‘I’m not a photographer’
A lifetimes worth of photos forms part of a new exhibition
Alifetime collection of photographs taken by a man uncomfortable with being called a photographer has been assembled for display. A boyhood fascination with photography has never left Charles Bagnall, 80, who has a snapshot of his work currently on show at Levin Library Te Takeretanga o Kura-hau-po¯.
Bagnall has simply slung a camera over his shoulder while going about his life, not the other way around. He has never gone anywhere to purposely take a photograph.
Having a camera at the ready meant he has simply been able to take a photo when taken by a scene or a moment. That’s why he prefers snap-shooter rather than photographer.
“I just can’t call myself a photographer,” he said.
“I’m not one of those that can go out at night and hunt for the moon. I carry a camera, but not for the purpose [of] going out there to take the shot, so I’m not a photographer, if that makes sense.”
“I just have an eye for what I like.” A photograph captures a moment in time than can bring back a memory. For Bagnall, the process of preparing the display was a trip down memory lane.
He admits his memory isn’t what it was, but photographs have the power to elicit events in life that might otherwise be forgotten and can act almost like a diary.
He has had a front row seat of the changing technology, from negatives and dark rooms to the ability to enhance images on Photoshop.
“As a child I enjoyed making things with one of my early projects, when I was about 10, being a slide/roll film projector made from a wooden apple box and a moveable magnifying glass.”
In his teens he created a dark room at home to process negatives and produce prints. He also made the enlarger – from Meccano, an old camera bellows, two 30 oz fruit cans soldered together for the “light box” and a good enlarger lens.
His very first camera was a Kodak “Baby Brownie”, later progressing to a Nikon Yoshica and Pentax Ashahi.
He loves that you can enhance and alter the lighting in a photograph these days, and has no qualms editing out a powerline or changing shadows, preferring to look at the finished article as a piece of work, rather than treating the original image as untouchable.
“It’s not cheating. It’s just how I approach my art work. I am creating my own image rather than reproducing what was before me. Some snapshots I do very little with,” he said.
It was hard to estimate how many photographs he had taken but he has amassed at least 24,000. Most are either of landscapes or people. His early work is stored in folders as negatives, more latterly they are stored on disc and computer.
From the archives he has selected 105 photographs that make up the exhibition.
Bagnall has had a colourful working life. He studied psychology and sociology at university and on graduating was a trainee social worker in the former social security department.
A few years later he took up a position as a tutor on a social worker training scheme based at Tiromoana in the grounds of Porirua Hospital. During his four-year stint there he also built his first house for the family, a three-storey house, on the weekends.
With the house finished he left social work and became an “odd-job” person. His mother asked if he could make her a weaving loom. He studied loom design for months and ended up becoming a full-time loom maker, forming the company Micawber Sunshine and Sons making his own Sunflower Looms.
When wholesale loom imports made life tough he turned his hand to designing and crafting wooden furniture, taking inspiration from world-renowned craftsman, James Krenov.
When, once again, overseas imports made the hand-crafted furniture hard to sell he went back to corporate employment taking up a post working for Wellington City Council in their business development unit.
Through all this, he kept his “snapping” hobby going at leisure, but began to take much more photographs during a two-year Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) mission to South Africa in the late 1990s.
Some of the photographs he took while serving in South Africa feature in his exhibition, including one he took after meeting the late South African president Nelson Mandela.
He also spent time travelling to Asia and Europe, always with a camera over his shoulder.
Now retired, Bagnall is free to follow his creative whims and keeps busy in the garden while still travelling around with his snap-shooting propensity.
“I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in life and enjoyed it all,” he said.