Too many people have died recently. I know that is a stupid comment, too many people are constantly dying. The difference for me is recently too many people I know have died. Not family or close friends but acquaintances. People I have spoken to, spent time with or met occasionally. All have been friends of friends and because of what I do many of my friends are photographers.
When these people have died those photographers have done what photographers do. They have turned to their archives to find images of that person who has passed. Good times, memories, stories come to life. Moments of joy and humour are relived in a small rectangle of personal history.
These are moments of light in the darkness of death. They are documents that allow time travel.
It is at this point that we regret the moments we didn’t capture as well as those we did. The days of analogue photography were not as easily documented but today we can make images of everyone and everything and we should. We don’t need to share them but we should keep them.
The quality of these images is of no importance, people liking or not liking them doesn’t matter. The future will decide their importance to you. And that is all that matters.
You may have lost someone from your life but you will have retained an essence of who they were. When you were together and a time you shared. You will have succeeded in ensuring that they are not forgotten and although in the moment that may provide little comfort as time passes you will realize how you beat the inevitability of time passing. In that sense and only in that sense you will have won.
Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Under Graduate and Post-Graduate Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of At Home With the Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006), Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019) and What Does Photography Mean to You? (Bluecoat 2020).
His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com and he is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts.
© Grant Scott 2023
Hi Grant,
My Mum passed very recently, and I found myself going though her old photographs, mostly prints and a few digital images that where sent to me when I was planning a slideshow of images to show at her funeral. I wanted these images to celebrate her life and I have to say that the prints that I have of her are worth far more than I ever realised. Unfortunately she did not have as many images made of her as I would have liked as she did not like most of the images that were made of here. So I can say now that we all need to make more images of our loved ones ,more often as we never know when the moment will be too late.
Michael
Thank you for sharing this. My best wishes to you and your family