MYLDN 1860

I can’t relax because I don’t know what expection is..even if it’s good.

All photographs taken this week of abandoned objects were within a 100 yards or so of my flat. I am currently in a rehab program for people with long covid/cfs and they talk about how important it is to stay within your ‘3ft world’. This is to encourage you to just focus on the step in front you. Don’t look too far forward, don’t look too far back, don’t look at what other people are doing, just concentrate on where you’re at in the present moment and what you can do now. I have found this very helpful. It keeps me on the task at hand. It stops me comparing myself to others, or indeed to my former self. And it generates a level of acceptance crucial for coping with a reduced existence. Although I do believe everyone could benefit from staying in their 3 foot world. It annihilates the regret of the past and evaporates the anxiety surrounding the future.

I used to take photographs all over London. I could visit multiple postcodes in a single day but currently I am confined to the block that I live on. But rather than lament what is not, I now focus on what is. I look for beauty and wonder within my 3 foot world. Or rather my 300 foot world which is my currently doable walking distance.

So even though my terrain is small I get very excited when I find something I want to photograph. It might not seem worth photographing to most people but it has ignited a flame in my imagination and that is all I need to work..

I have fortunately always been fixated with abandoned objects and there are always plenty of those on offer on my local streets…I just always think that this is not what their creator intended for them. I think of all the meetings that would’ve happened to discuss their style and structure, presentation and promotion, never imagining the one day it would just become discarded rubbish. Ultimately that is obviously how all things end, even the very greatest of things but scattered as litter on the street was not meant to be where they were viewed, or rather ignored. No-one pays them any attention. except for me. I see their former beauty. I see their former glory. By Photographing them I give them a modicum of meaning at the very moment when they have none. I’m just nice like that…