Consent and Power Relationships

I took my camera long with me to the Steampunk Weekend in Kirkcudbright.

I wasn't an official photographer, but I have a soft spot for Steampunk and knew there would be lots of people dressed up.

Almost immediately I bumped into someone I knew, dressed up to the hilt, with her friend who had similarly gone all out for it. A bit of a chat and then I suggested I could take their photo, with an idea of sending them a copy later.

But as we moved away from all the stalls towards a tree that created a less busy backdrop, a bloke with a camera was suddenly behind me and was clearly wanting to take advantage of the fact that I had isolated them so he could take some images too.

I gave him a bit of space and just tried to concentrate on taking my own images, but they were clearly torn between the 2 of us, with at least one of them looking at the other guy each time I clicked. Then I noticed a 3rd bloke had turned up.

Not wanting to be rude, but feeling a little deflated, I thanked my friend for her time, and as I headed off noticed even more camera-weilding blokes had arrived on the scene and I wondered how long it would be before she would be able to get back to exploring the event.

From then on, it felt like there were more middle-aged blokes with cameras than there were people dressed in Steampunk outfits.

They were everywhere. It seemed like anyone who had on an outfit was being swarmed upon.

It didn't feel right.

Of course if you dress up outlandishly you can expect to get some attention, but this felt positively intrusive.

And then I caught sight of myself in a mirror hanging on one of the outfit stalls and saw a middle-aged bloke with a big camera over his shoulder, wearing my face.

And, to be honest, I felt a bit sick.

It took me a while to understand my reaction, but eventually I realised it was all about power relationships.

For me, a photo shoot, however brief, is a collaboration between myself and the subject – it is a relationship of equals – a coming together to create something you both would like to see.

But it felt to me that most of these other photographers were feeling, or acting on, some level of entitlement. These people had dressed up so they were entitled to photograph them, whether the subjects were comfortable about it or not. And if they didn't like it, they shouldn't dress that way...

I just didn't want to be associated with these people.

To the outside world, there would be no perceptible difference between me and the other guys. We were all middle-aged blokes with cameras taking photos of people dressed up.

But the attitude behind the photography was everything.

I could only photograph my friend because I knew her already, I've photographed her before, and she was more than happy to play to the camera a bit.

But afterwards, I felt like I'd abandoned her to the jackals and didn't feel particularly proud of myself.

A guy I know who makes Steampunk accessories and had a stall there, said he'd heard that the previous year a photographer from one of the bigger camera clubs in the area had stumbled across the Steampunk Weekend last year, taken a photo of the guy I knew, and then had apparently won a camera club competition with the image.

It seems that word had got around and this year most of that camera club had descended on Kirkcudbright, out to get a competition winning photo, whatever the cost.

I didn't take any more photos, and left early.

The whole experience has just left me with a unpleasant taste in my mouth, and I'm going to be processing this for some time.

Diagnosis

 When I was 24 I was diagnosed with Mensa and I've been working on how to cure it ever since...

What do we want?

"WHAT DO WE WANT?"

"Something meaningful but vaguely defined and we're not sure really but we know it's important, probably..."

"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"

"NOW!"

Hop along now...

The revelations I'm going through at the moment, exploring the it-might-not-yet-have-been-officially-diagnosed-but-hey-who-are-we-trying-to-kid likelihood that I have ADHD, is continually shifting the whole world beneath my feet.

Imagine for a moment you reach the age of 56 and suddenly discover that for your entire life you have only ever had one leg but never realised it. 

After reading other people's accounts of being a uni-ped - particularly those who weren't diagnosed in childhood - recognition of their experiences causes you to notice for the first time that you too have been struggling to perform in a world that was never really designed for you, no matter how many adaptations you have tried to make.

Suddenly, every memory of every experience is now being reinterpreted as it starts to dawn on you that it wasn't normal to always find it impossible to correct a stumble if you tripped on something; that the reason you were bullied in school had very little to do with the colour of your hair; and that never being selected for the football team had nothing to do with your father not being a member of the Masons.

Of course it's obvious NOW, but what a mindfuck that despite the clues being there all along, no one ever came right out and said it, so you never actually joined the dots.

As bizarre as this analogy might sound, it's about as accurate a description I can find to explain  what it feels like trying to process this discovery.

The Burden...

"You can achieve anything you want if you put your mind to it!"

Except for the fact I can't. 

I realise being told this as a child was meant as an encouragement, even a form of praise, 

But I'm now beginning to understand the huge burden of guilt I have been carrying, and adding to throughout my life, for all the stuff I haven't been able to achieve - frame-worked internally that clearly I haven't been trying hard enough, so am a failure.

We do not all have the same wiring in our brains. 

What is simple for some is excruciatingly difficult, if not impossible, for others.

If we all put our neuro-vastly-diverse brains together to work towards a common goal, then we can achieve almost anything.

But individually? 

We did not evolve as lone creatures with all the skills needed to survive and thrive. Very few people are true loners who need no others to withstand all that life throws at us.

The rest of us need others to fill the gaps.

Together we are strong. 

Alone we are puny humans, feeling guilty we do not have all the skills and abilities of an entire tribe. 

Go on, ask me...

I'm suspecting I have ADHD.

If you want, I'll happily tell you all about it.

At great length.

With lots of really interesting tangents.

So many, in fact, we might never actually reach the end...

Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street

Amazing sax riff!!!

Boring bit

Boring bit

Boring bit

Oh, wait, it's coming...

Amazing sax riff!!!

Boring bit

Boring bit

Boring bit

Oh, wait, it's coming...

Incredible guitar solo!!!

Amazing sax riff!!!

In 1978, was anyone else try and record off the radio onto their cassette player just the sax and guitar bits, or was it just me?

Not a Hero

Underneath it all, truth be told, I thought I was a hero-in-waiting. 

My time would come when I would save the world.

Other things seem to have got in way quite a lot - not insignificantly the ME/CFS.

In fact the ME/CFS has been around such a long time that I have periodically revised the timetable for when I might be called upon to be the right person in the right place at the right time.

In fact, I had pretty much become convinced that the ME/CFS might mean it would never happen after all.

And this has sometimes been a cause for sadness - a grief for lost futures.

More recently, however, I've become aware that I am in fact a small child, desperate for attention, and have been for the past 5 decades.

My long-awaited expectation for the opportunity to express my heroism is actually just a sign of emotional underdevelopment.

Probably no point in sewing my pants to the outside of my trousers then...

Why do I have to be the grown up?

“Why do I have to be the grown up?”

“Because someone has to be, and it looks like you're the only one capable of being so, even if you don't want to be.” I can hear the voice in my head. It could be my mother's.

Of course, I can be right and they can be wrong – but they won't see it that way. And if I persist, then the stakes will get higher and higher until real damage is done.

It's not fair! Why am I the only one who seems to see this early enough to back down, even though I know they are the one being unreasonable?

I resent them more for this, and so part of me wants to continue escalating, wants to lash out, wants to hurt, to prove the point.

But still I see the damage that will cause, so I have to be the adult, the one to back down, even though I still know them to be unreasonable in their position. If I persist in being right, we will all lose.

Why can't they see it too?

Why do I have to be the grown up in this?

Because someone has to be, and it looks like I'm the only one capable of being so, even if I don't want to be.

Are you normal, or other?

The idea of "normality" is just a loosely defined convention acting as a fragile meeting ground of vastly different ways of thinking and perceiving the world.

No one is actually "normal," instead we all overlap sections of it like a giant venn diagram.

The problem comes when, instead of understanding that no two people see the world in the same way, we are told that anyone who does not fully reside inside this construct is an "other".

Dividing the world into Us and Them has always been a way to control people. We all live in fear of being found out that there are aspects to us which would exclude us from the very narrow definition of what it is to be acceptable.

We are all "other".