Family

If you’ve read any of my recent posts you’ll know that there has been a constant throughout – that of ‘family’.

We’re all the same (almost) © John MacPherson

It’s a word we use often and perhaps less often stop to consider what it actually means. There’s a few definitions: a unit consisting of parents and children; and then there’s the wider meaning – all the descendents of a common ancestor. But there is also an informal interpretation where the ‘family’ is a group of disparate individuals connected through their (sometimes criminal) enterprises, such as the mafia, although also perhaps with strong blood relationships to underpin it.

Coincidentally just a week ago I was privileged to have some of my documentary work on rural Scottish island fishermen featured in Rear Curtain (Issue 5). It’s work that is important to me for several reasons – the people featured are ‘my people’, rural Highlanders, but they are also families whose determination to uphold their (island) traditions and wrestle a living from their harsh environment in collaboration with each other is something I admire greatly. These are people who are not only located on the physical edge of my country, but teetering on the economic margins too. This is photographic work that has been rejected by several major Scottish newspapers and magazines, for reasons that escape me. So I was pleased to see it finally in print and gaining a wider audience.

Rear Curtain Issue 5 Editor’s Note © Sabrina Henry

But what pleased me even more was to have it included in a collection of work in Rear Curtain under the theme of ‘Family’.  In this same issue is an interview with, and images from Jim Mortram: gritty, insightful and powerfully moving collaborative work with his subjects, but again a group of people on the margins, however this time not so much geographically marginalized, more socially and economically disadvantaged. But crucially people with whom Jim feels a sense of kinship.

But the article in RC5 that most moves me is ‘All the Same, but Different’ by Hilde Mesics Kleven. I’ve worked hands-on with people with Down Syndrome for almost two decades in Social Work and watched families suffer, fail, try again, and sometimes triumph as they try to accommodate a child with Down Syndrome. Their struggles are often not so much against the Syndrome, but the social systems we rely on and which too often exclude those whose needs are more complex and challenging, which forces such individuals to the precarious margins of our communities. Hilde’s work shows the riches that can accrue when they are put at the centre, and may flourish.

And as the icing on the cake, RC5 includes an interview with William Albert (Bill) Allard, a photographer whose work I’ve admired for many many decades. His ability to ‘disappear’ as a photographer, and thus be able to capture little insightful moments of other’s lives is uncanny. There’s a wonderful paradox in this – that the very ability to ‘disappear’ depends entirely on one’s ‘presence’ and unwavering willingness to be wholly involved in the lives of others.

There is much much more beautiful, insightful work in RC5, from Mallory Benedict, Brian Miller, and Mark Krajnak, and to have my own work appear in the same issue as such esteemed photographers is, simply, an honour.

One big family © John MacPherson

My own ‘family’ has taken a few knocks of late, and despite it all, perhaps even because of it all, I’ve clutched even tighter to my camera. Because ‘outside’ of the sphere of immediate family I’ve realized that through my use of this very peculiar device, the camera, a wider ‘family’ has been ever present. A ‘mafia’ of sorts, whose shared love of imagery, and image-making has united us. Your occasional, gentle enquiries about ‘how are things?’ with me, ‘how’s your partner?’ and ‘how is wee William, is he coping ok?’ have been both heartening and often uplifting, often arriving just at a moment when most needed.

Photography is a strange strange craft. The camera can legitimize intrusion into circumstances, and the lives of others, in a way no other device can. But I’ve realized over the years, and had it underlined over the last few months, that it’s a two-way street, that BEING a photographer opens you to an unbidden allegiance with a disparate group of people for whom the notion of ‘family’ is deeply engrained, and who, by some strange alchemical process I can’t even begin to guess at, just ‘know’ when you need a lift, a word, and sometimes a bit of space. We are fortunate people to share this. So, to all of you, and you know who you are, thank you: for taking the time to ask, and to share. It has not gone unnoticed, and it will not go unrewarded.