In April this year I sent the last copy of Black+White Photography, under my editorship, to the printers. I'd planned this move since the previous autumn wanting, after 19 years, to pursue my own work, both writing and photography. What I hadn’t bargained for was that I would be leaving in lockdown. The shock of going from a busy workplace to the confines of home was considerable, but I adapted quickly, except for two things: I missed deadlines and readers.
Since April I have established a routine for myself, and my output of work is growing by the day – but, still missing these two aspects of my working life, I have decided to write a blog for anyone who will read it, and to discipline myself to a four-weekly deadline, emulating the rhythm of the magazine’s schedule. Let’s see how it goes.
While in lockdown, we become acutely aware of the things we missed most. For me, I realised, it was seeing the faces of the people I care about. So, when the relaxation of rules came about, I felt a strong impulse to preserve the faces I saw infrequently so that they could stay with me.
I began to take portraits of the people who came to visit, using a process I have used for some years, that of digital pinhole. I love the way the portraits are rendered in soft focus, giving the sitter a painterly, almost ethereal look. I also like the procedure of taking the pictures that need exposure times of between eight and twenty-five seconds. What happens is that the usual self-consciousness of the sitter dissolves, their facial muscles relax and their eyes soften. I think that for me, and the sitter, the experience is a becalming one, bringing us close together in joint endeavour.
I have called this series: ‘Their faces, brief as photos’ which is an adaptation of the title of a book by the wonderful John Berger. I hope he won’t mind my ‘borrowing’. His words sum up the feelings I have about this series of faces that I have preserved in this way. I think that when we take photographs with meaning, or write from the heart, it has something different about it that can be conveyed, in a small way, to the viewer/reader. I hope these two images say something to you.
Elizabeth McClair-Roberts
Former Editor Black+White Photography