Photo Narratives

A playful experiment with parallax scrolling, also known as fumbling in the dark. I hacked this together in stolen moments, based on ideas conceived while drinking saké cocktails, cooking myself in the Florida sunshine, and musing about redesigning this site.

View-source of course, but don't judge the mess I'm rusty. As always, borrow, don't steal. I will find you. Hat-tip to Jon Raasch for the excellent Parallax jQuery plugin

As this is an experimental project, performance may vary. Best viewed in Safari on  Mac

It was a warm bright evening, after an ordinary day at the office. As I took my usual route home, I was looking at a line of trees silhouetted on the horizon. A view I passed every day, but had never really noticed before.

On that day, I imagined this concept - A story about escaping a life of monotony, like hanging up the phone… finding a location, a tree, to hang up the line, a life, and try again. Taking the idea of escape to extreme, far beyond my own real feelings, to create a more dramatic idea.

The images used were collated from a series of photographs I'd taken a few months beforehand, without any solid concept. After I had the idea for the narrative, the photos seemed to map to it, so I set about creating this sequence. Most of the images were captured on infrared black and white film.

One day whilst out driving, I don't know where exactly, I discovered an old caravan by the roadside.

I pulled over, and at the time, not knowing it was abandoned, cautiously took photos, unsure if it was occupied or not. As my courage grew I took photos closer and closer, until I found myself photographing through the door, which was unlocked and open.

As I drove home I tried to imagine the sequence of events which might have lead to this holiday home being left, abandoned this way. And from there, this photo-narrative was born.