[touching music featuring acoustic guitar]
Female Narrator: Chris Killip revels in the intimacy he shares with his subjects. This picture of a young girl playing with a hula-hoop came about because he was hanging out with her family at their caravan.
Chris Killip: Helen is from the family that I got to know very well, and they’re coming home to have tea, and I was going to join them, and Helen is just come back from school, and I’m sitting on the steps of Brian’s caravan, and she’s playing with a Hula Hoop. I sort of leant down at a funny angle to try and get her completely in the picture, hence the sort of strange horizon line in the sky. But, in fact, it makes the picture more dynamic, this tilted horizon. I also like the broken strap on her shoe, but what I like about her most is her complete elegance. She reminds me of a flamenco dancer or something, just the way she’s holding her hands. She’s very elegant.
[music ends]
Female Narrator: Working before digital cameras were commonplace, Killip used cameras that required film and never knew if he had a good picture until he got into the dark room to develop and study his negatives. He made three images of Helen in front of the caravan. It was only when he printed a contact sheet that he knew this one was the keeper. He appreciates this difference from digital, where feedback is immediate.
Chris Killip: The problem with digital is the screen itself. The screen is very reassuring. You look at the image, and you can say, “Oh, that’s very good, I’ll stop now.”
When you’re photographing without a screen and can’t see what you’ve taken, you’re always pushing yourself to do more because you don’t believe what you’ve just done is good enough. When do you think you’ve got something good? Well, you don’t know. It’s always helped me, this anxiety, I think, not knowing what I’d got and worrying about it and pushing myself a little harder because of that.
