Scratchin the Itch !

Back in the early days of my photography I used to shoot a lot of Kodachrome 64 ( sadly no longer available). I loved the warmth of the film much preferring it to the more  bluer and thus colder Ektachrome. Kodachrome was a film which lent itself beautifully to warm sun drenched climates.  

 My brother and I took an unforgetable three week trip around Brasil and I took this in Manuas, gateway to the Amazon. Finding somewhere to piss, take a leak, urinte, relieve oneself whatever  is not usually a problem in the UK. There was a time when we could  be justly proud of our provision of public toilets, though not necessarily the upkeep of them. God forbid that an Englishman should be caught short in public.  

I pass this window regularly on my way into town. It’s a private house just up from the Catholic church near the old football ground and it catches my attention every time. I don’t quite know why. Iconography like this is something we don’t see a lot of in this country England.  At least not like in the more overtly Catholic countries of Europe where little shrines can be found on street corners. I’ve photographed it several times but never been quite satisfied with the results, until now.

There’s some so called celebrities who we see just too much of. They seem to appear everywhere and on everything. I could name some celebs who I’m convinced they, like Saddam Hussein, have body doubles. We have a saying around here, one which my Mum uses to describe just such a person; ” oh they’re at every dog hanging they are ! “

On one of my many trips to Sheffield during the time I was researching Englishness and the complex subject of National identity this lady kindly allowed me to make this image. We had a conversation but I can’t remember what it was about.  Our introduction to each other most likely  began with the weather followed by me explaining what I was doing down by the Castle Market with my camera. I didn’t get her name and went back a week later with a copy of the image to give her but she wasn’t there. The empty store behind her had been a British Home Stores. 

I can vouch for the fact that this man was not hiding his face from me, the man with the camera. This is how I found the scene. In any case it’s clear to see that had he merely not wanted me to take the photo he would not have been sat in such a way. Clearly something else was going on and the more I look at the image the more intrigued I am with it.

In Bill Bryson’s book about his travels around the UK ‘ Notes from a Small Island’ there’s one chapter where he talks about alighting from the train at Liverpool’s Lime Street Station and noting that Liverpool must have been having a ‘Festival of Litter’. It’s a book of which I’m not a big fan of to be perfectly honest. I find the wit slash humour a bit too repetitive and predictable . I do remember laughing out loud to Bill’s remark about Liverpool though and this image taken in Chesterfield sometime in the 1990′s reminded me very strongly of it.  It’s not an image I can imagine the town’s dignitaries will thank me for, nor one which I envisage will one day grace the walls of it’s publicly funded Arts Centre whenever the great  day arrives when someone sees fit to create one. Still as they say around these parts, I can live in Hope ….and die in Castleton !!