“In order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes” –Roland Barthes
There is something to be said for an image haunting you; the photograph that reemerges again and again in your mind’s eye. Nine months ago, I met Ken Murphy at the Apothecary behind Brent’s Drugs to photograph the bar. I dimmed the lights, set the fruit in color-coordinated pyramids, lit some candles. Thirty minutes later the image of that back room was in the camera, the lenses back in their cases, the tripod folded. Even though I was standing next to Ken when the shutter stopped down, seeing the photograph in its final form—plate 100 of the Jackson book—was startling. It wasn’t at all how I remembered the bar that night.
Nine months of stirring and shaking drinks have enlivened the space since the photo was snapped. The walls have more stories to tell, the marble bar has been rubbed by leaning elbows, the wood is a bit more worn. Roland Barthes’ reflection on photography, Camera Lucida, explores the somewhat magical qualities of still images—the vibrancy with which a photograph captures a moment the duration of a fraction of a second. Time holds its breath for the shutter. He writes, “the Photograph does not call up the past…The effect it produces upon me is not to restore what has been abolished (by time, by distance) but to attest that what I see has indeed existed.” (82)
This book is a marker. On these pages, the evolving and living city of Jackson holds its breath. Behind each closed door, someone is waiting to walk through.
Written by Adie
Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!
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