 |
 |
| Losing Ground by Donovan Wylie was published by Fourth Estate, 1998. |
|
| Other articles by John Pringle |
|
|
|
|
| Losing Ground |
|
| A photographic collection that evolves into a book needs careful planning and organisation. The structure will be found in the layout and prioritising of its images; which images relate best to one another and what effect individual images have in relation to the whole. A narrative in the form of a story or polemic, or even something more arbitrary is then created. Donovan Wylie's book Losing Ground, published by Fourth Estate, does not get the formula right. |
|
| He tells us a strong and simple story that gives a clear impression of the lifestyle of the people dubbed the new age travellers by the Tory government. The tale is divided into two chapters; the first set in rural Gloucestershire, the second in parts of London. The images tell of false hopes, exclusion and desperation. The story begins with a scene of uneasy harmony, it depicts an optimistic spirit with children and adults attempting to adjust to their own exclusion from society in the wastelands of its peripheries. This optimism soon diminishes into images of children in winter, the cold and misery foretelling their hopeless fate. |
|
| The individual images try to enhance our understanding of a way of life not often presented to us by the nation's press. They attempt to qualify perceptions and revise ingrained opinion. In other words the individual images display a sympathetic and evocative handling of the subject. They paint a picture of a live drama full of pathos but when the book is examined as a whole the context and meaning of each photograph changes and diminishes. |
|
| Where Donovan Wylie loses focus is in the context of the afterword written by Andrew O'Hagan. It demonstrates a strong political agenda to the photographs, an agenda which works to the expense and not the benefit of the subject matter. The afterword describes the cruelty and injustice of Britain under the Tory government, blaming them for the fate of the new age travellers. He compares Wylie and the plight of these travellers to the Victorian photographer Thomas Annan recording urban poverty in nineteenth century Glasgow. It is a dogmatic and partisan view which intrudes on any sense of impartiality the reader may wish to maintain. Anyone attempting to gain any new insight into the behaviour and ethos behind this group of travellers will be left with a sense of disappointment, because politics takes charge of the book's subject matter. It becomes exploitative and unnecessary. These people living real poverty stricken lives are not given a fair assessment. Any dignity and individuality which the photographs come close to recognising in the travellers is dispelled. |
|
| The impression I got from Donovan Wylie's approach was one of a sincere attempt to rescue public opinion about these new age travellers which ultimately lost its thread. What unravels is a display of naive creative thought. The intimate and sometimes thoroughly despondent nature of the photographs left me wondering what the photographer felt about his subject. One photograph in particular casts doubt on the over-all statement of the book. It is the third instalment at the end of the second chapter; it describes an urban scene of squalor, a front room, to the right of centre in the background, amongst the litter, is a television set and on the screen an image of a stately home. This looks artificial, an attempt to add weight to an already flimsy analysis. |
|
| John Pringle |
|
