I’ve been intending to write something about the current show at Photofusion, David Creedon‘s Ghosts of the Faithful Departed, since I went to the opening a couple of weeks ago.
David Creedon speaking at Photofusion
You can see roughly 20 of the images from this on Creedon’s web site – along with some of his other work, although I think ‘Ghosts’ rather stands head and shoulders above the rest. Some of the images on the web have an odd sparkle – perhaps over-sharpening – but otherwise it gives a good idea of the show.
I usually go to Photofusion openings more to meet people that to see the photographs, but this time they were certainly worth a look. Creedon captures well the sense of frozen time in many of these interiors with an eye for detail and a feeling for colour.
It is subject matter that is a gift for photography, at its heart a medium concerned with the freezing of time, and at the opening Creedon spoke clearly about his feelings and the work. These isolated derelict rural homes were where the remnants of families, single people who stayed behind to look after elderly parents when famine drove their brothers and sisters to seek work in England or America. The parents died, the carers, now elderly lived and died and they were simply abandoned, left to decay and rot.
The pictures provide evidence of religious obsession and other aspects of eccentricity common among the old who live alone and of course have a particular resonance for the Irish as a part of their national history. Those of us who can claim no Hibernian connection perhaps view them more objectively, and although I enjoyed the show I did sometimes feel the photography was a little over the top. Perhaps the printing could have been less dramatic (it reminded me at times of Cibachrome’s gross hyper-realism) and more senstive and nuanced. And sometimes I felt that images were too arranged, lacking that certain accidental character that for me characterises great photography. This was perhaps a Guiness of a show (and I enjoy a pint, particular from Dublin) rather than fine wine.
The opening was also perhaps over the top, with three speeches. The photographer acquitted himself well – and I would have liked to hear him talk more about the work. The diplomat was diplomatic, short and sweet, but the academic appeared out to prove he had no great love or knowledge of photography, which was rather a shame.