BY STEVE BISSON
Photography. How many definitions? And what about means? The creation of documentary materials can serve several purposes. Among these are the conservation and production of collective memories. Sometime photography ceases to be a result and becomes a means by which the presence of the photographer is sewn to a past with what is yet to come.
Today people question the usefulness of the conservative dimension since everything passes, everything evolves at a tremendous pace. However what often proves to be essential in photography is a sort of inner growth, the possibility to cross human trajectories, and to become richer in “human capital”. For some people, for some artists or photographers this becomes almost a necessity in life. As if the comparison with other stories could mean a confirmation of their own.
And this is the feeling I have found in the publication Métier. Small Businesses in London by Laura Braun. A special collection of stories that refers more to fairy tales. The protagonists are the small traders in London that have withstood the economies of scale and preserved an authentic dimension. And perhaps they have found an identity.
There is someone who made it and claims to have worked well at 10 Downing Street. Others have closed, such as the New Piccadilly Cafe of Lorenzo Marioni that served breakfast to the West End since the 50s. Or the darkroom by Klaus Kalde in Hackney Road which resists despite the emergence of digital photography and photoshop.
The author seems to be attracted to the spirit of survival of these businesses. «Places», as she writes «where space and service are personal, and wares and tools have a tangibile connection with individual histories». Laura Braun thus takes us through a map of feelings like pride, nostalgia or resignation. Like Harry who, after the advent of electronics, was left with less and less room to physically manipulate automatic transmissions. Or Theo Argiriadis who in the 1970s came from Greece to London to live a hippy life and ended up adjusting musical equipment, valves and tubes, and gaining experience that was slowly becoming obselete, a rarity.
Each story is told through a few pictures, mostly portraits, and a brief summary on the history of the company. Reading these words allows one to plunge into many different worlds of craftsmanship that share a need for manual work, and a passion that shouldn’t be given up. Like the one of Kristin Baybars who has been selling and making toys for more than fifty years. How can a portrait can summarize the story of a lifetime? In 1987 Adam Whone took over Withers, the oldest existing violin shop in the UK. In 1997 he closed and moved the business to his home in Acton. How can we sum up a man’s dedication to his craft? Braun’s consideration leaves us with a series of suggestions that are not intended to exhaust our curiosity, but to encourages us to deal with what surrounds us and perhaps to discover the treasures that often hide inside. A fascinating journey that was to last a few months but instead continued for 6 years for this London based photographer.
As I write this text, people talk of 3D home printers, self-produced design, downsized manufacturing and so on. I don’t know if that’s true but when I look at these faces portrayed by Braun, I can not think of how inexorable our fate is. Everything we produce is intended eventually to become obsolete. What remains is perhaps the intensity of the gaze of those who sold us something, their kindness or not, their behavior, their gestures, words, smells and perfumes. And if any of this is passed to us, even through an image, then perhaps something of a passion, no matter if damning or truthfull, can be metabolized within us.