A Question of Genre - My Autistic Photography
What I Photograph and Why.
Landscape - for many years and long before I picked up a camera I have taken sensory walks in nature where I listen to the natural soundscape. I often stand before a flower and listen for its sound. To my ear each species of blossom, each colour and form has a unique sound. I found that by opening my awareness in this way, which I call listening, I was able to become more and more sensitive to hearing the natural world. There is a certain magic in being alone in nature and being immersed in its sounds. it is perhaps not surprising that when I began to take photographs, I began in the natural world.
Seeing comes less easily to me than listening. A landscape is generally too wide for me to view in its entirety, I feel overwhelmed, lost, and I struggle to see the whole of it. It makes me feel de-skilled as a photographer and a little perplexed. My eye is drawn to more intimate views, and when I take landscapes they tend to be intimate in nature. This intimacy is not only spacial but psychological, it is an immersion in the subject, a listening. I have learnt that it is a fundamental aspect of whatever I photograph.
Monochrome - My first photographs were in colour. However, black and white and monochrome images have always interested me. Because of this, my husband Stephen encouraged me to buy a camera with a black and white sensor, such a camera can only take black and white photographs. It is probably quite a niche thing, but the restriction inherent in this kind of camera interested me. When I began to use the camera I was fascinated by how seeing the world in monochrome simplified my visual experience. I expected to see shades of grey, but instead, I see light and shadow… degrees of light, shades of shadow. I find it a beautiful way of seeing and the majority of images I take are now monochrome.
Portraits - I am drawn to taking portraits of human-beings. It is something I have only attempted on occasion but would love to do more of. And yet, when I have tried I feel what seems to be an unbridgeable chasm between my subject and myself. It seems I literally do not have the language to communicate with the people I have tried to photograph, it is like there is a gap inside me, a space I can’t cross.
I work best slowly and in silence. Any interruption to my process [and this includes conversation with my subject] causes me extreme unease and I become almost frozen and unable to continue, sometimes I become visibly distressed, tearful and afraid. I talked this over with my husband Stephen who explained things from the subjects point of view, he said that many people feel uncomfortable in front of a camera and need reassurance, direction and setting at ease. It is obvious to me that I cannot do this and it seems best to set aside my desire to pursue portrait photography. And yet, it is hard to want to do something so very much, to see the beauty, frailty and courage that lies within another human-being, and yet feel totally unable to come near to photographing it. It makes me feel very sad. I like to think I might find a way.
The photograph heading this blog depicts the foxgloves and nettles which grow against my garden fence- there is a window opposite this fence and the photograph is of a reflection captured in this window, this gives the image a distorted aspect, which I find pleasing.
The second image on this page is a portrait of my husband, Stephen.
