exact opposite problem to you. I just can’t seem to get started. This series is truly a rare thing for me though I utterly like the result. I’ll just have to keep trying I guess :)