Cartier Bresson provided an insightful definition of photography when he wrote that it was “... the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of the significance of an event, as well as of a precise formal organisation which brings that event to life. On rare occasions a single photograph will suffice by itself to express all the essentials of a scene but usually it is necessary to have several photographs complementing each other.” This notion of what was called a ‘decisive moment’ and belief in the benefit of using images in sequence made immediate sense to me when I first understood them in the early 1960s, though I also realised that, to be truly significant on a personal level, the moment of recognition had to derive from something in my inner being. A memory or just an abstract feeling whose relevance, being sub-conscious, I might be able to respond to instinctively if I worked fast enough and could concentrate on the subject with sufficient intensity as it played out its predicament within the viewfinder, but which I often found difficult to identify in rational terms afterwards. So began the long process of editing.

It was easy enough to discount pictures that weren’t so good - what was more difficult was separating those that worked only in a formal, aesthetic sense from others that revealed something of the nature of their subject, and to further distinguish mere social significance from a more vital personal relevance. Despite the dangers of self indulgence and the confessional on the one hand and stylistic obscurity on the other, I evolved a way of exploring this more private aspect of my work through the juxtaposition of pictures that had no logical relation other than to imply a particular emotional import in a variety of different sequences that I now call 'narratives'.

Taking photographs of people unawares is intrusive, particularly if they are to be published and used to imply a ‘point of view’ over which the subject has no control. Used with respect, though, pictures in which people seem to be both spontaneous and authentic can reveal matters of real significance to an understanding of the human condition. It may be, however, that a tension between the moral risk and this kind of moral purpose can give photography some kind of edge.

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the photographic work of Euan Duff

 

scenery
corby glen
pine tops
echo
nub