Remember I said recently that I am not hung up on material possessions?
Hang on, I told a lie: I have this photograph (well, a reproduction) framed on my bedroom wall and if it ever broke I’d be reasonably heartbroken.
I believe this photograph was taken in 1897, the year Bram Stoker first published Dracula. It is the the very same Abbey Stoker had Dracula first hole up in when he arrives in England.
When I look at it, I am automatically channelled back to the time when Stoker wrote one of my favourite novels. It’s like a portal. You see, he was living there at the time he wrote it, so what I look at in the photo is what I’d’ve seen if I’d been there too.
It’s hard to describe why this all makes it important. I suppose it’s partially to do with how the shot is framed. The mundane is in the foreground – I mean they’re just cows being tended to by some sort of farmhand. That’s still happening all over the world. But in the background you have the looming, mysterious, even ominous facade; signifying, depending on who you are, religious might or religious decay.
It’s this kind of discrepancy (performing the functional when the exceptional (a promise, or even just a scent of it) lingers somewhere in our egos, goading us on, or frightening us to chicken out of our dreams) which I have always found so fascinating.
Perhaps you have a piece of artwork, or a photograph, which means a lot to you, but you don’t quite know why? If so, write about it – you may uncover a deeper significance. There’s my blog post idea of the week.
