IN THE FRAME 192
Window Shopping in Castlerea
“Two girls admire new clothes in a shop window in Castlerea, County Roscommon. Their red jumpers, bringing the eye into the foreground, emphasise the passion of the pair for new duds, while the blue of the background recedes, and reinforces the coldness and distancing of the mannequin and the situation. I’d love to know if they are still friends and recognise themselves?
Through a solo show, ‘By Hand’, at the Ballina Arts Centre, I found some of the people in my earlier photos and realised the window might be closing for those opportunities. One elderly fisherman was so taken with my photo of his younger self bringing in the boat after a hard day’s haul that he asked, as he was dying, to have it placed on his coffin.
The digital age and a camera in everyone’s phone have really changed street photography. With the truth of film morphing into digital manipulation, who knows what is real anymore? Shooting film, one had to recognise an event before it happened, be quick and ready to snap it, and be astute enough to compose it to tell the whole story in a single image.
I look to compose with a Caravaggio sense of filmic action and emotion, and colour schemes that symbolically represent those emotions.”
https://mycreativeedge.eu/profile/by-hand
Prints of this and other images are available to order from Copper House Gallery by writing to Laura laurajeanzito@gmail.com or mark@thecopperhouse.ie
