Oh Fiddlesticks; or, the man who wanted a quick photo feature and instead got a fricking ‘concept’

It was supposed to be so easy.

I was passing through Pennsylvania and needed a shoot to serve as my site’s next exhibit. It didn’t have to be a show-stopper, either. I would put it up, write some mumbo-jumbo about why I chose my compositions, and then in a few weeks, I would put up a better gallery from either my upcoming travels, or an old trip I just hadn’t featured yet.

All I needed was some fresh content to pass the time.

I stopped at an antique store, saw some things I liked, and took some photographs after obtaining the proprietor’s permission. “Fine,” I thought. “Here’s my series. All is well.”

The Problem

This is the image that started it all. It more or less captures what I saw in the store, that inspired me to get my camera and do photography inside.

The wooden carving of a horse. Placed high up, on top of an old door, which was also for sale (separately). Although you can’t see them, there are other horses in this area. A wooden toy horse, a plastic carnival horse – it is a theme in this particular corner of the store. The door here leans against the wall, and the two items serve one another. The door provides the horse with an interesting way to stand out and be easily viewed, and the horse provides the door with a better marketing strategy. “Oh look, I don’t have any empty doorways at home, but I could lean this against the wall and put something on top of it. Huzzah!”

Let’s quickly look at some other images from the same store. In each, notice that objects have been clustered together for one reason or another. It is entirely evident in the first case (a few unrelated magazines or sheet music covers, and a dresser with a mirror). In the second case, it is less evident (a chicken marionette, some cast iron coat hangers with numbers on them). In the third case, it is entirely not evident (the dressing gown, and the dummy on it, are sold separately). In all cases, the items have been brought together as a form of organization or for some purpose of mutual convenience.

The dummy gives the dress form, and the dress  gives the dummy something to do.

The hangers hold up the chicken, and the chicken gives the hangers something to hold.

The papers are a bit less obvious, but the general area was strewn with items that seemed to create a unified sense of 1920’s-1940’s romance and mystery. Nearby items evoked a sense of a long-abandoned dressing table still waiting for its owner to return.

So What’s the Problem?

The problem is that my brain – which is normally on permanent vacation – began to think. Why do I find antique stores interesting? Do I find photographing them interesting, for the same reason I find them interesting in general? 

And I had a long drive home to think it over.

One reason I love antique stores is simply that they give you data. Pure, new data about other people, places and times. You can learn about a company that existed a hundred years ago and only sold shirt collars. You can see the amazing artistry and genius of design that once was expected even on inexpensive, run-of-the-mill products. There are corkscrews and butter churns out there that appear to have had more time, thought and care put into them, than many of the buildings in which I spend my time.

But beyond that, they also bring together items (almost all of them old or used) that are essentially in an unrepeatable point of transit. They are clustered together by design (for example, a group of dolls) or chance (a sickle laying next to a book on engineering) and it is almost guaranteed that once they are sold, they will never encounter one another again. They are formed into dynamic microcosms by any number of things – what can start as the organizational will of the store owner can break down as people come along and handle or move the item in question. Items that appeal to more collectors or to children may get moved more. Thus, when you encounter the cluster of items, you are seeing them as almost no one on Earth has or will ever see them again.

This is where the photograph comes in and adds value (I think). When you stand in an antique store, you are bombarded by all these microcosms. There could be a dresser with a hat on it, and next to that a pile of books, and next to that an old dresser’s dummy, and so forth. And if it is a good antique store, there are probably aisles or rooms filled to the brim with such items, in all directions around you. By photographing interesting combinations of items, you can focus your own eye (and the eye of the viewer) directly – and only – on a specific set of things, giving it true power as a microcosm all its own. You also document the ‘moment’ at hand. The scene that you are recording may cease to exist five minutes after you walk away; all someone need do is move something, let alone buy it. You are finding a way to catch hold of a moment.

Portrait Photography and ‘The Scene’

This has been a larger area of interest to me ever since I began to take photography seriously. Much of my portrait work is built around the idea of creating entirely self-contained moments or worlds within the photograph. They usually do not explain themselves, nor do they apologize for themselves; they simply are. And often, those combinations of things (the subject, the prop, even the lighting) can come together at the shoot itself, free of any plan. They can be the result of the mix between plan (buying an item) and happenstance (realizing suddenly it works with some other item in your collection).

This is not some mysterious theory that only I know; it is logically inherent in portrait photography itself. You capture something about one or more people, and you do so trying to provide more than the sum of the parts. But even if you do, when all is said and done, you are simply capturing a moment, and there is a nearly infinite amount of data that isn’t going to be available to the viewer. Some of it is available to you as the photographer (for example, seeing what is outside the boundaries of the composition in your viewfinder), and some of it is not available to you (such as what the subject is thinking).

So now I want to photograph in multiple antique stores, and try to really go after multiple themes, to get a larger sense of how former possessions of other people speak to us. Will one be able to tell that the items in a given photo all belonged to the same person, whereas the items in another photo did not? Will it change the feeling if an item is gathered with others like it, versus put on a shelf with unrelated objects for no particular purpose?

Just like that, I had a frickin’ theme. A project. Another stupid project on my long list of projects. And that meant I would have to hold off on the photos, until I had more and could present them in this new context.

Bah. Here endeth the rant.