Smile-Worthy:
A Story About Storytelling
Prelude
Earlier this year I realised that I’d stopped doing ‘proper’ photography and, as you might imagine, it came as something of a shock – you have to bear in mind that I bought my first ‘proper’ camera about 45 years ago.
‘Edgelands’
A record of local plants and lichen growing in unlikely places
Quietly and unintentionally, I’d stopped doing the ‘proper’ style of photography that I’d studied and practised all my adult life; that used my best camera to take my best photographs; that aimed to produce an image that would be 'wall-worthy' – good enough to hang in our house, in an exhibition or (hopefully) a commercial gallery. Instead, I’d started to create montages like ‘Edgelands’ (above). And not just one or two – there were hundreds of them – recording places we’d visited and interesting things I’d noticed, as well as ideas, feelings and emotions.
So I started this project in a rather predictable way, simply trying to understand why this had happened, and why my commitment to this new style is so strong that the image below is the last ‘traditional’ print I made – a single image on its own – some 3 years ago, back in 2020.
My last ‘traditional’ print, June 2020
(Wall-worthy at 45 x 30 cm)
At some point during the project I decided that these montages were like stories and that I’d become a storyteller. Then later, I noticed that my ‘wall-worthy’ criterion has been ousted and supplanted by ‘smile-worthy’ – asking myself, does creating it and looking at it make me smile, and bring me pleasure? – and that I'd stopped looking for external validation!
And later still, I realised that this style of photography has a hugely positive and beneficial impact on my wellbeing and my mental health – something I wanted to understand fully and to make explicit, in the hope that this process might deliver further benefits.
So the next few pages describe a little of this investigation – this adventure – and its conclusions which, in my mind, deserve shouting from the rooftops.
You can download a more detailed version with its addendum (as a PDF) HERE …
Or, you can stay with this webpage version to get a flavour of the project.