What do football fans and wildlife watchers have in common?
FoMO. The Fear of Missing Out is real. The desire to witness something never seen before and/or being able to say “I was there”.
Although I’m not a die-hard football fan and I don’t travel the depths of the country chasing the next tick on a wildlife list, I completely understand the total compulsion to witness something special. From a Black-Browed Albatross touring the North Yorkshire coast to the crowning of a new monarch, as a photographer I have this insuppressible urge to capture it all.
On reflection, it’s a behaviour that has been with me from my early years. A hoard of Christmas presents photographed on the kitchen table, unchristened trainers photographed in the doorway. That desire to document any and every of life’s encounters clearly developed from a young age.
As a compulsive chronicler, I’ve come to realise that time is an unpredictable ingredient to any object, situation or photograph. That long forgotten Christmas present that just reached five figures at auction, the trainers I’m embarrassed to admit I ever owned. When it comes to predicting how our own memories will be interpreted over time, we are all clueless.
One common observation is that “moments” in the present are often over-hyped and rarely remembered as enthusiastically as promised. With photography, I’ve often found it’s the ordinary, overlooked moments that become more celebrated than those “must-see” events. Dorothea Lange’s migrant mother, Elliot Erwitt’s dog walkers, Francis Meadow Sutclcliffe’s observations of Whitby Harbour, it is often the photos of the every day that over time will become the more celebrated.
New world leaders, sporting tournaments, rare celebrity appearances, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of pitched “once in a lifetime” events. And that sensation, or need to record it, can almost feel overwhelming.
Such moments often focus on the “few” who were there, (that’s where the FoMO kicks in). But maybe it’s the everyday reflections from the experiences of the many rather than the few that will end up standing the test of time. Something that doesn’t require a ticket.
