A LOT OF JOY – A LOT OF IT

On the beach in Durban, a street child given permission to play in a safe place is loosed from the grim reality that grounds him. An unbelievably powerful moment quite apart from street tough survival which betrays secret longings – simply, to be a child. A lot of joy. A lot of it.

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After finishing one really important work chapter recently—Alnwick Castle and the Zoology film projects—I've been reflecting back on previous significant chapters too, specifically, the years I spent devoted to documentary photography. I left a BBC Graphics position to go in pursuit of story-telling with my camera for a number of years and these travels took me—via Magnum Photos—to shoot street kids in South Africa (where the above photograph was taken), trafficked humans in Cambodia and Thailand, and communities in Peru healing from the harmful legacies of relatively recent civil war. My work was in support of charities on the ground in those places.

For various reasons, it's been difficult to see how I might include this particular story in the evolutionary mix of my developing practice. I sit in a beautiful studio in central Bristol, still telling great stories but generally uplifting and not really anything to do with poverty or social injustice ... then I realise, images like the one above have probably done more to crystallise my approach to communication than any other experience in my career. 

It always comes back to motivation for me – why a person behaved a certain way in a certain situation, and why we should care about that. What we can learn from it. How we can be inspired to live our best lives.

The story of this boy leaping chokes me up even while I type this, and its over a decade since I shot that story. It probably would you too if I shared the full encounter, but that will have to be for another time.

Looking at the chinagraph marks around this particular frame, I am glad that a physical thing still exists and bears my marks on it, in tribute to the spirit of a stranger I came across one day far from home, and who has completely unwittingly motivated me to positive action for years now. 

Work like this doesn't leave a person without scars, but looking back from a new space, I think it's high time I worked out how to acknowledge all this once again. More thanks than I realised are due to the people and places I found during these years.

Settling Again

It's been a really busy little while lately, settling back in the studio after lots of adventures and inspiration over summer. I'm sure you know what I mean!

Along with all those holidays and long, warm days, Summer's a great time to step back and take stock, don't you think? Although I find it does bring disruption to a more regular work flow with commissions and projects. It can be a bit of a 'hold your nerve' time in that respect if you run your own business.

To make ideas sing, to get into the heart of them and find their character, sometimes a change of scene is really helpful. And then sometimes, coming back to settle at your table, and pick up your tools to make them happen is the only thing to do next, even if you find it really hard to sit still! 

But I think the benefits of stepping back are always worth it. Drifting away from summer into autumn now, I have a couple of ideas to share which linger on the inspiring moments of summer a little longer, bring them inside with us, and keep the ideas and dreams flowing through a season of practical action ahead. Look out over the next couple of weeks for those which I'll be posting about.

Meanwhile, life here in the studio is busy as ever – a heap of projects on the go, and personal work to push myself and keep learning. I'm a bit overwhelmed to tell you the truth, but trying to heed Victore's advice that says "Ideas without action are just BS"! It helps to have a work table that feels like a treat to sit down at, and moving into The Forge earlier this year was a brilliant opportunity to switch things up and create a space that will do justice to the plans I have in my head. It's really nice coming back to this after summer, a safe place to let things out and breathe life into them.

No more distractions. It's time to honour the loveliness of all those ideas and get on with making them happen!

Happy settling friends, and may your work spaces be buzzing this autumn.

Sketchbook Pages

While making Seashore Slowdown, I wondered what words it may need to help the flow - default setting for an expressive typographer! Realising it could stand as a more pure edit with straight film, I decided to be brave and leave it alone. So, these words I explored—little haiku poems—will probably stay on their sketchbook pages after all. It was a neat writing exercise though.

The haiku, as I discovered, tends to contain two different ideas and reference to the natural world, as well as the 5-7-5 syllables rule.

I found it hard to keep things simple, but this did feel like a great way to practice being eloquent with fewer words when it comes to writing the next animation script.Feeling all inspired now – my mind's buzzing with a few ways this could come to life in a short film! 

Meeting Cartier-Bresson

Working with legends is a beautiful thing, but it can also screw with your head.

What can we learn from stepping in alongside the giants? So much gorgeous wisdom — work ethic, courage, stamina,  perseverance, how to have and hold an opinion, tricks of the trade, identity and empathy ... shall I go on?

To work alongside a true legend and—joy of joys—discover mutual empathy will provide massive affirmation: "Ah, I'm not mad to be feeling this after all!"

BUT, it can also massively backfoot you. Damn it.

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Recently I found myself in London and back down Old Street again, a number of years since working at Magnum Photos. Far, far (yet only one hundred yards) from that world of stubborn, iron-minded war photgraphers and photography heroes, this was an altogether different kind of shoot. It was a really odd moment, sitting on the steps of the tube station watching my fellow 'photo-walk' friends—fun, fashion conscious women—enjoying the clash of funky clothes against bright yellow walls. Happiness in the surface colour of things, new friends chasing common, simple perspectives to unite around. Why was it so hard to relax and just go with this? Issueless – what would those gnarly war-bound photographers make of it all?

My time at Magnum was an incredible couple of years. Many stories I could share, but meeting Henri Cartier-Bresson is what really threw me – I simply had nothing to say while gauping into those watery blue eyes, making contact with the legendary gaze which has discerned some of the most influential images of our time.

That gaze felt like a gun to my fragile opinions, a barrel pointed at my newly awakening sense of social justice. It was also—in the true spirit of Magnum—a cork popping loud on the helpless desire to make thoroughly beautiful images and record life as it explodes.

Cartier-Bresson's view on, and expression of, the world is utterly compelling and irresistibly persuasive. How do you hold—or even discover—your own in the face of that?

Thankfully people like Bruce Davidson came to the rescue with long, lovely chat, swapping notes about what it feels like to do our work. (Such a sweet, crazy, and exceptionally clever man.) Here's what it boiled down to:

Stop stalling against the opinion of other people, and just flow. No one sees through your eyes, with your heart and mind behind them. The spark exists. Just shoot.

And this is true whether your tool is a camera or pen, your voice or mind, an axe or a needle or a lathe. How do you find—and hold—your own?

"Go forth on your path, for it exists only through your walking."

- St. Augustine

My friends, there are brilliant things up ahead. Let the legends challenge and inspire, of course, but we also have our own work to do.

I paused in Shoreditch that day, thinking about all this, watching those lovely women making friends over photography, opening up, shining little beams of light on each other, and wondering what sort of photograph is valid, has meaning, is true of life. And you know what? Man, woman, war, peace or disruption, I think we just have to get on with it.

Joy so simple.