Continuing to read Geoff Dyer 'The Ongoing Moment'. He is speaking about Edward Weston and Charis Wilson. Wilson receives recognition for her contribution to his work in The Economist. In the preceding pages Dyer writes of other photographers and their models or Muses. When I was 17 - literally on my 17th birthday - I met my first boyfriend, a young photographer. There's a certain thrill in seeing oneself captured - in 'the mirror with a memory', but there is a pressure and a lack of fulfilment in being seen primarily for one's appearance. In my twenties I remember longing to have the confidence, the lack of self-consciousness to take pictures in the street.
At some point in my teens I had seen, in a magazine, a photo essay on Sophia Loren taking to the streets wearing a wig, maybe a scarf and large unflattering dark glasses - to take photographs. Google 'Sophia Loren took photographs', as I have just done, and the results are all about images taken of her. I can still see the black and white double page spread - images, again of her, albeit in disguise. The piece was still largely about her appearance, and not her photographs. Thrillingly now, living in the liberating anonymity of London, I can do what I longed for in my twenties. I can kneel by any piece of treasure in the street in pretty much complete freedom.
Shifting focus slightly - in a footnote, Dyer speaks of models and photographer becoming 'addicted to...the magic of what they saw in the ground glass' as much as the resultant photos. Edward Weston worked with a 4 x 5 inch camera of delicious 'brilliance and clarity'. IPhone delivers at times clarity and at times a lustrous diffusion. If my harvest of images has been good - I can escape from a stressful commute into a glowing world in the palm of my hand (an alternative to the default dive into the distinctly unmagical pages of the free papers).
At some point in my teens I had seen, in a magazine, a photo essay on Sophia Loren taking to the streets wearing a wig, maybe a scarf and large unflattering dark glasses - to take photographs. Google 'Sophia Loren took photographs', as I have just done, and the results are all about images taken of her. I can still see the black and white double page spread - images, again of her, albeit in disguise. The piece was still largely about her appearance, and not her photographs. Thrillingly now, living in the liberating anonymity of London, I can do what I longed for in my twenties. I can kneel by any piece of treasure in the street in pretty much complete freedom.
Shifting focus slightly - in a footnote, Dyer speaks of models and photographer becoming 'addicted to...the magic of what they saw in the ground glass' as much as the resultant photos. Edward Weston worked with a 4 x 5 inch camera of delicious 'brilliance and clarity'. IPhone delivers at times clarity and at times a lustrous diffusion. If my harvest of images has been good - I can escape from a stressful commute into a glowing world in the palm of my hand (an alternative to the default dive into the distinctly unmagical pages of the free papers).
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