On looking.

I photograph what everyone walks past.

A scraped door. A wall painted over. Tape on a shutter. Rust where a sign used to be. For twenty years I have stopped for them, stood closer than most people would, and taken the picture. Until now, none of it has been shown.

None of these marks was made to be seen. They are what a city leaves on itself while it gets on with something else. Close up, they stop being damage and become paintings that no one painted: black drips on pale grey; peeled paint, red and white, on pale pink; fine scratches, teal fading to gold.

We live fast. We cross the same streets every day and see almost nothing of them. I don’t think beauty is rare. I think attention is. And what we fail to notice, we rarely take care of.

These surfaces do not last. Walls get repainted, shutters replaced, signs taken down, and then the photograph may be all that is left. So each work happens only once. A Quartet sets four photographs in a single frame, is entered on the List, and is never made again.

A print is quieter. It takes one of these surfaces off the street and puts it on a wall you won’t walk past.

Everything is lit up, once you start to look.

Harrop