A blog about a blog

22nd October 2015

My thanks to Digital SLR Photography Magazine for featuring my post about the future of cameras from a while back in their Guest Blog spot in the November Issue of their great magazine. It’s a subject that fascinates me, not especially in a photographic way, but more in a future shock way.

A Show Of Hands goes to Serbia

My thanks to Irena for this piece in Serbia yesterday. I’m so pleased that the project has a more international appeal than I had initially imagined. I had to limit the hands to UK subjects purely as the cost of flying round the world to shoot international hands was too high. Much as I would love to shoot hands in every country, without a publishing deal in any given country it would just be too costly. I bought the domain a few years back for The Hands That Built America on the off chance that someone over there might want to pick it up… No hint, really :P.

You can see the full article here

ABC Australia interview for A Show of Hands

11th October 2015

Why did you decide to photograph people’s hands as portraits? Where did the idea come from?

One afternoon in May 1996 I popped in on my 95 year old grandmother for our weekly chat and a catch-up. She was as usual sitting in her garden, feet wrapped in plastic bags to keep out the damp, her wellingtons long abandoned since arthritis rendered them too uncomfortable. As we sat having tea in the shade of an apple tree I, almost for the first time, noticed her hands. Gnarled and twisted with age, wrapped around her walking stick as if rooted there, they were not only visually striking, they seemed also to be a poignant mark of the passage of her long life. She had wanted to be a musician, and played the piano beautifully, but in the 1900’s such things were frowned upon, so she was instead sent to the Slade where she became a fairly accomplished artist. She hated her hands now of course, but allowed me to take a photograph nevertheless.

When I later came to develop it, it instantly became my favourite portrait of my grandmother. These hands had lived through two world wars, still wore the wedding ring for a husband dead for 39 years, had painted, played the piano every day until her fingers no longer behaved as she’d like, gardened extensively, chopped wood, cared for the sick, dressed and fed my departed father as well as myself and my siblings. Made the very best ginger beer, caught crayfish from the river, made countless pots of marmalade and quince jelly, played tennis for her county, and played a mean game of croquet. It seemed to me as if her life was woven into these hands, and so began A Show of Hands.

How do you choose your subjects?

Choosing subjects for the collection took a couple of different approaches. The key one was a question of thinking of professions where a person’s hands were intricately involved in the work they produced, and integral part of their skill. There were also just some people who I really wanted to photograph because of what they had managed to achieve in their lifetime, such as Sir Ranulph Fiennes the explorer who’s exploits are more or less legendary.

What do hands tell about a person that a face doesn’t?

Focusing on the hands rather than the face enables the viewer to avoid being distracted by a face, that will often trigger immediate and sub-conscious reactions based on whether that face is one they recognize, or one they are attracted or repulsed by. When you look at just the hands, your mind is free from pre-conceptions and is able to imagine the whole life of the person, their completeness, rather than just the aesthetic of a face. Your hands tell an honest story of what they’re been through.

Which was your favourite image from the collection?

This is such a hard question to answer, not because I’m concerned about favouritism, but because I have a stable of favourites rather than just one. There are different elements that go into a favourite, and different hands have different elements. I know this isn’t the answer you need! I love some of them photographically, some technically, some because the person was just so lovely, and some because I think they capture the story behind the hands to completely. I suppose that if pushed I could narrow it down one that ticks all the boxes, which would be Jonny Wilkinson. My Grandmother of course is very important to me as it was the seed that began the whole project, but it’s not technically a perfect photograph. Sorry, it’s a question I struggle with all the time because I’m never happy with my answer, in truth I have about twenty favourite, which is oxymoronic I know.

Do you have a favourite story you can tell about your meetings with all these different kinds of people?

One of my favourite stories is that of Charlie Baker the ferryman as it’s a story of times past. Charlie was a ferryman who rowed passengers across the Thames for fifty-six years, a profession now obsolete. From the age of twelve he began rowing people back and forth across the Thames, and I always wonder what they were like, where they were going and how archaic and yet delightful their short journey must have seemed. He rowed virtually every day of that fifty-six years, through rain, wind, snow and even the air raids of the Second World War. Between six and thirty times a day, seven days a week, he crossed the river with his passengers, that’s over 18,000 miles of rowing. Even when he joined up for a three year stretch in the Army, whenever he was back on leave he’d spend it rowing his passengers back and forth.
There has been a ferryman at Hampton (edge of London) since records began with the Domesday Book, but sadly Charlie was laid off when the rents at the boat yard became too high, and 900 years of ferrying ended with him.

If you could choose any person/s in the world to add to the collection, who would you choose?

You’ve given me a plural there, so the list would be very long! Every country is packed with so many stories, so much endeavor, I can tell you that I would love to shoot the hands that built Australia for a start! Ok, I’ll pick one Buzz Aldrin, a remarkable astronaut the second man to walk on the moon, and he’s got great hands. Now if you could just set that up for me…… 😉