I had that post saved for quite a while. Since finding initial quite generic (I think) and predictable images just to get going I've been thinking a lot about my initial ideas for the project that I already had in my head. I admit I've been exploring and playing with these things in my mind for a while, way before we got the brief, but I think the themes fit quite nicely into the brief.
This is a photographer I saw at the London Photography Gallery in summer. His name is Andre Kertesez and the exhibition was called 'On reading'. I was paticularly interested in this guy, not because the photos themselves are paticularly great, but since I've been doing my essay research, which is a lot to do with the threat of traditional media, many things have said that books are on there way out. I just don't think this is true. I see people reading everywhere. I genuinely don't think anything can replace the experience of reading a novel, of holding a book in your hand. What I love about these photos is that reading is quite a private act. Its not about anyone but you, and in today's world there really isn't much left that can give you that completely unique and private experience in the same way.
''Everyone can relate to the excitement of opening a book, reading the first lines of a novel and getting lost in a parallel, imaginary world. Kertész was intrigued by the universal appeal of reading, revelling in the privacy of the moment. Over the course of his career, Kertész captured readers of all ages in various locations – on rooftops and balconies, in parks, on crowded streets, at train stations, in libraries – creating a poetic study of the act of reading.''
(From the website)
Reading is one of my favourite things to do. I have loved it ever since I learned when I was a child. I think reading is one of the things that has shaped me the most in my life. I had a massive imagination when I was a kid and still do now. For me there's something I get from a book that nothing else can give me - I've never been hooked to a show or film in the same way, I've never been emotionally attached or effected to a screen the way I have with books. I have read books that have literally had me unable to stop until I finish, had my heart racing, crying my eyes out, wanting to change everything about my life. What is so special is that, even though other people are experiencing the same story, no one but you is experiencing what you see in your head. Its not like a film where its someone else's imagination. Its just you and your interpretation. I don't have that problem where I watch films and then can only picture those settings or characters in my mind, I can make totally new ones up based on what I read, it's like a totally separate experience.
A book takes away most of your senses. You don't need to hear or speak or touch. All of these things involve noise. To read all you need to do is see, and nothing else. Sometimes you might read a visual, you might read words, or a facial expression, but in that split second that you take something in it is silence. Its just you and your mind and your interpretation. There might be noise around you, there probably is, but the act of reading, interpretating itself, no one else can hear. People are constantly thinking, interpretating, talking to themselves, but no one else can hear, no one else can possibly no exactly what your thinking and no one can ever really no what its like to be inside your head.
That is my idea of silence.
In the same style as A I wanted to try to capture people in that moment of being engrossed in a book. I felt my trip was quite successful, I found more people to photograph than I expected. What is funny is that I actually felt that I was intruding on these people's personal space by photographing them reading, even though they were all in public spaces. I don't know what I'm going to do with these images to take them further, but I had fun taking them and think they make a nice body of work if nothing more.
