Posted By
kaychin on
9 Jan 10, Sat |
Permalink
In the middle of the week, I woke up at 6am to prepare for a photo shoot.
But actually, saying that I got up at 6 is a little inaccurate because I didn't really sleep.
I've been a photographer for more than two decades, what haven't I done to deserve this sleeplessness or restless sleep?
Quite simply, it was a heavy sense of responsibility in this particular instance.
My client is a very very old friend although we haven't been in touch until recently, when a coincidence brought my availability to her attention.
As far as I know, this friend has been running the family-owned fashion business for all her life, except perhaps for four years in her youth, when she was sent abroad to get a proper education.
As far as I know, her daily routine for the past two decades, revolves around this shop.
She is there when it opens in the morning, she is there when it closes for the night.
Her dad had started the business and built it into a powerhouse - the kind that feeds mouths, if not village of mouths.
Her childhood memories probably center around helping out with the cash register, if not pasting price tags onto shoe boxes.
Back then, she was probably about as tall as five layers of shoe boxes.
Now, it would perhaps require 12, or 13.
She watched as her parents deal with the customers - nice and not.
But there was no question, from the day they think she was old enough to know, that one day, she would become them.
Then before she knew, she is the father, and the mother, she is the boss.
And then one day, perhaps not one particular day, she woke up thinking, "Wait, sales has been down, everyone's changing, should we be changing too?"
So she went around looking for change agents, starting first with an architect, who quite correctly told her one of the things she should perhaps consider doing before a major renovation is to have the present/old recorded.
That was where I enter the picture.
When we had met several months ago to discuss my job, I had implored my friend and her sister to think hard about the purpose of making those pictures.
My parting words were, "Beyond just recording what your dad has built, you need to ask why you are really doing this."
This week, while I was there shooting, the sister came to me with the answer to my question.
"You know you got me thinking, I think it is important that we can look at the pictures and reminisce."
"This shop is very important to my family."
Although she didn't say it, I know she was thinking of her daddy's legacy.
That kind of made things very clear.
Which was why I didn't mind when I had to photograph a few very untidy store rooms that were totally invisible from the facade of the shop. Two of them were actually tiny holes in the ceiling, accessible by a tiny trap door just about right for my shape.
I dutifully photographed several old sofa sets, which I had assumed would be discarded during the revamp.
There were a lot more little things I shot that morning.
Exactly how important they are to the family? I don't know.
All I know is when the workers finally arrive to gut the shop in a few weeks, everything, big and small, would probably be wiped out.
And all that is left, with any luck, will just be the memories.
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