James Shackleton's Blog

Car Competition

Win-a-Car Marathon, Orchard Street, Singapore

I think I’ve posted on this before, using different pictures.

The idea of the competition is to stay holding on to the car. Your hand musn’t leave contact for a moment.

I think the pictures I posted before were about the fun side of it, with people laughing and being silly. But I really wanted to get to the truth of it – these people REALLY want to win. Their families are watching. They don’t want to let them down. I think this picture comes closest.

New York Doorway

New York City, October 2006

When I first got into photography, I decided (as all the books advise you) that I should find a subject and shoot loads of that. It becoming a body of work on a theme.

The subject I chose was “doors”. And I photographed a lot of them….. and then I stopped.

And then, years later, when the disease had passed, I took this photo (using a similar camera to the one I had used all those years earlier). Have a good look at the graffiti cardboard guy – he really is quite amazing.

Depite all views and opinions to the contrary, this reminds me that talent is all around us – it is just that people forget about them or plain don’t appreciate them.