Haunted by an Image

As so often happens, a week after seeing a photo exhibition I'm haunted by the recollection of one image in the collection. And, more often than not, it isn't any of the images that I liked on first impression in the gallery.

In this case, it's an image by a British photographer called Chris Coekin (born 1967) who took an interesting series of photographs called Knock Three Times inside a British club called the Acomb Working Man's Club on the outskirts of York. As you can imagine, the images are all about working class men and women drinking pints, playing darts and smoking. The photographs are fairly large chromagenic prints, and they are full of colour and detail and have a lovely translucent quality.

The image that I particularly like is not visible on the 'net, so I can't reproduce it here. On the surface, it is a photograph of a man playing dominoes, but the focus of the camera is on the woman to his right who has an absolutely wonderful expression on her face as she observes the game. The expression is such a cross between bored indifference and keen interest that it defies description and remains in my mind a week after seeing the exhibition. It reminds me of the way cats can feign indifference and then watch the proceedings like a hawk.

It's too bad that I can't find that particular image. Here's another one from the show that illustrates the way Coekin can capture that wonderful moment where a person's expression belies their inner thoughts.