[Staged from the teaser and its comments at The Photography Pages]
± Willoughby F. is a photographer who believes that the things he imagines actually stage themselves before him in the anticipation that he turns up with his camera. Take, for example, the sine qua non of historical events – war.
± When he recently wanted to follow his heroes of youth by being a war correspondent, hey presto, war broke out! Better: wars were declared; and on they still drag, on multiple and multiplying fronts, and on pretexts that were cooked up, so he thinks, to disguise the fact that the combatants have been mobilised for nothing more than his lens and his whimsical desire that they be in front of it. Sometimes, when pressed, he admits that political and military leaders may be oblivious to his requirements; but even in this he persists in believing that they nonetheless act in accordance with his imagination.
± It is the same with those against these wars as it is with those for them. All of the protestors, from those riding the bandwagon to those who are militant, act against war for the sake of F.’s photography. Without him, not a single protestor would make a stand any more than a soldier would: of this he is certain.
± Telling his photographer friends about this leads to arguments that ultimately freak them out. ‘If photographers want to show what’s happening in the world’ he claims, ‘then it must happen for them to show it.’ ‘I can’t quibble with that’ they more or less agree. ‘Nothing’ he adds, ‘happens without imagination.’ And it is on this very point that they diverge from him: ‘The events already happen with or without you and your imagination. The idea that they happen because you imagine them happening is the part you imagine.’
± ‘No!’ he cries. ‘You have it the wrong way around. Only the things that we want to see ever happen for us to see them, thus we imagine it all into being, both good and bad. This makes me one of the most powerful people in the world! I imagine, point my camera, and into its path come my imaginings – it’s a straight line from cause to effect. The same thing happens for you too. The only difference between you and I is that I have the imagination to see this relationship, believe in it, and then use it in my photography. Anybody can imagine what is believable – only those with belief in their imaginations have the imagination enough to imagine what is unbelievable. It’s the power of this belief that makes imagination act. Those with this power have applied their imaginations to make the wars and the protests against them stage themselves before lenses such as mine. Nobody counts photographers as one of those doing the imagining. I am, if you like, one of the world’s unacknowledged legislators.’
± ‘You’re a crackpot’ say his photographer friends, ‘that’s what you are.’ ‘I grant you that’ says F., exercising his power once again (and unbeknownst to them). Yet for all their arguments with him, they argue in shrinkage from the possibility that he is right. It is sometimes apparent to them that they share this feeling that there are events they imagine that give them déjà vu and pangs of responsibility when they look through their viewfinders. They are veritably freaked out, so they argue against him in fear of what confirming his mania might feed - not just for him, but for them also. Then they cover themselves by shrugging their shoulders and saying ‘I’m only a photographer. The world turns without me.’
± But Willoughby F. dismisses their arguments and laughs himself to sleep before dreaming his dreams of what might be tomorrow. Why, without the power of imagination, tomorrow would not even exist; nor, for that matter, he imagines, would he, let alone his ‘crackpot’ ideas. Ah that Willoughby F.: what a guy.
