Back in 2009, in the very early days of my urban photography career, I was wandering around Ladbroke Grove, not far at all from Grenfell Tower, on one of my typical days out shooting urban photography.
I walked passed a typical lawn garden in front of a terraced house and something, or rather someone, grabbed my attention. An elderly couple sitting in front of their flat watching the world go by.
As I often do… I kept walking for a bit, until I turned around and went back, smiled at them, paused for a second and took the shot to then walk away again.
The shot turned out great but there was a lingering feeling of having stolen it, and it never sat very well with me as much as I've always loved this photo or rather what this photo revealed. Love in a sense was very evident, there was a lot for me to read. I envied them in a way for having found someone to age with.
A few years went by and this remained one of my most popular photographs, with recognition at the International Street Photography Awards.
In 2017 I still regretted not going back to at least give them the print.
So in July that year I decided to do something about it, I would find them again.
I posted a tweet.
Within 24h and 223 retweets later… we’d found them. We had their name, Roy & Rose, and even an address where I could send a few prints.
The first person to get in touch was @dejfitzgerald on Twitter, a kind stranger who'd gone out of his way to help via a local Facebook group.
He'd found Roy's brother Terry who got in touch, soon followed by his sister Celia and nephew (Roy and Rose's son) Martin.
I exchanged correspondence with them all, sadly finding out that Roy had died three years earlier.
I was annoyed at myself for not doing this earlier.
Celia:
"Every time I look at it, I chuckle because it was such an accurate portrayal of them and just captures the essence of them which is the mark of a great photo!"
Martin:
«The print really does catch everything about mum & dad. You really have made my day, we don’t have many photos of them as an old couple.. we don’t have many of them together in there later years — so it really does mean a lot. Especially as it’s AMAZING as well, seeing that makes me remember how dad was before he got ill, & the image of them sitting in the garden with the little coffee cups watching the world go by brings a massive smile to my face. Sometimes you forget the good times.»
Following this I sent them five A4 size prints of the photo, so all could have one as well as Rose of course.
And soon after Martin sent me a photo of his mum holding the print.
If only I could give a print to all the people I photographed around London, I'd be a very poor man but a happy one.
Do you have any similar positive stories relating to photography to share? Leave a comment but also share and like this.
Nico
Source: nicholasgooddenphotography.co.uk
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий