Sam Holden
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The Photographers - Part One
(27 images. C-type prints. 20cm x 25cm. 2004/05)
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Invisible Monuments by Nicholas Fry © 2008________________________________Page 2/4
Holden’s preoccupation is with the subtle – and often, not so subtle – adjustments that the photographers make to their shooting positions: leaning over to one side, bending back or twisting round awkwardly. ‘What difference can a mere ten inches make when you’re standing forty-five feet away from your subject?’ he asks. Most of the time, the awkward shooting positions that people assume have an infinitesimally small effect on the end result.
Half a dozen inches up or down is simply equal to the difference between a six foot tall photographer and a five and a half foot tall photographer shooting from the same spot.
Generally, the strange poses that people get themselves into are the result of an entirely arbitrary decision. The point is they are compelled to do something, to make some form of creative innovation at that particular moment. When they first catch sight of Don Quixote in la Plaça España through the lens, or more likely, on their miniature digital display screen, they are disappointed. It is clearly not enough simply to position the subject in the view-finder, square it up and take the shot; the photographer is immediately compelled to hunch over, lean right back, crouch down, twist round, stretch or bend himself into some agreement with his subject – anything but yet another snap-shot of la Plaça España.
The physical gesture is more or less tokenistic; its only real function can be momentarily to alleviate the photographer’s suspicion that, by standing there with countless others taking the same picture, the results are doomed to the scrapheap of banality.
Holden throws open a window onto this fascinating sphere of artistic endeavour. Always operating within the regulated and sanitised zone of the tourist attraction, he moves freely and openly among his subjects, lining up his shots in much the same way as everyone else, but perhaps with a little more style. Beneath the lofty and ornate ceiling in Parc Güell, or overlooking the monument to Cervantes’ in Plaça España, visitors behave in a curiously liberated fashion. They are on holiday, probably making a quick visit before trying to find somewhere decent for lunch. Everyone else is staring around blankly, largely oblivious of their fellow tourists or actively trying to ignore them. Consequently, they become less self-conscious, they let their guard down and behave differently from the way in which they would normally behave in a public place.