Monday 14 December 2009
That's alright Moma!
This is it for the photographs! I bought a panoramic camera off a carboot sale for 50p and to my absolute delight when I opened it to load some film I found it had a used roll already inside. I quickly shut the back as not to cause too much damage to the film and I took it to get developed, couldn't wait to see what was on the film (I was expecting holiday shots, some beautiful panoramic scenery and landscapes)picked up the photos with great anticipation and I got an Elvis tribute! I do like Elvis, but I do think this might be the worst use of a Panoramic camera ever, however these photographs are pretty rad. I particularly like how they've managed to get the people infronts heads on every single picture. enjoy.
My Collection
This is just a selection from my collection of Vintage photographs and other bits and bobs. Picked up from markets and second hand book stores over the past few years.
& It all Begins to Bloom
These pictures were in my Grandads of photographs, there's some beautiful photographs in there, I don't think they should be lying around where no one can see them, think I'll put these up on my wall.
The first is my eldest brother Jan and my big sister Anna when they were litte, I think it's the cutest photo I've ever seen and I'm very jealous because my Nana gave them both a kitten! I never got a kitten! Anyway it's a lovely photo.
The second is (I think) my Nana, Gladys Miller when she was a baby, again it's a lovely (if a little eerie) image, the next is my mum when she was a baby! she looks very cute.
The last I don't know where it is but my Grandad must have taken it at some point, I don't think it's in our village. It's a beutiful picture though and it reminds me of Summer in my village, I always look out for hot air balloons, they seem to drift endlessly over the fields on Summer evenings.
The first is my eldest brother Jan and my big sister Anna when they were litte, I think it's the cutest photo I've ever seen and I'm very jealous because my Nana gave them both a kitten! I never got a kitten! Anyway it's a lovely photo.
The second is (I think) my Nana, Gladys Miller when she was a baby, again it's a lovely (if a little eerie) image, the next is my mum when she was a baby! she looks very cute.
The last I don't know where it is but my Grandad must have taken it at some point, I don't think it's in our village. It's a beutiful picture though and it reminds me of Summer in my village, I always look out for hot air balloons, they seem to drift endlessly over the fields on Summer evenings.
1968
I pretty much love nothing more than to pick up a camera (any camera) and take a photograph; of anyone, or anything, or anywhere. I might not be all that good at it but not much gives me more satisfaction. & I don't like these fancy pants ten mega pixel digital optical zoom nonsense cameras, I like old shitty cameras, which leak light and take fuzzy blurred shots which don't really work out so good. These remind me of the photos I've collected from boot sales and flea markets and bric&brac stores over the past few years.
The only think I maybe like more than actually taking the photo myself, is noseying at other peoples photographs, endlessly scouring over images, hours at a time, & the older they are the better. I like the grainey saturated colours of the 60s and 70s, but I also like very old black and white photographs (I've got a KODAK album from 1915, and another photo album with no dates but full of little black and white photographs of what I can guess to be two sisters.)
I don't know what is it I like so much about these photos, I'll look at photographs of anything and find it interesting. I think it's the voyeuristic, nosey parker thing. I shouldn't be looking through someones memories, but I do, and I usually cherish them as whoever took the photography in the first place did.
Last night me and my mum were looking through my Grandads old box of photographs (which I've snooped through lots of times), he's ill in hospital at the moment and so we thought maybe if we took him some old pictures it would cheer him up, but photographs are such a weird concept, they capture something which has been and gone, no matter how long you spend staring at that image, you'll never get the moment back. You can never be in the photograph again.
I think that's why I prefer other peoples photographs, I can look over these peoples thoughts and memories with interest and excitement, because I havn't lost these moments, I've gained them. I've taken over their memories, tiny snippets of their lives and claimed them for my own.
Thinking about all this and looking through my Grandads photographs got me thinking about some work I did two years ago when I first started my Uni course. The first body of work that I initiated myself was all about objects and the traces people leave in places and on objects. I spent a lot of time during the project really trying hard to think of a way to convey my ideas and thoughts, but I think working with objects in art can become very twee, and that wasn't what I was interested in. I was a bit of a fleamarket rat already, but I became interested in photographs, old photographs, I bought my first packet, of old black and white photos, and they werea mixed bunch, just weird random images that didn't correlate with one another in any way. Another day I went back to this particular stall on the market and spotted an old looking paper envelope which was from boots chemist I think, and contained someones holiday photographs. I looked inside and felt I had just stumbled across the most exciting find in my life, a set, in perfect condition or square format photographs, of a couple on holiday in 'minorca' or so the handwriting on the front told me, the photos were from 1968, and they were absolutly beautiful. I paid the man a pound for someones beautiful memories and went home on the bus clutching them like they were worth a million! I became consumed in the photographs and I knew I had to use them in my project.
I went back again the same place the next week and actually couldn't believe my luck when I found two more packets of photographs, I spotted them and thought it couldn't be the same people but it was. This time I got my hands on 'SCOTLAND 1970' and 'LAKE DISTRICT NORFOLK 1971' I couldn't believe my luck. I felt like I was meant to find the photographs. When I got these new photographs home and began to look over them I noticed there was a set of negatives in the pack which didn't belong to any of the photos I had already infront of me. I began thinking if I could get these negatives processed I would be bringing this couples life, back again. I took it to a photo lab and they had a go at processing them for me, I returned to pick up the photos and I took them sealed to a park, sat down on the bench and took a breath, I was so excited about what I was going to see, when I opened the envelope I was met by the most beautiful photographs, of Venice. They were so vivid and amazing, and I felt like that was it my project was completed, I had become in some way the owner of these photographs and these memories I had made them my own.
I still had a sinking feeling however that I didn't have the original photographs of their Venice trip, so I kept going back to the same stall searching for them for weeks. about a month after the first packet had been found one day I was scouring through the same old box of photographs, postcards and envelopes and I noticed the corner of those familiar photograph packets and there it was, on the front it said 'YUGOSLAVIA 1969' in the same block handwriting I had now come to recognise and inside there were 18 fresh photographs, of Venice and of Yugoslavia, I couldn't believe it.
I really felt like I was meant to find these photographs and I cherish them like I cherish my own. I feel like I know something of who this couple were and what they were like, the man wears glasses, and often a distinctive pork pie hat, he wishes he had a son, his wife looks shy, she likes nice dresses and handbags, she wishes she had a daughter, they have a cat (there's some photogrpahs of their back garden and the man gardening in overalls) which the wife spoils, because they never had any children, they're a quiet couple, who live somewhere in the country, they keep themselves to themselves, and are more interested in spending their time with one another,they've been together a long time since they were teenage sweethearts and they stayed together until their ends, when they died, and I ended up with their memories, which I will always keep safe for them.
The only think I maybe like more than actually taking the photo myself, is noseying at other peoples photographs, endlessly scouring over images, hours at a time, & the older they are the better. I like the grainey saturated colours of the 60s and 70s, but I also like very old black and white photographs (I've got a KODAK album from 1915, and another photo album with no dates but full of little black and white photographs of what I can guess to be two sisters.)
I don't know what is it I like so much about these photos, I'll look at photographs of anything and find it interesting. I think it's the voyeuristic, nosey parker thing. I shouldn't be looking through someones memories, but I do, and I usually cherish them as whoever took the photography in the first place did.
Last night me and my mum were looking through my Grandads old box of photographs (which I've snooped through lots of times), he's ill in hospital at the moment and so we thought maybe if we took him some old pictures it would cheer him up, but photographs are such a weird concept, they capture something which has been and gone, no matter how long you spend staring at that image, you'll never get the moment back. You can never be in the photograph again.
I think that's why I prefer other peoples photographs, I can look over these peoples thoughts and memories with interest and excitement, because I havn't lost these moments, I've gained them. I've taken over their memories, tiny snippets of their lives and claimed them for my own.
Thinking about all this and looking through my Grandads photographs got me thinking about some work I did two years ago when I first started my Uni course. The first body of work that I initiated myself was all about objects and the traces people leave in places and on objects. I spent a lot of time during the project really trying hard to think of a way to convey my ideas and thoughts, but I think working with objects in art can become very twee, and that wasn't what I was interested in. I was a bit of a fleamarket rat already, but I became interested in photographs, old photographs, I bought my first packet, of old black and white photos, and they werea mixed bunch, just weird random images that didn't correlate with one another in any way. Another day I went back to this particular stall on the market and spotted an old looking paper envelope which was from boots chemist I think, and contained someones holiday photographs. I looked inside and felt I had just stumbled across the most exciting find in my life, a set, in perfect condition or square format photographs, of a couple on holiday in 'minorca' or so the handwriting on the front told me, the photos were from 1968, and they were absolutly beautiful. I paid the man a pound for someones beautiful memories and went home on the bus clutching them like they were worth a million! I became consumed in the photographs and I knew I had to use them in my project.
I went back again the same place the next week and actually couldn't believe my luck when I found two more packets of photographs, I spotted them and thought it couldn't be the same people but it was. This time I got my hands on 'SCOTLAND 1970' and 'LAKE DISTRICT NORFOLK 1971' I couldn't believe my luck. I felt like I was meant to find the photographs. When I got these new photographs home and began to look over them I noticed there was a set of negatives in the pack which didn't belong to any of the photos I had already infront of me. I began thinking if I could get these negatives processed I would be bringing this couples life, back again. I took it to a photo lab and they had a go at processing them for me, I returned to pick up the photos and I took them sealed to a park, sat down on the bench and took a breath, I was so excited about what I was going to see, when I opened the envelope I was met by the most beautiful photographs, of Venice. They were so vivid and amazing, and I felt like that was it my project was completed, I had become in some way the owner of these photographs and these memories I had made them my own.
I still had a sinking feeling however that I didn't have the original photographs of their Venice trip, so I kept going back to the same stall searching for them for weeks. about a month after the first packet had been found one day I was scouring through the same old box of photographs, postcards and envelopes and I noticed the corner of those familiar photograph packets and there it was, on the front it said 'YUGOSLAVIA 1969' in the same block handwriting I had now come to recognise and inside there were 18 fresh photographs, of Venice and of Yugoslavia, I couldn't believe it.
I really felt like I was meant to find these photographs and I cherish them like I cherish my own. I feel like I know something of who this couple were and what they were like, the man wears glasses, and often a distinctive pork pie hat, he wishes he had a son, his wife looks shy, she likes nice dresses and handbags, she wishes she had a daughter, they have a cat (there's some photogrpahs of their back garden and the man gardening in overalls) which the wife spoils, because they never had any children, they're a quiet couple, who live somewhere in the country, they keep themselves to themselves, and are more interested in spending their time with one another,they've been together a long time since they were teenage sweethearts and they stayed together until their ends, when they died, and I ended up with their memories, which I will always keep safe for them.
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