Creating the event

Having studied some still objects I returned to the source of my original inspiration and looked again at the interest I felt in Hockey’s joiner, the Crossword Puzzle.

What particularly drew me to this type of photography was the way in which the photographer can capture expression over time. I loved the way that the deconstruction of the overall image made up by the separate frames allowed for the same person to be photographed numerous times, capturing each nuance of thought and feeling over a period of time.

People help to create an event and again, it’s something mundane that suddenly becomes fascinating. Watching Martin Friedman and his wife solve a crossword puzzle, Hockney captured the competitive nature of the husband and wife, their thoughts and their emotions as they played against each other. The joiner he created told the story of their experience and also described their personalities and their relationship. There’s a lot to see in this picture.

I decided to undertake a study of my own and put together a joiner of my brother and his girlfriend as they relaxed one Saturday afternoon after tea. What you see here took place over ten minutes from the time that I picked up my camera while they snoozed to the culmination of the events that took place to clear away the tea things.

Here’s another version extending the observation to clearing away and moving further away in the field of vision. I prefer this joiner to the first as it has more interest.

Certainly having people moving around in the space added interest and marked out the events, but I captured some of the character in this couple, which not only tells of their habits, but also their lives together. It’s a little like being a fly on the wall and in many ways a more intimate portrait of them than a posed portrait would have been.