Photography

The Beeb has been showing a wonderful series on BBC4 called "The Genius of Photography", described as the first real documentary describing the history of photography from the very beginnings and the way that the taking of photographs has affected the way we look at the world and the way it still affects us. The most recent one, shown last Thursday was about pictures taken of family life, not happy family pics but pictures of family life showing real lives. We saw pictures of people in the act of taking drugs, pictures one photographer took of his alcoholic father living in a high-rise block in a less then salubrius part of outer London. There was also one Japanese photographer who published series of books of pictures from his marriage day, throughout his marriage until his wife's illness, death and the subsequent funeral. Although it might not seem so we've found the series fascinating and many of the pictures really speak to you. Very, very thought provoking.

In this latest programme several of the photographers were takinhg pictures of everything in their lives and I've found it reminded me of something I had planned to do early this year - namely to take pictures of my life and what interests me. And why shouldn't I start to do so.