Headless

This image, from Robert Catto’s essay Broken Threads was my starting point for this essay.

This image, from Robert Catto’s essay Broken Threads was my starting point for this essay.

Why is it that the head, and particularly the face, has so much importance in people photography? Convention states that the face should be the bright, in focus and get to be center stage in the composition.

A couple of Robert’s pictures of headless statues made me think about the importance that is generally put on the head/face in photography. While the rest of the body can tell the story just as well or even better. I’ve never been afraid to make a picture that doesn’t include the head but until recently I also never deliberately set out to not include the head in pictures.

So in the last couple of days I tried to do just that when taking pictures around the house.

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In the last few months, I’ve been also busy figuring out and creating a new body (pun not intended) of work. And one of the the aspects that I’ve been experimenting with is not including the face of the subject.

So what are your opinions on headless photography? Is it acceptable? Is it still portraiture?

Broken Threads

Broken Threads

I got a message recently from my sister in Toronto, to say that our dad’s gravestone had been installed in the cemetery where we laid him to rest one snowy day last year, before the pandemic began.

She’d also found an older family plot, in a different part of the same cemetery, and had spent a day there cleaning up the monument—and unearthing the stones of some of our ancestors that had been covered in dirt and grass, over many years…

Negative 25

Clue number 1: A curved piece of…some kind of…part of a thing

Clue number 1: A curved piece of…some kind of…part of a thing

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

As soon as I looked at the picture of the thumb in Patrick’s last essay, I was reminded of the movie ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, directed and starring Ben Stiller. In the movie, Stiller’s character goes in search of a missing negative (number 25) that is to be used on the final cover of Life Magazine. It’s a great film and self worth seeing; especially if you are a photographer.

From New Monuments by Patrick La Roque

From New Monuments by Patrick La Roque

One of my favourite shots in the movie is when Walter walks away from the camera, but the focus stays fixed.

One of my favourite shots in the movie is when Walter walks away from the camera, but the focus stays fixed.

Clue number 2: The Thumb

Clue number 2: The Thumb

I remember watching Walter Mitty (more than once), a few years after it was released, and at a time when a few of the themes in the movie struck a chord in me. The mixture of the film and the soundtrack had an alluring effect, which was a bit depressing at the time.

It’s easy to get sucked into the idea that everyone is moving forward and succeeding, while you are either stuck where you are or feel like you are going backwards. This is especially true in the Facecloth, Instasham, and all the other antisocial media platforms out there.

These days, I no longer have time for social media, nor care who is moving forward or backward (if there’s even such a thing). I’m too busy working, burning through gigabytes of pictures and video three or four days a week and struggling to keep up with the editing the rest of the week. Be careful what you wish for! One minute you’re feeling bad about not having the work and the next you’re overwhelmed by it. One minute all you’re doing is personal work and the next you are struggling to find the time to do any personal work at all.

If there is one sure thing, it’s that nothing stays the same forever. Just make the best of where you’re at at this moment, because a change is gonna come whether you like it or not.

Get vaccinated. Grow a little tail, and wag it daily!

25 is missing

25 is missing

The spoiler

The spoiler

Not actually the motto of Life Magazine

Not actually the motto of Life Magazine

Park Life

Park Life

My biggest chance to shoot has been when my nephew (for whom we’re a support bubble) has come to stay for a few days. Eager for any opportunity to go out and shoot and with my newly purchased X-E4 to try out he has been my little muse for these government-enforced dry spells. And, whilst my ever-patient nephew has generally accepted my photographing pretty much his every movement with a winning-smile (or at worst, a disdained stare), there is just one caveat on which he insists … “PESE CAN WE GO TO THE PAAAARK DADA?”

Over The Rainbow

Over The Rainbow

A little while ago I found an essay online, written by my grandfather.

I never met him, he died in 1960, almost a decade before I was born; but through an accident of timing, he spent WWI in a German prison camp. Instead of becoming a concert pianist, which is what he was studying there at the time, he became a psychologist and professor, and wrote a book about the society that sprang up in the camp in the years he was held.

Later, while working for the Canadian government during WWII, he wrote for Maclean’s magazine about how difficult it was going to be for the soldiers and prisoners returning from the war, the trouble they would inevitably have returning from that experience to “polite society”, and how their imaginations of life back at home after all that time away would inevitably lead to disappointment with the real thing.

I think that’s what the return to relative normalcy will be like for all of us, as the pandemic starts to get under control around the world…

Anything but the Highway

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND BERT STEPHANI

I chose this picture by Derek Clark from his essay Death by 74 cuts to use as my theme. I love the graphic nature of that image although I’m usually trying to stay away from highways. I had a busy week and very little spare time to get on my bike AND shoot a story, so I tried to combine both.

Anything but the Highway

I get the idea: the fastest way to go from A to B. It’s useful but the fastest way is usually not the most interesting one. Whenever I can, I take the backroads. And ever since I saved up enough money to buy my first mountainbike when I was 16, I’ve been attracted to the even smaller unpaved roads. For decades one after the other was asphalted for the sake of progress. But in the last few years, it seems like there’s a renewed appreciation of unpaved roads and paths. Even some new slow roads are built without concrete or asphalt.

It was only when I was brainstorming about this story that I came to understand that the unpaved roads serve as a metaphor for the ways I choose to travel in my life and career as well.

Death By 74 Cuts

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

I chose this picture by Patrick La Roque from his essay Puddles Are Windows and Fissures are Roads to use as my theme. I almost chose dogs, as I can see two dogs in the top left corner, but in the end I chose differently. The converging lines in that same corner reminded me of roads, and the top of the picture feels like decay. Possibly converging lines cutting through the underdogs?

Death By 74 CUTS

The city of Glasgow, like a lot of highly populated places, is going through constant change. The always present cranes across the city skyscrape erect building after building, rubbing out the old and redrawing the new. But this only makes the places that are being left behind stand out; a slow painful demise. Tradeston is one such place, an industrial area that has been neglected for years. Decades of decay joined with decades of graffiti and vandalism.

In 2011, the M74 motorway was completed. Although construction started in 1966, the M74 didn’t reach its intended destination until 2011. This monster of a road rises up on stilts as it cuts a path straight through Tradeston, barely revealing what lies beneath to the unsuspecting drivers. But still, I’m drawn to this place, and I will probably return to document it more before it gets torn-down in favour of luxury flats or offices.

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DEFINITION 45 | Looks Like We Made It

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

I reached the grand old age of 55 last month. The number in itself is nothing special, but it’s the age that my sister Joyce died of a brain tumour in 2018. Dark humour has always been a part of my family and when I visited Joyce on her birthday, she gave me a rendition of Barry Manilow’s ‘Looks Like We Made It’. She of course meant she had made it to another birthday. She died less than two months later.

There is a naïveté that makes you think these things are more acceptable when someone is older, even just two years older. But as I reached 55, I realised that I feel no different than I did at 53, nor 43 for that matter. My dad passed away in 2019 pretty much of a broken heart, so to say that death is never far away from my thoughts is probably an understatement. I don't know if it's my age or recent events, but I find myself wondering how many more days I have left before I will wake up dead myself. Maybe mid-fifties are the age when these thoughts start to creep into your head more often, but my sister got 55 years, what makes me so special that I would deserve more?

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We took my mum away for a few days in October. It was the first anniversary of my dad's death and we didn't want her all alone and rattling around her house dwelling on it. While we were away, my wife Fe got word that the unit at the care home where she works had cases of Covid19. She knew there was a high risk she would become infected when she went back to work, but she, of course, went in anyway. Because while Joe public is fighting over toilet rolls in supermarket isles, carers, nurses and countless others are putting their lives on the line.

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Four days after she. went back to work, the symptoms started. A trip to the local testing centre confirmed she had the virus. Eleven days of cold and flu symptoms and we thought she was starting to get over it. But then it really hit. She spent the next three days flat on her back, too weak to do anything but be sick. Even now, three weeks on, she still gets tired doing small things. Nine elderly people from her unit passed away from Covid19.

Janel and Fe both had birthdays this month. Janel turned 13 and found the new normal for blowing out candles is not normal at all. I could mention how old Fe is, but I’d rather the candles were stored in the cupboard than in me.

It is almost December, and what should have seemed like a drag of a year has actually flown by in a flash.

So if you're reading this, almost a year into the Covid 19 pandemic, - It looks like you made it too!

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Definition 36 | Libertas Restrictus

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

Anyone who has seen the movie Braveheart will remember the character of William Wallace, played by actor/director Mel Gibson, cry out the word FREEDOM. Although a bit overused since the movie done the rounds, freedom is not something I've taken for granted. The ability to go wherever you like, whenever you like is not something all people in all countries are able to do. So I find the obsession in the 21st-century to obtain fame bizarre and self-destructive. Fame might bring the financial ability to afford to go wherever you like, but the freedom to walk down a busy street unnoticed is true freedom. To go where you like in total anonymity is bliss!

Coronavirus has removed or restricted freedom in 2020 and possibly into 2021. In the beginning, it looked as though lockdown was just a way to get people to stay at home so that the government could change the batteries in all the birds, but there was a shortage of toilet roll, not batteries, so I guess that wasn't true :o)

Freedom for me is to take a train somewhere and to wander for miles with a camera in my hand. Most of my pictures include people. But as a street photographer, I had no one to shoot on the streets, as a music photographer, I had no bands or musicians to photograph. As a musician, I had no audience to play to. Life really did come to a standstill.

But even now, I feel the rust taking hold of my photography and creativity in general. I don't have the time to shoot long enough to allow the brake pads to separate from the disks. There is a feeling of being trapped, fenced-in, and on the outside of where I want or need to be. Parts of the country, including where I live, are seeing increased numbers and more restrictions being re-introduced. So even now, as we move toward October and the long dark winter, there is as much uncertainty as ever. But I’m not ready to paint my face blue and shout FREEDOM. Not just yet.

Definition 010 | The Story Of Her Beauty

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PHOTOGRAPHY & TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

There is only a handful of things that defines me and most of them involve photography. I spoke about street photography in my first Definitions post last month, which is a form of documentary photography. But I also like straight-up photojournalistic stories that are plain and simple, with no frills. What you see is how it was, and all the better if it has an impact on the viewer.

Documentary photographers have to keep their eyes and ears open for opportunities to tell someone’s story. It’s very easy to miss the chance of a good story simply because you were not paying attention to the signs in front of you. Almira simply wanted a portrait taken the night before her operation. She was about to go through gruelling surgery that would be life-changing and the outcome was uncertain. This is the story of her beauty, a title I got from a conversation with Almira.

Almira’s body language shows the apprehension the night before the operation

Almira’s body language shows the apprehension the night before the operation

Almira contracted German Measles when she was just a few months old in the Philippines, which led to facial disfigurement. An operation was performed many years ago that involved inserting a piece of bone into her jaw, but that bone started to grow and it began to restrict movement. Eating would become a problem unless she received an operation to fix this. She has lived in Scotland for many years with her husband Alex, and although it has taken almost 5 years, the operation was finally scheduled.

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We left for the hospital the following morning at 6 am, setting off early in case of traffic but arriving so early that the nurses had not even started their shift. We waited outside the ward, mostly in silence. When the nurse finally opened the door and led Almira and Alex down the corridor to the waiting room, she explained that the ward was empty because no other surgeries were scheduled for that day. She joked with Almira about how special she was to get the full unit dedicated to her. The nurse let Almira and Alex say their goodbyes and then led her off down the corridor until they were both gone.

Queen Elizabeth II Hospital

Queen Elizabeth II Hospital

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A nurse leads Almira down a corridor toward the operating theatre

A nurse leads Almira down a corridor toward the operating theatre

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The surgery to repair Almira's jaw with titanium was scheduled to last 5 or 6 hours, but she was in theatre for a total of 13 hours. The following day we arrived at the hospital to find Almira asleep on the bed. She looked like she had been through a war, battered, bruised and swollen. She woke-up and was helped to straighten up on the bed, still drugged heavily, but possibly not heavily enough. She struggled to eat some chocolate mousse, which along with soup and ice cream, would be her only food for the foreseeable future.

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Almira was discharged the following day. It was hard to believe the difference from when I had last seen her the day before propped up and looking like she had been used as a punching bag. As she entered the elevator and looked in the mirror, it was as though she was staring into the face of a long lost sister. She held on to a tub of ice cream, even though it would be melted by the time she got home.

Almira stares at her face in the elevator mirror

Almira stares at her face in the elevator mirror

Almira walks up the stairs at her house

Almira walks up the stairs at her house

Almira shows pictures on her phone from when she was a baby - before the German Measles attack.

Almira shows pictures on her phone from when she was a baby - before the German Measles attack.

Almira was back at the hospital a week later to have the staples removed from her head and the stitches from her face. The surgeon had made incisions each side of her eyes and packed them so that each eye would be more level. The wound ran from almost the top of her head down the front of her ear, with a second scar on her jaw.

She had suffered a lot of pain to get this far and she was anxious about the staples being removed. The nurse gently parted her hair to reveal the scar and then proceeded to remove the staples one by one. Almira held the second nurse's hand and gripped it even more tightly each time a staple was removed, her swollen face grimacing with the discomfort. When the staples had been removed the nurse then started to snip each suture, before removing it with tweezers.

Almira anxiously waits for the staples to be removed from her head, and the sutures from her jaw and next to her eye.

Almira anxiously waits for the staples to be removed from her head, and the sutures from her jaw and next to her eye.

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When it was over, Almira looked relieved with an almost child-like expression. It was the end of this procedure. But there may be more surgery needed in the future. For now, all that was left was to heal and have the braces removed from her teeth that were fitted to hold everything together during the operation.

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Almira - March 2020

Thanks to Almira for allowing the world to see her at her most vulnerable. People have to throw vanity out of the window to allow documentary photographers to tell real stories. That takes real bravery.

A special thanks to all the people that make the UK’s health service one of the best in the world. We are on the brink of the most devastating health crisis in over 100 years, and even though the NHS has been getting underfunded for the past decade, the amazing doctors, nurses and all the other staff will give everything. Sadly for some that could mean giving their lives.