Photographers should always understand “WHY” they are photographing whatever they are photographing !
The sentence above sounds perfectly reasonable, if not essential but we should be aware that the context , motivation , value of making photographs is not always fixed in stone , it is probably identified and understood at the time of capture by the author but that might not be the context that the work is viewed within at a later date ?
Time changes photographs is the mantra of the many who view photographs within a historic context , a more considered view would suggest that photographs never change but the social conditions, societal values, ethics and people who view them do !
I never imagined that the views that I captured for my Another Day Off project would become records of a a pre-pandemic twenty first century lifestyle , at the time of capture these views represented a country and population that shared social space with a collective smile on its face , that’s not now !!!
The layers of meaning and interpretation of any photograph can run deep, pictures can only be valued by the response they provoke within the viewer and that will not be consistent or reliable as a measure of importance ?
The first sentence of this blog could / should arguably read “What they are photographing” instead of “WHY” they are photographing as what we think we are photographing is dependent on influences outside the frame ?
The picture above has been selected deliberately, it is ambiguous and without explanation or caption , what is going on ?
A , Scene of a accident , 2005 .
B , Preservation of a crime scene , 2010
C , A Childhood themed sculpture , 2017
D, 2020
You have probably already created your own narrative for this image and your reasoning is probably correct , strangely your current mindset knew that this image was created during the pandemic era and represented an attempt to keep children safe from a deadly contagion !
Who would have thought , the purpose of this capture was communicated by the year of capture only ?
Paranoia or 2020 hindsight …
Things will never be the same again ….