Limousines & Hearses (Part One)
Limousines & Hearses (Part One) is the first part of a three part personal photography project that I am currently undertaking. The portfolio is an organised assortment of photographs that have come about through observation and photographing on a daily basis. All of the photographs were made between 2006 and 2008. The portfolio contains thirty photographs, all colour, and all made with a Mamiya 7 medium format camera.
This portfolio is admittedly rather ambiguous, and does not have any specific literal meaning(s) or thematic interests. Rather than implying a literal narrative in this work, I opted instead to let the act of making the photographs be extremely free and honest. If I had to describe the work, yes, I would say that the aim of making this portfolio of photographs was to organise a group of images that felt as honest as one that I could make. The editing process started with hundreds of negatives, and any number of themes could have been intelligently built ot threaded together. However, I was not (and am still not) concerned with producing work that relies on a literal subject or theme. Instead, I like to let my photographs build on themselves, and the images that are placed next to them. I like developing themes that are of more a personal nature, ones that I am still trying to understand myself, rather than ones I feel that I know completely.
I am not ready to tell the world anything with my photographs. If anything, the successful images will be the ones that I feel something from. Nothing more. There is no story in this work, rather a personal and emotive journey in pictures. Of course, one can not ignore the recording aspect of photography. And I do not deny this aspect as a very relevant and important part of the medium. These photographs do show people, places, and even a few events. And they all took place, and they were photographed. I very much like to photograph people doing “what they normally do”, whether in the street, a house, a motel room, or on public transport. I am drawn to environments and situations that bring people together, as well as spaces that forge physical and emotional solitude.
There are photographs in this portfolio that five years ago, I never imagined I would have made. This portfolio, and the coming two in the series, help me free up my vision, understanding and appreciation of my own world. What surprises me about photography is how powerful the urge to photograph something can be. And what intrigues me most with the medium is allowing oneself the utmost honesty to explore something without fully being able to explain why.