The Shot I Never Forgot
‘The Shot I Never Forgot’ is an Arts Council funded project in which participating artists were invited to share a photograph that has remained in their mind since they shot it along with the story behind its creation. Most of the artists instinctively knew which image they should share, sometimes because it was poignant, sometimes because of its personal significance or simply because it is a great photograph.
As photographers, we shoot many more images than ever see the light of day, often including fabulous stand alone pictures – shot on instinct – whilst making work for another project. Because these single images do not fit the brief, they sit gathering dust in an ever-growing archive. The Shot I Never Forgot is a chance for some of these images to be presented in their own right, for others to enjoy; a platform to enable some of these memorable photographs to be seen for the first time.
This project began in February 2013 and culminated in an exhibition and publication, held during the Brighton photo Fringe 2014. Since then, it has been lying dormant, ocassionally being dusted off to receive some new submissions!
John House, February 2018
John Spinks
"My interest in photography started at secondary school. There was a cleaners cupboard that had been converted into a darkroom, a darkroom that didn’t work. There was no paper and the chemicals were rotten, years out of date. The wonderful thing about this place however was that it meant that I could hide, that I could spend an hour every day, in those last few months of school away from everyone else. without the least exaggeration, that tiny room was my salvation. Because of this when I started at the local technical college the following September I opted to do a photography course. This picture is one of the enlargers I used in those first few months of learning all about photography. I made this picture around eight or nine years ago, I went back to the technical college, back to that darkroom just before they tore it down. I spent countless hours in that room, it was the place where I started becoming me."
