Snap Happy

Second Look Photo Marathon

For several years I had quite a serious relationship with photography. We laughed, we cried, but the magic disappeared. We drifted further apart until the inevitable happened. You know how it is, now and then we'd bump into eachother and have an awkward conversation about the old days. Recently I entered the Second Look Photo Marathon and had a brief fling with my old flame. I was to be tooled up with a disposable camera (oh the nostalgia) and a list of themes. The challenge was to take a picture inspired by each theme, in the order on the list (therein lied an even deeper challenge). For one day, I was to become a photographer again, except this time without the crippling pressure of trying to carve a career out of my visual musings.

I turned up at 11am on a Saturday to collect my 'kit', still hideously suffering the consequences from the night before which, aptly, took me back to my Uni days! The themes were vague at first glance. Number two was simply "Stop", I took a picture of a park bench. In my delicate state that's what it was saying to me, "Stop, sit here a while, rest your weary frame". There were ten themes in total, taking me on a walking tour of the city. It could have been quite pleasurable if it weren’t for the increasing hangover and cold weather combo. However, I endeavoured to commit to my old friend. I finished up with number ten, "All Smiles", with an image of those smiley emoticon thingies on my phone, creative eh? Yeah, would have been if it weren’t so out of focus and cropped out of recognition…blasted disposable camera. Ah well, s’pose it was rather fitting. These snaps were merely visual snippets of my bleary, cold, hungover consciousness on that day.

The whole project reminded me of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s coined phrase, 'the

decisive moment'. Now a phrase used widely in Street Photography, it refers to single moments captured and frozen by a fateful observer in a particular frame of mind, never to happen again. It was all so nostalgic and familiar, it was fun to get snapping to a brief again. The images were exhibited on Park Street for a weekend. With a sense of artistic importance I donned my trenchcoat and dark glasses and prepared for the crowds awaiting my appearance at the Grand Opening. My ego came down to earth with a humble thud - out of 10 shots, 5 were out of focus. I don’t think The Photographer’s Gallery will be in a hurry to track me down although I’m still holding out for The Tate Modern…

http://www.secondlook.org.uk/
Images: Sinéad Millea.