Daniel Gordon describes himself as a photographer, âas straight as you can getâ, before throwing a spanner in the works by adding that what heâs photographed never really existed. Itâs the act of photographing that brings things into existence.
By way of explanation, he relates a story of seeing a woman step on a pile of baby birds, though it turned out to have been a heap of shredded cardboard. The feeling he tries to convey in his work is the one felt in such a moment, when things suddenly turn out to be not what youâd thought they were.
Gordon admits that the complex assemblages he constructs from stacks of old magazines and internet downloads may also, once he looks through the lens, amount to no more than that lifeless, âshredded cardboardâ.
Itâs his particular version of Cartier-Bressonâs decisive moment: it happens, or it doesnât. Photographing creatively is willing things into life, or as Gordon puts it, âmaking ordinary moments extraordinaryâ.
