Monday 15 March 2010

Huw in the club - and other great pictures

I found this set of pictures using the marvelous http://fffflckr.com/
 application which lets you search flickr using your favourites and those of your favourites (if you see what I mean) .

It threw up this  fascinating series of pictures from The Glamorgan County Council Staff Club in Cardiff, Wales sadly now closed by Maciej Dakowicz.

I love the shots of people having fun and enjoying their weekend.
It's a cliche to say peoples lives are written on their faces but it's a true cliche.

It does raise a slight issue that's been in my mind for a while. I love pictures like this and those of the famous series Martin Parr took in New Brighton. I take if not similar ones  in a similar areas ie. in around Deptford and Barnsley etc and I have nagging fear that they could be seen  put it bluntly as "laughing at poor people".

I hope I'm not I just find these subjects fascinating, refreshing and surprising. We live in an increasingly
homogeneous world and these sparks of humanity, these unguarded moments and the individual acts of creativity are heartening. Of course the distance between the aspiration of some the signs etc and the reality of the shop or the pub they are attached to is ironic but also hopeful and very human.
One last defence whenever I'm somewhere posh I take picture there too

2 comments:

Cocktails said...

They are great pictures. In these days of young people doing endless duckface poses down the pub they're refreshingly... normal! And just because you're taking pictures of the people around you doesn't mean that you're taking the piss or slumming it. I think thats a paranoid byproduct of this class conscious society (not that it doesn't happen though)

ally. said...

gee but they are that.. i love pubs. and these make me want to go and sit in one even more that i usually do. well found mister and ta very much
x