Sitting in the Church Square in Llançá I watched this couple taking selfies. First she took a series and then it was his turn. They were laughing and playing and after a while they looked at all the pictures they had taken. Then they went away. I took these photographs.
I tried to show the trace they had left on the world but the only clue as to their enjoyment of one another is the two empty glasses and bottles. The chairs wait for the next couple.
The next day I was still thinking about ephemeral things when I saw this at an exhibition in the Château des Adhemars in Montelimar.
“Tadashi Kawamata built a long walkway in wood against the walls around the seigneural apartments. This allowed access to a door, which is normally closed because it is up a height. In this way he transformed the way the building is understood. Stairways, walkways and lean-to huts … all that is left today is the stone. There was much more construction in wood in the Middle Ages.”
Tadeshi Kawamata’s construction has gone now and again all that is left is the stone. The door up a height is bereft of meaning once again.
My intention in this set of two pairs was to say something about time beyond the simple fraction of a second captured by the photographs. The ‘now’ of the couple and the ‘now’ of Tadeshi Kawamata’s construction have not endured but the contrast between the ‘now and then’ says that something occurred that had duration.
As for the pictures themselves, they are both uncropped. I like the first image, the couple huddled over what I know to be their phone, but the picture doesn’t show that. All the picture shows is a moment of intimacy. I had the camera set at ISO 400 55mm f5.6 1/125. This is a walkaround setting which catches images without too much thought. The settings are the same for the second image. Looking back, this was lazy. The camera resolves detail better at f8 and 1/100 would have been enough to cope with any slight movement. The second image has a distracting shape on the right hand side, which could have been left out and will have to be cropped later.
The second set was taken when the light was much stronger and almost overhead. I set the camera to ISO 160 and f8 or f9.5. The harsh vertical light has made the stone, which my eye tells me is a warm light honey colour, look almost black and white. Should I leave it as it is, or should I Photoshop it to resemble more closely what my eye remembers? In some circumstances this would be a moral choice but it is insignificant here.
Chris Whittle 