Scenes From Films That Don't Exist

I love photography that forces the viewer to create a narrative. Like Gregory Crewdson and Todd Hido, I am fascinated by what the story behind each image is, and what it might be. While Crewdson has a way of hinting at past trauma affecting present and future situations, Hido provides a window into another person’s world although we’re stopped from seeing that world because of being outside the subject’s immediate environment. Both of them really remind me of that Tom Waits song “What’s He Building” - knowing part of the story, but not all of it, and trying to piece it together. I love the way that photography can arrest a viewer’s imagination, allowing them to create their own stories and meanings. My own work attempts to generate this feeling of a hidden narrative or of a story open to interpretation. I’ve called the project ‘Scenes From Films That Don’t Exist’. I find myself drawn to what could be regarded as cinematic lighting at night time and how that highlights certain aspects of the streets I find myself walking along. My job involves a lot of international travel and I quite often find myself in time zones or countries that doesn’t really allow for easy contact with friends and family back home. I find myself as a background character in an unknown story, never knowing whether the things that catch my eye are relevant to the plot or significant to the action about to happen. The places I visit (LA, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo etc etc) are very large metropolitan cities that, much like London, can feel so lonely despite having millions of inhabitants. I walk the streets as a stranger out of my own comfort zone, drawn to places and characters I know little about. What I’m trying to do with my photos is pick those one or two people out and then imagine what their stories are: how do they fit into this city, and why are they alone? Some of their stories can be extrapolated from how they are dressed, or maybe there is an object in their hand that serves as a clue or indicator. Some stories though will be almost impossible to predict. Almost all of my subjects are caught in lights somehow, be it street lights or car headlights. I imagine another aspect with the photos too that we can see the person in the light but the darkness is their future story which we can’t yet see - where are they going? what will they do? what will be their fate? How will they engage with the other characters in this unnamed story? Equally, some of these figures have darkness behind them too, so what is in their past? What has brought them to where they are now? What events have they witnessed? With each image I create, I’m projecting myself into the scene and then wondering about other people’s lives: I’m alone here and so is that person. My images question the nature of this relationship between photographer and subject; both individuals with a story of our own, a history and a future unknown to each other and, ultimately, secret from the viewer. My images can be intimate, or cinematic or intriguing, but each one suggests a broader narrative that the viewer must decipher.