Many thousands of years ago I remember an evening TV arts programme deigning to discuss... a photography book. (It has never been attempted since by a national broadcaster.) It was Richard Avedon's portrait series from his adventure into the wilds, 'In the American West'.
The guests discussing it were the regular line up of writers and crtics, cultured in literature and theatre, but, it quickly became apparent, who knew nothing about American photography, or likely any photography. So, perhaps inevitably, someone eventually proffered a rather odd, but forceful, interpretation, of one particular picture, John Harrison, Lumber Salesman, and His Daughter Melissa, Lewisville, Texas, November 22, 1981.
This picture of John and his daughter Melissa was said to foreshadow Melissa's life, resorting to literalism to deduce the toddler will permanently have her world turned upside down - by being in the care of such an over-bearing father. No-one saw fit to contradict. Fate sealed then. I didn't have a dad who had much time for us kids but I can recognise loving care when I see it and grasp that infants and young children actually enjoy the topsy-turvey experience of the world, particularly when trusting to the strong arms of a father. To denigrate may have come from a personal place, or else, as is often the case when we are faced with unknowable other behaviours, to be reflexively frowned upon.
I woke up this morning thinking about this Avedon portrait and how unexpectedly a contemporary street picture by Richard Ansett, Family Outside Iceland, Lincoln High Street, August 2024, (from his project Liminal Presence, currently on show at the Usher Gallery), touches upon something quite similar.
