Farang Hat

Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Two Old Slides

Roll No. 1 (Death and Photography)

As promised, tonight I took a very vague look at the massive folders of negatives that sit in the corner of my bedroom. This was the first roll of film I ever shot. I used some kind of Ricoh 35mm, which now lives with my brother. There's so much I don't remember about these pictures. Whose arse is that? Who is Lauren?

This picture, however, always stuck with me. At the start of my degree we went on a trip to the countryside. The girl, who I think was called Naomi, died in a car accident sometime during the our first year, which shocked us all. The boy in the fleece, I can't remember his name, had gone to college with her and had a very obvious crush going on.

I remember when we were told about her death I looked at the boy and thought about this image. Suddenly I had this picture that was so melodramatic and stuffed with clumsy symbolism (him photographing her from afar, on the edge of a cliff, her hair covering her face, etc, etc) that I felt guilty. It was like I was in possession of something strange and illicit, reductive and potentially damaging, so I never showed it to anyone. That was probably a good decision as a human being, but maybe not as a photographer. It's certainly not what Araki would have done.

And isn't that the question by which we should all try to live?

"What would Araki do?"

Friday, 6 May 2011

Scanningscanningscanningscanning...

Seeing as I finally bought my own scanner, I'm going to turn this place into a little repository for new and old scans. Currently going through 12 rolls that just came back from Peak, and then I may turn my attention to nosing around in my old negative files.

So in other words, there's going to be a lot of photographs, and not a lot of words on Farang Hat from now on. Much like the last few posts, I guess.

Here's my Dad in the rain in Yorkshire Sculpture Park to kick things off...