Stuart Pilkington recently asked me to take part in a photographic project he is curating called The Chain. My task was to photograph my first childhood memory…

The most powerful memories from my youth are the family slideshows we used to have. My mother is a very talented photographer, we used to sit and watch her photographs as a family whenever someone came to visit. I remember seeing the Kodachrome slides rotating in the carousel, hearing the buzz-wurr-click of the projector, smelling the heat of the bulb and looking back to the projector and seeing dust suspended in the beam of light on its way to the screen. It was enchanting as a very small child and no doubt contributing to my current career.

I borrowed that old projector and some slides to shoot the picture above for Stuart. While watching images of my childhood projected onto the wall, it struck me how much photography itself is a corrupting influence on our memories. I can ‘remember’ the clothes I had as a baby in the 1980′s, long before I was old enough for those memories to form. I was of course remembering the photograph, not the event. The power of photography…

Looking at these childhood photographs was particularly poignant for me, as my wife is expecting our first child very soon. I look forward to creating photography of our child, just as my mother did for me, that will record sentimental moments for their future. I wonder what our son or daughters childhood memorys will be?