One of the interesting things to emerge from my collaboration with Ivan is the sense of our overlapping narratives; our lives could not be more different and yet I have had the feeling, for some time now, that I’ve been present in many of the images. This culminated with the idea of creating a sub-section of the project where the images were `based on my own memories of past trauma. These images are still of Ivan but my presence in them is made more apparent by the memory used to structure and influence them.
An obvious next step is to put myself in the frame, something that, like many photographers, I’m deeply uncomfortable with. Partly this is due to poor body image (my childhood trauma is associated with being overweight and since I am now I have to work hard to keep the negative emotions in check), but it’s also partly to do with not wanting to take anything away from Ivan’s experience. This project is about him, not me. Or is it?
I think all portrait projects are at least partly about the photographer; there is literally no way one can execute such work without being present in some way. Even if you set the scene and give the subject a remote release, you’re still the one who brought that scene to the point it could be made.
More significantly I am interested in how our lives diverged (we are about the same age, I’m only three years older), and how they could so easily have been the same; I could so easily have followed Ivan’s path and perhaps he could have followed mine. Neither of us came from what one might regard as a ‘privileged’ background, both of us are blessed with a half decent intellect, both of us went to ordinary but still decent comprehensive schools and yet our lives are so very different.
Overwhelmingly though, my sense is that different though they are, one is neither better nor worse than the other. I might struggle if I were transported overnight into Ivan’s world, and he would if he were transported into mine, but that has less to do with material notions of success and more with values. By far the greatest challenge for me would be to maintain Ivan’s standards of moral purpose; he eats no meat or animal produce of any kind, indeed uses nothing that is derived from an animal. He gives a significant percentage of his income to charity, even though he lives on a meagre income and has nothing left over at the end of each month. He is kind and generous to everyone, sees no one as responsible for his life and has no sense grievance to society for how the world has treated him. Indeed, quite the opposite; he regularly says he feels blessed and that there are a great many people with far more difficult lives than he. In a world where victimhood and grievance politics has taken hold like a weed, it is quite remarkable to hear him speak in such generous and conciliatory tones. I’m not sure who, in this country at least, would count as having a worse lot than Ivan save for those teetering on the very edge of life itself. Again though, that perspective is based on a very rigid set of value and parameters for what a ‘successful life’ looks like. Ivan’s perspective is eye opening, challenging and rewarding to hear and engage with.
Our lives are very different, but I aspire to be more like Ivan