a blog about images by Richard Greatrex

PAUSE A WHILE

WHY I TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS
Black and white photograph of a camera and a close-up of a face using the camera

BLOG # 5

I was once asked to write about . . . .Why I Take Photographs . . . and I guess the first response is

I take photographs because I always have!

I have been taking photographs now for maybe 65 years, so in many ways it’s simply a habit.

It’s also much of what I am, at least the way I see, and look at the world.

Garry Winogrand, photographer, said something like this when asked the same question.

to see what the photograph looks like

This is not for me, I kind of know what the photograph is going to look like. I have been taking them for so long that I have a good idea what the angle, the light, the colour, the exposure and the composition will indeed create. I am lucky in having a confidence in this. I generally know when I activate the shutter whether it will be a good photograph or at least something that I imagined.

No, I think I will have to take you back a little to help answer the question.

As a pre-teenager I had a little box camera, a Box Brownie, I’m not sure where it came from. With this camera I chose to create little farm scenes with models of animals and farm workers. I would set them up as if in the farmyard and shine a light on them to make them stand out and click away. Well one click anyway, surprisingly the Box Brownie used 120 film which was big and expensive, requiring a cautious shutter finger.

Snap. . .. . Me, the camera and the farm. . . .. Make-believe, wonderful.

12 snaps. . . the film now fully used, needing developing and then printing. My dad was knowledgeable, he had helped create a substantial darkroom at the local gas works social club. He showed me.

In darkness now, solid darkness. Carefully, holding only by the edges, the film is loaded into the spiral, delicately. Lid on, chemicals in. Agitate – twist – tap – agitate – twist– tap. The film is developing, the image arising.

Again in darkness a bright, crisp image, so alive and so immediate in the enlarger. A negative image but with many positives. It’s all there, the stuff of a photograph, back to front and only black and white but amazing to see the little farm.

Back to the chemicals. My eyes soon adjusted to the semi darkness and the brooding red light.. Intense and expectant. Counting one…..two….three. . . as the image appears in the gently rocking tray.

It’s born. The chemicals, the brew, an amniotic fluid.

Magic. Yes Magic.

The prints pegged out as if on Mum’s washing line. . . drip. . . dry. . . . drip. . . . dry.

Like the prints, I was hooked.

And so . .

6 Comments

  1. Rodney Mace

    Thanks Richard for this story, it helps me to get to know you a bit better.
    With affection
    Rodney

    Reply
  2. Katie

    What a beautiful account of your life in photography…and I love the way you started! A brilliant read and an inspiration, as always.

    Reply
  3. Jasper Fforde

    Good blog, and much I recognise from my own experiences. I too had a box brownie and processed film in a dish in an under stairs darkroom C. 1972 which bizarrely was still there when I visited my childhood home a few years back. I still do film as you know, so have a tactile and aromatic attachment to the chemical process as well as a nostalgic one. I think the reason I still use film is that I want to see how the world looks through the medium of silver halide crystals…

    Reply
  4. John Stratton

    Hello Richard,

    Thank you for this blog – it was brilliant (we both thought so)

    Writing it mapped out the journey and the place in your heart that the camera holds for you so clearly.

    The images were equally brilliant (of course) and stood on their own as visual delights as well as supporting the journey.

    The one of you with your box brownie is priceless and would make a great starting point for a painting if you knew anyone who could do justice to it (!) and what a shirt collar.

    How did you recreate the farm scene? It looks Dutch or German and takes me right back in time to my soldiers – far more violent scenarios than the farmyards I suspect.

    And what about the three poseurs? I wonder if people will wonder what became of them? Interestingly I have included all three in various paintings.

    My photography (such as it was) didn’t really start until art college and even then didn’t take off as I didn’t have the aptitude or patience for the process.

    I always preferred other peoples images as they were so much better than mine. Now the opposite is almost the case and I can obsess over the most mundane of images as long as they link with my past in some way. I also have always liked the way people like Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg used photographs.

    I did actually do a GCSE photography course years ago as I thought that I would be teaching it but luckily for the students I appointed someone who could do it justice. I must say I enjoyed the darkroom experience though – much more than in my youth.

    I wonder what you make of what’s happened over time with camera phones etc ? Do you still miss the dark room process you describe so well or are you quite happy with a keyboard ? For me digital photography is perfect as the images I might end up with are a means to an end rather than being the end product.

    Thank you again Richard for such an enjoyable insight – long may you continue on your journey.

    Johannes

    Reply
  5. Chris

    Thanks for this journey through your history with a camera, Richard.
    One thing that particularly stands out for me is how the development of your craft – even your eye – is driven by, dependent upon, rejoices in the development of the technology. That very last picture: how would that even be possible without Photoshop?
    Well done for letting those different winds push your boat!

    Reply
  6. Emma Beynon

    Wow! Richard, this is a beautiful powerful piece, I love the lyrical way you have shaped your career in photography into a series of vignettes / pictures. I learnt so much. I like the sparse style too, it is very immediate and accessible, I felt as though I was browsing my way through a photograph album of your life. Thank you. It is a real pleasure to read!

    Reply

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