Chocolates and Cigars
Of all the famous quotes that have come from Hollywood films, surely that of Forrest Gump’s mother is one of the most well-known. “Life was like a box of chocolates – you never know what you gonna get.” The quote, coming from the first scene in the film with the same name as that of the main character played by Tom Hanks, is memorable for the way it combines life’s experiences in eating chocolates with how all our lives play out in the real world. Even though many chocolate boxes have a guide card showing what each chocolate in the box contains and tastes like, we’ve all just taken a chocolate without reading the guide card. Either we’ve struck lucky and made the right choice or we’re disappointed that we’ve got a hard toffee centre when really we were looking for that raspberry panna cotta. What has all this to do with a photography centred podcast and being creative? This is Episode 1 of PhotoStory, I’m Des Clark and thanks for joining me.
Given that this is the first podcast episode of PhotoStory, you’re as new to this as I am. First let me introduce myself and what this podcast is all about. If you’ve come across this podcast through Apple, Spotify, Google or another similar service as opposed to seeing it on my website desclark.photos, then you won’t have had the chance to read the About Me page.
As I have on my Instagram bio, I’m Irish, living in the Netherlands and with a mountain cabin in Italy. Think of Guinness, Genever and Grappa! My backstory varies from working in the insurance industry to running a mountaineering company for 16 years guiding trips in the Andes, the Alps, Moroccan Atlas and beyond, before I transitioned to working for humanitarian NGOs in conflict settings such as Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
I was introduced to photography from an early age with my father being a keen photographer. The first camera I remember him with was a Praktica which he changed for a Pentax Spotmatic. Having his own homemade darkroom in the attic, I remember well joining him in the redlamp-lit room watching the whole development process with trays of chemicals, rolls of negative film and of course, the enlarger standing in the middle of it all.
I was a Canon guy starting off with the AE-1 Program before eventually ditching all of the bodies and lens for a simple point and shoot model. I still fight against size and weight so I’ve now deep dived into the mirrorless camera system and am invested into the Fujifilm X series, currently shooting on an ageing, but perfectly functional, X-T2.
Although I have photo galleries of Mosul during the fighting with ISIS in 2016 and 2017, downtown Kabul in Afghanistan and nomads in Darfur, western Sudan, I’m now back to my core DNA if you like and focussing on shooting mountain landscape images. My preference for displaying mountain photos is mainly black and white as well as split-tone. I love the way these tones draw the eye to the shadows, lines, and form of these high places.
Mountain photography has a rich history of course. Ansel Adams is the name that many will think of first – and rightly so - but it’s the images of the Italian Vittorio Sella and American Bradford Washburn that really do it for me. The tragedy of course is the demise of the glaciers that are now just a shadow of what Sella and Washburn photographed. The Belgian photographer Thomas Crauwels is recording, through black and white, the fragility of the European Alpine wilderness and if you haven’t seen any of his images, I recommend you search him out.
PhotoStory though isn’t a mountain-centred photography blog or podcast. The main theme will be discussing the backstory of particular images shot by photographers, sometimes including myself. So often we see an image which draws us in, but we know little about the context or what led up to that particular image being captured. There’ll also be opportunities to discuss how photography has helped people cope with trauma, stress, and conflict in places like Iraq, as well as fighting against mental fatigue brought on by Covid, isolation etc. I plan for a new episode every two weeks so set your notifications on!
So what’s the deal with the cover image for PhotoStory you might be wondering?
Well, this is a photo I took back in early 2017 in northern Iraq. I was working for a humanitarian NGO and we had arrived into a rural village not too far from Mosul. Mosul at the time was a full-on war zone with an Iraqi coalition of forces trying to defeat ISIS. The village I was in had recently been liberated from ISIS and the tribal leaders were there surveying what was left of their houses and farms. Smoking during ISIS occupation was forbidden so one of the tribal leaders was enjoying his first cigar but still somewhat nervous about being seen smoking it. The way he was protecting the cigar and the natural way of holding his hands behind his back drew me to take a photo of the scene – one that would be bypassed in any other context but not this one. And that’s very much what PhotoStory is about. Discovering, reflecting, and engaging.
And Forrest Gump? Well without sounding too vague, maybe PhotoStory will be like that box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get – but it will be tasty!
Thank-you so much for listening to me today. If you think this podcast will be something that you want to listen to again, I’d be really grateful if you'd consider sharing it with others. And if something that I said resonated with you – or you disagreed with – you can either leave a comment in the corresponding Blog post, or email photostory@desclark.photos Thanks again for listening and see you next time.
Music by Denys Kyshchuk from Pixabay
