Past lives

2nd December 2016

There are so many tales from Texas I am yearning to vent but until I’ve got my eyes over the film I’ll hold off on the stories.

In the mean time I was looking back at some images from the ‘Our lives’ series and thought I would post a few that didn’t make the final print. Sometimes an image is too similar in content to include but often tells another story or evokes a different emotion. I wondered what instinctive part of me decided on the image I did. What controls my editing decisions?

Textures, shades and spaces that feel comfortable, expressions that draw the eye back. I wonder if the same subjective curating of the moment itself also marries the final selection of a group of images or even the one that is selected from many afterwards.

I’ve met many people who I consider incredible photographers but I am often shocked or disappointed by which images they choose to present or which for them, accurately reflect their skills.

Like most artists stepping outside the practice is something I struggle with. Reviewing work is something I turn to others for, which is challenging. The catch 22 of not wanting to reveal images that you are frustrated by, but equally the knowledge that you cannot improve, learn or progress without the critique of others will always be a hard fact to accept.

Is the defining moment of selecting the image from the contact sheet just as important as the moment of pressing the shutter? Personally I always feel more attached to an image when just one frame is produced, I like the idea of a sacred 60th of a second rather than one of many…but then who knows if the real moment was missed?

OAO x