After several narrative posts, it’s time to refocus on the “thing itself”, the presence of simple forms that surround us. Our visual map of the world, close and far, is made up of numerous “ready” images, which we have absorbed, and which we store in our brains for quick retrieval, whenever necessary. How many times, a simple foolish scratch on a wall, road sign or a distant silhouette of a church tower or high rise building, tell us we are in familiar surroundings, make us instinctively find our way, feel comfortable?
The idea, that commonplace can be beautiful, ordinary can be interesting, that my personal environment can become full of universal signs is not new in art or photography. It is not so easy though, to avoid falling into banality, by claiming that casual randomness becomes artful through brute force of endless repetition. The inspiring and eye opening images that come to my mind, are those of Edward Weston or George Tice, on the other hand, the river of banal ugliness has been opened by William Egglestone, although some of his early work has the merit of uplifting colour photography by a notch.