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I hope that the following thoughts and quotes will give
an indication of why I am doing this project. Beginning ThoughtsI really do wonder at the miracle of birth - that out of almost nothing grows a life. I am equally amazed that, in an instant, that life can disappear. I just can't accept that that living feeling thinking being can just vanish, taking all its life experience with it - I am looking for continuity, for immortality.A photograph is a little bit of immortality. But it is an imperfect immortality - determined by the instant in time and the viewpoint of the photographer. So much is missing - we are forced to make a judgement at literally face value, assisted only by a few clues and our pre-conceptions. It is interesting to see how our observations compare to other evidence of the reality of people's lives - other photographs, film of them moving, words written by or about them, the sound of their voice on tape, things they touched, beliefs they had, and people they loved (including, of course, their descendants). Back to the Top of the Page Why This Photograph?Any portrait could have been used as the starting point for this project, but this particular photograph is interesting for a number of reasons:
Back to the Top of the Page My Learning JourneyThis whole project has been and continues to be a massive learning experience for me. I would be lying if I said that I found it easy. There are times when it is hard to avoid focusing on the terrible past, on death and tragedy and the loss of lives both young and old. And each time that I contact someone new, I worry. I worry that talk about the past will be upsetting or seen as intrusive, that I have come out of the blue knowing an enormous amount about their relative (often more than they do) and yet they know nothing about me and my motives. With each contact I have to build trust, and sometimes I am not helped in this by my own internal questioning of the why and how of this project.But through it all, I have found that my worries and fears are often not realised. Many times, in fact, I have been inspired by the kindness and interest shown by the people I have contacted (and by the people who have contacted me out of the blue having read an article or seen my website). And I am spurred on by the thought that I am going to learn more than just a collection of dry facts and dates. It seems to me that this project is meant to lead me somewhere I did not envisage in the beginning. Every now and then I get an insight that there is something ineffable connecting all this together. It is still far from obvious to me what this something is, but I want to be there to see the mist finally clear - that is what keeps me going. Back to the Top of the Page A Picture of Men in a WarThere was a picture of men in a war I thought about the picture I did nothing I went to the museum There were moving pictures of men in a war I read about war I looked at my family I saw my great-grandfather In a picture of men in a war I read about the tears in his eyes I felt tears in my eyes And now I search That picture of men in a war I see today and yesterday I cannot forget Back to the Top of the Page QuotesThese are posted above my computer keyboard:
"The ghosts of our ancestors walk in all of us" "Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past" "The destruction of the past, or rather of the social mechanisms that link one's contemporary experience to that of earlier generations, is one of the most characteristic and eerie phenomena of the late twentieth century. Most young men and women at the century’s end grow up in a sort of permanent present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times they live in. This makes historians, whose business it is to remember what others forget, more essential at the end of the second millennium than ever before." |