14/05/18
The initial piece of work by W. Eugene Smith discussed in Time by Ben Cosgrove (Cosgrove, 2012) about the life of a country doctor is a straightforward linear telling of what the doctor does. The story is clear, and with only minimal updating, could be repeated today in the life of any rural doctor in Scotland – well they wouldn’t carry out the surgery, and hopefully the equipment might be slightly better, but most of the activities are instantly recognisable, including visiting a house in foul weather! The main difficulty now would be getting approval from the local ethics committee to actually do and publish the project. The project is factual, and immediately rings true. It gives information without excessive pathos. The photographer does not overlay his own emotions on the images which makes the whole story more compelling.
Briony Campbell in ‘The Dad Project’ while still giving a linear, factual telling of an event, makes a very different piece of work. Talking about cancer is difficult. Talking about death even more so. The text explains the images, makes the thread easier to follow, a combination of portraits and small pieces of life that become important when time is limited, and unknown. Many of the images are not traditionally ‘good’ ones. They show flashes of light, cut of pieces of legs, an out of focus glass. A barely recognisable person going up the stairs. She describes it as a ‘a story of an ending without an ending ….. my attempt to say goodbye to my dad’ (Campbell, 2009). It starts with a video of her and her dad describing why she did the project and how they both felt about it. Interestingly, while she talks about her father, he says that it gave him a chance to learn more about his daughter and to be a better father. The video cuts between pictures of the final days, video clips and early family pictures.
I found this piece of work particularly difficult to watch as I have had personal experience of cancer and the terror that comes with waiting for a result (although mine was positive). Here is an ending in a life, but not an ending in memories or thoughts.
The two pieces are very different. Part of this is because they were made over 60 years apart in time and therefore the ethos of what is acceptable to photograph has changed but more because the first is an outsider looking in and the second is a very personal piece of work about a father/daughter relationship which is coming to the end.
A comparable piece of work to that of Campbell is ‘The Time of her Life’ by Lesley McIntyre. This tells the story of McIntyre’s daughter Molly who was born with an incurable muscular wasting disease and died age 14. In some ways it is the opposite of Campbell’s story in that it is a parent taking images of her daughter’s difficult life and eventual death, but it is equally powerful. McIntyre says her book is ‘about how to live with no guarantees’ (McIntyre, 2004). Both of these works are memorials to life and its eventual ending, but also about the relationship between parent and child at the most of difficult times, celebrating life while acknowledging grief and loss.
References:
Campbell, B. (2009). The Dad Project – Briony Campbell | Photography & Film. [online] Brionycampbell.com. Available at: http://www.brionycampbell.com/projects/the-dad-project [Accessed 14 May 2018].
Cosgrove, B. (2012). W. Eugene Smith’s Landmark Portrait: ‘Country Doctor’. [online] Time.com. Available at: http://time.com/3456085/w-eugene-smith/ [Accessed 14 May 2018].
McIntyre, L. (2004). The time of her life. London: Jonathan Cape.
Context and Narrative 