the flowers are just a pretty accomplice

If you follow on Instagram, you will know that I have taken to photograph the people along with the flowers. The pink wall providing the backdrop. I have also now turned ,my attention to the other plot holders at the allotments.

It started after I found an old packet of Tripleprint photographs, do you remember those? before we photographed every little thing on our phones, there was the family camera, reserved for holidays, birthdays and Christmas. Filling out the slip and posting it off with a roll of film and a cheque, what seemed like years lately an envelope would arrive, memories spilling out. The photographs i found were of a holiday, St. Tropez from the look of the coastline, 20 years ago from the look of the very fresh faces.

Faces being the point of this particular ramble. In years to come will we look back at our pictures and wonder why we were so obsessed with capturing that cup of coffee on the marble table? I expect so. How many sunsets are too many?, and flowers for that matter. When what needs to be documented is not the flowers, but the people who buy them and the people who receive them.

But photographing people is much harder than the flowers. It requires a level of intimacy that can make both subject and photographer uncomfortable. Men seem to feel happier about it than women, we are far more caught up in the physicalities. There are some people i am too shy to ask, some I know would say no, and others who might say yes were it not for their chosen profession. I am convinced one of my customers is a spy. He strongly denies it, but then he would wouldn't he?

Top row Simon - allotment guru, Kenneth and Valentine Bottom row- Roger and my beloved Thomas who needs to be re shot in front of the pink wall.