Documenting My Life
I spend countless hours documenting my life. I carry my camera around with me everywhere that I go; whether that is at the weekends with my family, on holidays or on specific photo walks - it is always with me. I have created thousands of photographs, of which I only share a very small number publicly, and have hard drives full of images. I know that everyone carries around a smartphone and has could storage full of images - I do too. In a way, we are all recording images of our collective history, our daily lives, the food we eat, our pets - but I am trying to do more than this. I am trying to be intentional - I have set out to make sure that I am documenting my life in a specific and meaningful way.
Every photograph that I make documents my history as a person, navigating my way though this world. I take photos for myself, records of a moment in time, whether that is a snapshot of a special event or a more considered capture of a place I visit. My photos are my legacy of my moments that matter, describing what it is like for me to be alive at this particular point in history. I have become completely obsessed with this documentation and asking myself what it means to be collecting these images. As I look through my photos, I realise that many of them are personal and will never be shared, but many of them can - those are the images that I share on my website and my Instagram feed; not the ones I am most proud of, but those that have the specific outward facing aesthetic that best aligns with my creative goals. These are are the images that I curate as have best captured the feeling of my journey through the word I occupy. Then there is my website - the place that I feel I can own and structure my narrative; an expression of how I perceive the world. Here I can be deliberate and concise, narrating visual stories and telling people where I see beauty in our world.
I take photographs of places and spaces - things that interest me and that I am drawn to. Photography has given me permission to explore new places and to seek these places out and making images is a record of that exploration. I am always searching to find new places to visit - to see new things and document the world. We live in a digital age, where millions of images are taken and discarded every day on iPhones - I absolutely do the same, however, I also accompany this with my “propper camera”, with a determination to create a body of work. If these images remain only on hard-drives, will I be fulfilled in this mission? I think that the honest answer is no, I need to continue to print images for display in my home, create photo books for my family and expand on my website. I don’t know that there is a way to ever feel satisfied about the journey that I am on; to ever feel like my work is complete - it never will be but that does not detract from my intention.
When I ask myself why I create - I keep coming back to a simple answer - I just want to make future me happy. I to be able to look back at my work in decades to come, with my family and children. I want to make something that is meaningful. Photos are a evidence of a life lived and questions asked. My photographs are a window into my mind; they show what I notice, what I find to be beautiful and are a personal collection of my experiences. Long may the journey continue.
