Nothing else hits the spot like photography. It’s hard to explain the intensity of feeling without seeming like I’m over-egging it.
I’ve walked past this little ruin of a house a few times. There’s usually a mechanical digger going full pelt while an elderly gentleman sits on the armchair overseeing the action. It hasn’t been possible to get a shot (which requires a full front view because I didn’t want to include the lived-in houses to the right of the scene nor the concrete road to the left). So walking past today with the digger switched off and nobody around, I was able to scramble into the dug out hollow to get the shot I was longing for. If that armchair had been blue or brown or green, the shot would be lacking. It’s that pink, floral intimate bedroom-type chair placed outside and juxtaposed with the crumbling walls and empty interior space that sets an incongruous and yet somehow still inviting scene. The makeshift table with a bottle of water and takeaway coffee cup indicates that the chair has been inhabited. As if somebody might even living here. Whatever the imagined narrative, which will be different for everyone, there’s something about it that excites me. There are no words to explain why. Is it the intrigue? An open set of questions this image raises? Is it simply the incongruous elements? Is it the structural aesethetic? Is it the palette? The thinking is multi-layered.
