Text by Derrick Santini, illustration by Leunig.

An inert desire in all mankind is to prove that we existed, and in a way Photography could have invented to do just that. Thus creating a tool that eventually became so commonplace, affordable and easy to use, that now, we all partake in this masscult, mass suicide of sorts…

It’s like Plato’s cave and the flickering illusions of life thrown onto its dark walls, with folk too scared to go outside, content to observe the projection of life going on, but not getting sullied in it. Then there was a period of enlightenment when man stepped out of the darkness, of our primordial past. Potentially living in the ‘first person’ and basking in life and all its magnanimous splendors, over time one huge mass awakening… Yet all the while, constantly reminded of history (His- Story) and its irrevocable horrors. To the point now, where we seem to be getting drawn back into the cave, once again to live a vicarious life, all be it, light years ahead, but as bovine as before. One consumed with narcissistic self-parody, obsessively documenting ones existence, chasing the shadows of our lives, instead of actually living our lives, truly parallel realities…

…

Back in the day I remember some friends in Scarborough, moaning at my persistent stopping to take a photo. They would say to me “Why cant you just chill out and live things instead of always photographing it?” I was like ‘yeah right’… but that was then, who would say that now? If you are not participating in this activity, then you are now the odd one out.

Taking pictures, documenting our lives, collecting memories could be Photography’s epitaph. But who’s memories are we re-appropriating. It’s Like in “Blade Runner” when Decker is rifling through Rachel’s family photographs, with the knowledge that these are implanted memories of a childhood she never had… How eloquent, shocking, and ‘real’ for Rachel, and ultimately a real maelstrom for Decker who has fallen in love with her. My heart yearns when he stops at the image of ‘her’ mother, sat on the family porch of someone else’s memories, and for that subliminal spit second the image come’s to life, as the shadows shudder and sway in the long winters sun. These fragile real / imagined memories are what binds us as species, displaying the power and universality to unlock very personal memories seen through someone else’s memories, and unrelated photographs, images.

I realized a long time ago that as a Photographer, one was indeed a collector of memories, not just my own, but of all the people I photographed. The combined weight of all these memories is huge, and something I truly cherish and treat with the upmost respect. Re-appropriating peoples’ memories or indeed something way more profound was laid bare many years ago when on location in a foreign land, way up a mountain. I was shouted down by an old hag with crooked cane who caught me trying to take her picture, believing I would take her soul if I photographed her, I didn’t argue with her, and walked briskly away but always remember the look of horror on her face. It’s these illusive and mystical qualities so inherent in photography that are a big part of its enduring nature and constant fascination. To capture (steal) fleeting moments, to mediate reality, compose and freeze time and space.

I love the idea of a Photographer being a ‘Shadow Catcher’ with a maniacal honed sense of seeing and reaction. Finely tuned, almost Zen like in arresting these shifty forms and sub subservient shapes. The shadow… our life long companion, there one second, gone the next, they touch you, chill you, and for sure seduce you.

When I started taking pictures I had no idea of these thoughts, or indeed what actually compelled me to start doing it, just seemingly the un-questionable desire to do it. I certainly wasn’t interested in taking pictures of my family or friends or the places I was visiting. I don’t really know what I was searching for through the frame of a camera, but what ever it was I found it. Indeed looking back at my early pictures they seem very naïve and straight. But the dialogue had began and I was hooked, and from then on, in a way nothing else mattered, because I had a reason to be, and would never be alone or wanting again. Ultimately I feel no real artistic expression can come from a conscious desire to do this or that, it has to come from within, and not from the mind – ego. One can’t go to college to learn how to become an ‘artist’, you cant download the program or get the app. The cogs need to be turning and the questions need to be there for any profound answers to be found. Further education and technology all help in this endeavor, but are just a part of the means.

My personal big awakening did happen when I moved to London to do the BA in Photography and Communication at LCP (London College Of Printing) now LCC. Back then regarded as one of the premier Photography degree courses in England. Now Photography degrees across the land are two a penny. Though costing significantly more, are a seemingly endless sausage factory, merry go round of further education, especially in the ‘arts’. LCP’s agenda and ideology back then was Feminist Socialism, and extremely contextual. Peddling concepts and trains of thoughts I shockingly had precious little knowledge of, but it was a defining time, and a much needed call to arms, but at the beginning I was like… ‘What the… have I signed myself up for?’

I love Photography now, as I did back at LCP, where I met and collaborated with other such devotee’s. Together we galvanized a strong resolve within our hardcore crew of ‘actual Photographers’, all fighting the post modernist status quo, with our flagrant displays of ‘purist photography.’ But the course, with all its context had started me thinking.

Photography today is a double-edged sword. On one side we have this near universal medium to communicate with, a visual language that we are all encoding and decoding on mass, and increasing our awareness and connectivity. The other is the potential fallout from this Istagram generation, and its demeaning or belittling effect on traditional Photography. Many people voice these concerns to me, I hear them but don’t necessarily agree, its just part of the process. In my mind, Instagram with its nowness and its aesthetic, has defined its well-earned place like old Polaroid’s and Lomography defined theirs. Instagram and the like have potentially lowered the bar by making it totally accessible to all, but invariably has raised it. The sameness and generic look of all Instagrams (no matter who shoots them) is pushing people to want more, be different and ultimately stand out. But most importantly a photographic eye, and the curiosity in this visual discourse was initiated through the smart phone camera lens, spurring on many to evolve the Photographic dialogue.

I see this bolt back to Plato’s as a momentary loss of faith, understandably mesmerized by the glowing lights and moving shapes of this very intimate, and infinite virtual world that lies at the heart of our computer screens. Yet noise and stupidity abound online, so we have to filter all this information, ‘cant see the wood for the tree’s’ springs to mind. Focus… no pun intended, is a key requirement to success on any level and any context, indeed obsessively so. Access is one thing, stepping in and closing the door behind you is completely another.

Technology is the ultimate leveler, and as Nike said it ‘Just Do It’…

It’s only what’s in the mind that makes anything interesting, and now there’s no excuse for any one not to get involved and get your ideas out there. And through this amazing technological introspection, back once again onto our reflections, will culminate in a return much stronger, wiser and ultimately more Humane, and Photography is the catalyst for this profound change.

Please visit Derrick Santini website for more stories.

Text by Derrick Santini, photos by Derrick Santini and others.

A few years ago I bought a URL, as I have a penchant to do, and the .com is still available, they are usually quite silly and this particular one could well be no different. Digiography.com, a potentially nonsensical name, like many other concocted names over time, but it rang true, and still does.

Darkroom wagon
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

I feel that Photography which has been my life since a boy, has definitely come of age, in this 30 odd year period, and is now so far from its chemical and photosynthesis self, its virtually a different animal, and one which in my mind requires redefining and renaming, hence Digiography. It is not only the physical attributes of Photography that have been digitally reinvented over this period, but more importantly our state of mind and the seemingly un-quenchable visual appetite dependency of the NOW.

Kodak ads
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

Photography; the term, implies a process of Photo Synthesis, a mercurial mix of chemistry and nature, talk about smoke and mirrors, old school photography had it in spades. It took me many years to hone the craft, and then Digital photography came along and my creative world exponentially exploded in ways I couldn’t have dreamed of. Talk about Liberating … I feel like one of the early pioneers with their huge plate cameras and horse drawn darkrooms, trundling up the hill against the elements to get the shot, then dive into the back of the wagon to process the fragile latent image, suspended on the glass plate, and not a Jessops in sight…

Family life back than was very stylish
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

Fast forward 150 odd years and now we have Lightroom on our laptops, 3G on our camera phones and we are all back to doing it ourselves again, with defiantly no Jessops in sight. Time marches on, now as then – would Daguerreotypes still be in use if they didn’t bring out film… but they did and we don’t, and apart from a hardcore crew, all photographers started shooting on film (not that there were a lot back in the day, only a privileged few could call themselves Photographers or Artists for that matter but that’s a different conversation). The invention of film was the beginning of the socialization of Photography that has lead to it becoming much more than just a creative endeavor, but the social and cultural phenomena it is today. Exponentially drawing more and more of us to its wondrous realm, the cheaper and more technically accessible it became, and in so, placing it much closer to the center of our collective universe and psyche, fundamentally altering photography’s raison d’etre and definition.

That to that
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

Its like… ‘We are all Photographers Now’, not a breed apart, all diligently documenting our lives, like we have been taught to read and write, or talk and eat, though for sure more sublime, but non the less, now a seemingly intrinsic part of all our lives, and arguably a primary function of modern living. One cannot say the same for Writing, Music, Painting or any other creative endeavor I can think of, because on mass we are not all Writing or Designing … but we do all take pictures, obviously with huge degrees of seriousness and artistic merit. But it is this mass participation in Photography that has always set it apart from all other arts, to the point now, where Technology has ultimately curtailed its original power and enigma, not its beauty or endurance, but in this Brave new on-line World, the still and silent image feels more than a tad lacking, we want and desire more, ‘content’ needs to Live…

Instagram image
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

Photography has always been extremely seductive, and if one begins a dialogue with it, then it’s a slippery slope into its enveloping world. How many folk just picked up a camera to take pictures of their kids, family, friends etc, and from a way to capturing these memories it grows and before you know it, becomes much more, suddenly you’re working it, learning it, developing it, and most importantly loving it… then in my eyes you’re a Photographer.

My first camera
© Derrick Santini
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

I remember my inspiration looking at my Mums family photo albums, full of delicate small black and white photographs with white boarders, all beautifully laid out in chronological order with hand written notations. My Mum would never profess to be a Photographer, but she took beautiful considered photographs of our family, and it was these images that inspired me to pick up her camera, an old Agfa bellows, my first camera…

Dad on his vespa© Derrick Santini
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

The magic and energy at the time of actually creating a Photograph is the very essence of the art of Photography, amazing, incredible timeless beautiful moments, seen, cajoled spirited but ultimately captured in that split second and thus conceived…

Hanging about
© Derrick Santini
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

These splits of seconds of magic and joy are for sure still being created today, and in their countless millions, and are all deemed photographs (though more and more referred to as Images or Files, possibly a more accurate description). All these photographs, taken I assume by photographers (buy definition), so in a world where virtually everyone is taking them… what does it mean to be a Photographer in 2013.

Dale electrics
© Derrick Santini
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

* * *

When people ask me that slightly irritating question ‘ So what do you do’ after my initial twitch I invariably say with a slight sigh or obtuse smile ‘I’m a Photographer’, of which is never followed by ‘So what do you do’, but moving swiftly on…

Machine shops
© Derrick Santini
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

But when did I become a Photographer? And when did I start to define myself as a Photographer? … I know when I was 17 or 18 when I consciously started planning my future life as a Photographer, and my first photograph was taken when I was 13 or 14 but for sure had no thoughts of this nature then, but that’s when it all started… I got my first SLR for my 16th birthday, and my fanaticism with Photography was set and we were never apart from that point on. The most important shift from a Photographic ‘hobby’ to a Photographic Life was while ensconced on a 4-year engineering apprenticeship at a local factory. The world around me in this factory was a true slice of life, and one that focused my Photographic intentions with much more passion and fervent desire than ever. I applied to a BTEC in Photography a year before I would go but secured the place and then completed the apprenticeship and duly handed in my notice with great glee, had the summer off and then went to College in Autumn to properly began my life as a Photographer…

Early steps
© Derrick Santini
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

Photography was my passport to Life, out of Scarborough, next stop the World… I love Scarborough and all its Northern ways, and it’s a big part of my Euro make up, but its Photography that defines me and in unison I define it. Hence these musing…

To be continued…

Fujica STX
© Derrick Santini
Please visit Photography is dead – long live Photography, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.