Growing up I was not a big lover of art. Paintings, classical music, dance, photography – an appreciation of all these things came to me only very recently, and I’m still only scratching the surface for 3 of the 4. Through a traditional schooling in the UK, you don’t always get taught much about these subjects – but what you do get is occasional trips to museums and galleries. Too young / indifferent / ignorant to appreciate anything at the time, my trips to the National Gallery were pretty much a waste, but I do recall certain moments.

One of images I recall as clearly as anything in my life is Van Gogh’s chair. It was a strange painting to me at the time – I recall thinking that it didn’t look much more difficult than what we were painting in our own classes. My friend Michael probably could have drawn that, I thought. The proportions seemed all wrong and it certainly didn’t seem very good. I thought the one of the man holding the woman’s head with snakes for hair from the room before was much more realistic.

Now, fast forward a few years later. I hadn’t seen that painting in probably 5 years but when I did lay eyes on it again, I immediately recognised it. Despite remembering also nothing from that previous school trip, within seconds I remembered that painting. Now, although I was a bit older I was still not much less indifferent / ignorant to appreciate anything at the time and I still didn’t think much of it. But I recalled it vividly. Of the hundreds of paintings I had seen that first day, it was one of only a handful I did remember.

OK, so finally, we fast forward once more to present time and when I was in London last November. Once more I was standing in front of Van Gogh’s work of art (now having seen it in books many times since) and it finally started to dawn on me just how powerful I found it… You see, lets say
our eyes process at around 30 frames per second (a conservative estimate but bear with me)… If we agree that’s the
case, it means I saw about 5 billion images between the time when I first saw
that painting as a child, and when I saw it again 5 years later. I probably looked at it for 10 seconds, and yet 5 billion images later, I was able to instantly recognise it. Like looking at the sun for too long, it’s image was burned directly onto my retina even tho my brain was unable to appreciate why at the time. Since then, through (slowly) educating myself about art, I’ve begun to understand certain aspects of what makes that painting special to me. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to describe it to someone what it means to me as simply as this – that from the moment I laid eyes on it, I found it simply unforgettable.

And this brings me back to the point of this post. Imagine for a moment, you’re able to create something with a camera, that is also truly unforgettable to someone. Imagine they glance at your image for a single second and then five years later they’re able to instantly recall when they first saw it, who it was by, how they felt at the time. And what if a million people felt the same way about your image. Wouldn’t almost every other compliment you could be paid about the photo pale in comparison to knowing that? I look at all my images to date – all the ones that have been described as "excellent", "creative", "brilliant" by others. I appreciate the feedback and kind words immensely but do I believe anyone will be able to remember them if I show them in 5, 25, 50 years time? Clearly, I have my doubts :).

But therein lies the hope – because once you have a target, you now have something to aim for. And having something aim for means you have a chance of hitting it. So as I say, however slim, therein lies the hope.