Photography

Hello. I’m the photographer behind some of the images you can see on this site. I am also the husband of the poet. She asked the photographer to step out from behind the lens to introduce himself. Something about acknowledging the images, and providing a context. Golly.

Welcome. 

I had always wanted to take photographs. As a young person I did not have the means. As an impoverished student, I managed to buy a small 2nd hand Olympus 35mm camera. Along with the inevitable various ‘snaps’ of people and places, I had a yearning to try to create some ‘real’ photographs. Most of the photos I took with the Olympus were not great art, but they hold immense value to me now because of the memories of place and time that they captured. It was amongst some of these pictures that I started to feel I was capturing certain qualities of a place. A stillness perhaps? I felt that some of my images captured a peace, or at least an absence of anxiety. Whatever it was, it was a state that I was very much drawn to. I wanted to seek that quality out. I wanted to be the ghost on a deserted platform, the stillness in an empty room. I don’t know why, but I felt more real in those places where the stillness lay. I may not have had any photographic skill or technique, but I did see, and feel, that, in some of the pictures l was taking, there existed the sense of stillness in the external landscape that I was seeking for myself.

The little Olympus passed away shortly after I started as a working person. There was rent to pay, cars to maintain, and places to explore. And so, photographically at least, I rested for a while.

It wasn’t until I was married that I decided to try my hand at photography again. My wife had an interesting life that was very busy and full of activity. With a camera, I reasoned, I could try and capture something of the events as they played out in front of me. And when my wife was busy, and I was not, I could set off with my camera into the world and experiment with with the landscape as an object. 

I’ve mused on what characterizes the images I’ve taken that I have a great affinity for, over and above an ordinary run-of-the-mill ‘photo’. Possibly they could be termed ‘still life landscapes’ or ‘spirit of absence’. Like the artist Paul Nash, I feel a strong association with the spirit of a place. Nash would be drawn back to locations, re-engaging with them frequently.

When I see some of my images on this blog, I see memories. But I also feel presence of the spirit of the location. 

Many of the images selected by the poet illuminate the essence of the poem, or an aspect of the poem’s subject. In almost all cases, they were created before the existence of the poems to which they are attached. I'm amazed and delighted that something in the image embodies an essence of the poem. The degree to which the two concur is gratifying. Thematically, the image subjects are diverse, but,to me, each has a unifying spirit of place, and a quality - however obliquely - of stillness. The poems themselves are equally as diverse thematically, yet unified by the presence of the poet herself.

Not all the images on display are mine. The poet herself is an adept and talented photographer. Her photographs convey her spirit - and her words - far better than anything I could ever hope to realise. I am delighted therefore that she chooses to include some of my efforts alongside her words and images.

David Challoner 6th February 2020

Editor's note. All photographs by David or other photographers are acknowledged as such. Where there is no acknowledgement it usually means the photograph in one of mine (JH)!