Such a wonderful piece. As you said, it speaks to where a lot of us are stuck at the moment (😭)
It was wonderful reading about the rich experience of falling in love with photography you had, as well as the journey.
I fell in love with photography young, when I realised I could preserve and obsess over all the animals I could find, around the time I started reading kids NatGeo and seeing photos so big or so powerful it didn’t feel like a photo at all. I must have been about 7/8 years old with a kids Vtech camera and big dreams of chasing nature, animals at home, at night, their relationships.
Today I’m always drawn back to making work around the socioeconomic landscape of the UK and how its entrenched almost everyone (young and old) into a survival mode so cancerous. How it’s stolen the stories of what our future would look like as kids and given them back to us as empty shells of what should be. How it’s changing the dynamic of the country with generations facing a financial hole you can’t seem to climb out of. What it’s done to our communities, souls, our art.
Maybe one day, hopefully soon. I’m in my version of the ice cream parlour at the moment - but words like yours do light an incredible fire to do something more.
Thank you for your letter. Your grandfather's story stayed with me, and it touched a subject I have been working on for a long time.
I am based in Cyprus, and I know several photographers here whose archives nobody has opened, not even their families. Just yesterday, I delivered three articles on exactly this to Phileleftheros, the biggest daily newspaper in Cyprus, and they will publish one per week. They will appear as a series of their own, separate from my weekly column there, Οπτικοί Μονόλογοι (Visual Monologues).
The series is called Image and Memory. It asks who decides what survives when a photographer dies, what is lost when an archive loses the person who could explain it, who becomes the next custodian, and how we can save something if we don't know it ever existed.
You write that the story nobody sees changes nothing. My articles start where your grandfather's box ends. Someone inherits it, and has to decide what happens to it, usually without knowing where to start.
The articles are in Greek, but I would be glad to send you an English version if you are interested.
My website, www.kouratzis.com, has just been renewed, with my writing and curations since 2001, if you feel adventurous.
Great article, very helpful and motivational! Have you ever tried to publish somewhere the photographs of your grandfather or was it more like an inspiration for you to get started with your own journey? I can definitely relate to the first photo thing. Mine was in Paris when I was 16, someone took a photo of me on a Mamiya rz67 with polaroid back - I had never seen a camera like that before, so that was the very moment I fell in love with film photography and later the whole process in the darkroom.
Thank you for reading Nataliia, and for sharing your Paris story. I love that Mamiya! Believe it or not, when I was starting out, I considered traveling with an RZ a friend of mine had. Too heavy. I ended up traveling with a Pentax 67 (still heavy!) and then a Mamiya 7, but I always loved the RZ. I can only imagine seeing one for the first time at sixteen. No wonder it eventually led you to feel in love with photography and into the darkroom.
As for my grandfather, I never published his photographs. I was ten, and I didn't fully understand what I was looking at, only that I couldn't stop looking. It was a way to connect with him and his life, and his work became my guide.
For years the box was more of an inspiration than a project. I remember my mother wanting to do something with the photographs when I was young, but between travels, moving, and life, they ended up scattered. Publishing them isn't something I can make happen at the moment.
That's part of why I feel so strongly about sharing the work while we can. His photographs changed my life. I still wonder whose lives they might have touched if they had reached beyond that room.
Thank you for sharing your story, we are all a little bit your grandfather.
Very cool that you travelled and shot with a film camera too, that is not an easy process, but I like the “loosing control part” of it, cause you never know 100 percent how it is going to turn out.
You know my grandfather was a photographer too( just as a hobby) , but I never knew him and my mom just recently told me that when she was little her father had his own dark room build in the house and she remembers boxes and boxes of photographs he took with his Zenit , but unfortunately they were lost when they were moving from one place to another.
So another story like your grandfather which teaches about the importance of getting your work into the world.
Such a wonderful piece. As you said, it speaks to where a lot of us are stuck at the moment (😭)
It was wonderful reading about the rich experience of falling in love with photography you had, as well as the journey.
I fell in love with photography young, when I realised I could preserve and obsess over all the animals I could find, around the time I started reading kids NatGeo and seeing photos so big or so powerful it didn’t feel like a photo at all. I must have been about 7/8 years old with a kids Vtech camera and big dreams of chasing nature, animals at home, at night, their relationships.
Today I’m always drawn back to making work around the socioeconomic landscape of the UK and how its entrenched almost everyone (young and old) into a survival mode so cancerous. How it’s stolen the stories of what our future would look like as kids and given them back to us as empty shells of what should be. How it’s changing the dynamic of the country with generations facing a financial hole you can’t seem to climb out of. What it’s done to our communities, souls, our art.
Maybe one day, hopefully soon. I’m in my version of the ice cream parlour at the moment - but words like yours do light an incredible fire to do something more.
Dear Sebastian,
Thank you for your letter. Your grandfather's story stayed with me, and it touched a subject I have been working on for a long time.
I am based in Cyprus, and I know several photographers here whose archives nobody has opened, not even their families. Just yesterday, I delivered three articles on exactly this to Phileleftheros, the biggest daily newspaper in Cyprus, and they will publish one per week. They will appear as a series of their own, separate from my weekly column there, Οπτικοί Μονόλογοι (Visual Monologues).
The series is called Image and Memory. It asks who decides what survives when a photographer dies, what is lost when an archive loses the person who could explain it, who becomes the next custodian, and how we can save something if we don't know it ever existed.
You write that the story nobody sees changes nothing. My articles start where your grandfather's box ends. Someone inherits it, and has to decide what happens to it, usually without knowing where to start.
The articles are in Greek, but I would be glad to send you an English version if you are interested.
My website, www.kouratzis.com, has just been renewed, with my writing and curations since 2001, if you feel adventurous.
Kind regards,
Stefanos Kouratzis
Great article, very helpful and motivational! Have you ever tried to publish somewhere the photographs of your grandfather or was it more like an inspiration for you to get started with your own journey? I can definitely relate to the first photo thing. Mine was in Paris when I was 16, someone took a photo of me on a Mamiya rz67 with polaroid back - I had never seen a camera like that before, so that was the very moment I fell in love with film photography and later the whole process in the darkroom.
Thank you for reading Nataliia, and for sharing your Paris story. I love that Mamiya! Believe it or not, when I was starting out, I considered traveling with an RZ a friend of mine had. Too heavy. I ended up traveling with a Pentax 67 (still heavy!) and then a Mamiya 7, but I always loved the RZ. I can only imagine seeing one for the first time at sixteen. No wonder it eventually led you to feel in love with photography and into the darkroom.
As for my grandfather, I never published his photographs. I was ten, and I didn't fully understand what I was looking at, only that I couldn't stop looking. It was a way to connect with him and his life, and his work became my guide.
For years the box was more of an inspiration than a project. I remember my mother wanting to do something with the photographs when I was young, but between travels, moving, and life, they ended up scattered. Publishing them isn't something I can make happen at the moment.
That's part of why I feel so strongly about sharing the work while we can. His photographs changed my life. I still wonder whose lives they might have touched if they had reached beyond that room.
Thank you for sharing your story, we are all a little bit your grandfather.
Very cool that you travelled and shot with a film camera too, that is not an easy process, but I like the “loosing control part” of it, cause you never know 100 percent how it is going to turn out.
You know my grandfather was a photographer too( just as a hobby) , but I never knew him and my mom just recently told me that when she was little her father had his own dark room build in the house and she remembers boxes and boxes of photographs he took with his Zenit , but unfortunately they were lost when they were moving from one place to another.
So another story like your grandfather which teaches about the importance of getting your work into the world.