This book brings together two developing strands of thought, the importance of vernacular photography as a record and how the design of a book influences the way that we read photographs. At a secondary level this book also illustrates very well how context drives meaning, how a photograph can be lifted from snapshot to art work, simply by being taken from a plastic container and being printed in a book.
Stuart Griffiths is an ex-Paratrooper who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles and this book, "The Myth of the Airborne Warrior", presents photographs he took during the late 80's and early 90's. The photos were taken on a cheap Canon Sureshot, the film precursor of today's bargain basement digital compacts. They are poorly framed, poorly exposed, poorly, pretty much everything. But, they are a record of a difficult time presented from a unique perspective. Collectively they rise and present a frightening picture of boredom, fear and ultimately abuse. The Para's are revealed as a bunch of vulnerable young men trapped in a nightmare from which they cannot escape. The enemy is everyone, trained to engage a uniformed military they do not even know who the enemy is until they are shot at.
Stuart left the army and in 1997 was enrolled on a Photography degree alongside Gordon MacDonald, now Head of Publications at Photoworks and Editor of Photoworks magazine. Stuart did not speak much about his experiences and it was not until 2009 that he shared the images. The subsequent book had to do more than simply present the photographs or make a political point about the troubles, it needed to convey the experience he had beyond the merely visual. The book design has to carry this weight and it does it well. Most photographs are faced on the opposite page by a block of text telling his story, the size of the block exactly mirroring the photograph. The text is, however, mostly blacked out, the censors black marker redacting his story. It can still be read with difficulty. What remains almost reads as fragments of poetry. This conveys the sense that not only was their life miserable and boring it was also something that the government of the time did not want to be seen. The book is further augmented by the inclusion of bits of paper containing "rules of engagement", small leaflets warning against fraternization and a really welcome touch a single print signed by the author, 1 of an "edition" of 500, but nice all the same.
A small, but very interesting photobook, yielding new ideas for design and use of imagery. I wonder how many other stories sit inside the albums of amateur photographers never to be told, but containing important visual history. "Serious" photographers seem to spend so much time looking for the remarkable, when it is so often to be found a few feet away in our everyday lives. We may not know it now, but one day these records might be a priceless artifact of a time passed. Photography has an important archival role, that occasionally can be transformed into art.
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