Black+White Photography - UK (2019-12)

47

B+W

go into making a picture demand

all of our attention, to the point

that the rest of the world and the

pressures that come with it drift

out of focus. Photography

brings us peace.

M

y second theory

• which I suspect
  is related to the
  first – is that taking
  photographs helps us make
  sense of the world around us, by
  quite literally breaking what we
  see into more easily digestible
  chunks. Standing at a distance
  and looking at those rocks on
  the shore I could see exactly
  that – some rocks. I could see
  they varied in size and shape and
  colour and texture, but when
  seen en masse there was simply

too much for the eye and brain

to interpret, so they merged into

a homogenous wall of stone.

It’s the same with leaves on

a tree. If you look at a tree from

a distance there’s just no way

you can differentiate between

individual leaves, so we just have

to accept that we can see some

leaves and leave it at that. If you

try to see more you will quickly

become overwhelmed.

However, when you frame

the world through a camera it

is much easier to understand

what it is you are looking at.

I will happily admit I have no

qualifications of any sort in

the machinations of the mind,

but I do believe that when you

peer through the viewfinder or

look at the rear LCD and create

a literal edge to the world, it

immediately makes that world

less overwhelming. It starts to

bring order to the chaos, both

literally and mentally.

Now, I fully accept this might

be tiptoeing into the realms

of cod-psychology (or perhaps

stomping through the meadows

of twaddle), but I don’t think

it too far-fetched to suggest

there may be something deep

within the psyche that makes

one person want to create, while

another can have no creative

aspirations whatsoever. I also

suspect increasingly that the

particular processes involved in

photography sing a subliminal

song to some people that soothes

the soul, and it is the process –

not the end result – that crafts

this calm. After all, why else

would we invest so much of our

finite lives in decorating the

walls of our modern caves with

often-indecipherable daubs and

smears from our cameras?

Above This composite image of gulls is made up of five shots, consisting

of a rapid burst of two and then three frames, combined in Photoshop.

The movement of the birds was mesmerising, but with so many

individuals flying in different directions it’s easy to become

overwhelmed by their aerial acrobatics. However, freezing their

flight with a camera brings order and understanding to the chaos.

This is definitely a technique and a subject I will be returning to.