The Power of Photography: Time, Mortality and Memory - Unit 2

C1 Advanced · Multiple Matching · Ready for C1 Advanced 4th Edition, Macmillan Education

You are going to read an article about the role of photography in helping people connect with the past. For questions 1–10, choose from the writers (A-D). The writers may be chosen more than once.

Blake Morrison

A stranger flicking through my childhood photos might deduce that we were perpetually on holiday in north Wales, and that my father never accompanied us. But he wasn't absent, merely hiding behind the lens of his Nikon. Most of his snaps were taken without us noticing. But a few were trick photos, such as the one with my mother, sister and me arranged above each other on a steep hill to look like acrobats standing on each other's shoulders. Despite these playful times, my chief feeling when I look at those photos is sorrow: that the times they commemorate can't be retrieved. It's sentimental, I know. Worse, though, would be to have none at all. My favourite photo is one of my mother in pigtails as a child, an image unknown to me until a few years ago, when a cousin sent it. The earliest image I had of her till then was a graduation photo. I felt shut out from her past, and the lack of pictures was part of the reason.

Mary McCartney

I have a vivid early memory of going to a darkroom with my mum, and seeing a blank page put into a chemical bath and becoming a photograph. Incredible! Because I grew up around photography, I assumed everyone could take pictures. Now, I realise not everyone sees the eye. It's hard to do a proper shoot or go into depth. It takes time and attention. When I do my assignments, I might use my iPhone, my 35mm Leica, my digital camera or my Polaroid, topped with filters sometimes. I'm not that purist about it. In the past, you'd pick a certain type of film for a certain look, and today's filters are a similar concept: the modern version of choosing the right mood. Family pictures are the most precious and I have a set of prints I carry around in my wallet of my kids, my husband and my parents. I look at those rather than setting a diary; they're very evocative and because I replace them when they get worn out.

Sean O'Hagan

I remember a Kodak Instamatic that appeared every school holiday or family gathering. The rest of the time it resided in a kitchen drawer. The idea it could be taken out, loaded up with film and used to record my everyday life never occurred to me. I wish it had been otherwise. Now, I have thousands of digital photographs stored on my hard disk, and none printed. This fills me with a vague anxiety. I shoot certain things repeatedly – landscapes, wistfully or from moving trains; people dozing on the Tube; the tops of trees against the sky. I think photographs should be simultaneously intimate and everyday. That's a tall order, but the best photographers pull it off. I once shot the interior of my father's garden shed. The images feel like a portrait of his mind and all the stuff he had collected. For me, they possess great meaning – something to do with time and mortality and memory, all the things photography seems to evoke like no other art form because of its very nature – the split second already gone.

Jemima Kiss

Somewhere in my house is a collection of dusty, battered hard drives. Hidden inside is an invaluable part of my family history – my photos. There have been occasions where I have quickly glanced through a folder, and even printed a couple of pictures out, but the sheer volume has made it impossible even to begin to organise or access this collection. It is insurmountable. But I suspect I am not unique in this respect: if we all had only 10 pictures in the world, would we be more careful with them? Would each be meticulously stored, labelled, backed up and printed out in beautiful frames? In the past, family cameras were precious, hallowed objects. And the relatively small number of photos in a family collection meant that many came to represent powerful, emotional links to our past. What we need is software that identifies the 10 best photos we've taken in a month, to avoid digital overload. There's no point backing up 3,000 photos, just the ones you really treasure.

The Power of Photography: Time, Mortality and Memory

Writers explain the role of photography in helping us connect to the past

mentions the challenge of making familiar scenes feel very personal

believes that it is perfectly acceptable to enhance an image in a photograph

suggests that someone could form an inaccurate impression by looking at certain photos

acknowledges a change of opinion about everyone having the potential to take good photographs

describes the emotional impact of not having access to family photographs

admits to feeling overwhelmed when it comes to managing and evaluating photographs

regrets not using the opportunity to take more photographs when young

wonders whether people would value their photographs more if they possessed fewer

refers to the unique ability of photography to capture an exact point in time

refers to a feeling of sadness brought on by viewing a particular series of photographs

Available as a free printable PDF worksheet with an optional answer key.

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