Echoes of mirrors
I was sorting through a box of books at Oxfam when I was struck by a newspaper article buried at the bottom. I immediately recognised the stark black and white photos as the Denge sound mirrors, which I had visited many years ago and become fascinated with, so I kept the article to read for later.
The article, I read on the bus home, was called Echoes of War, and featured in the Sunday Telegraph magazine, 1 October 1995. I loved the moody photos of the mighty monoliths – easily the most striking photos of the sound mirrors I’d seen. I Googled the photographer, Frances Lang, keen to see what she’d produced in the last twenty or so years. I was shocked to discover not only had she died a year (to the day) after the article was published, but that she’d gone to the same art college as me, at the same time.
The only information I could find about her online was two obituaries in the Independent (both written by Emily Green, one in 1996, the other one, oddly, in 2011). I couldn’t find any photos of her or by her. Frances Lang left Newport School of Art and Design in 1993 and joined the Independent newspaper, producing painterly and personal work. I want to see her photos of ‘stately Victorian water-fountains at all too modern intersections’ and ‘London tube maps, the place names worn out by the fingertips of tourists’.
She died on 1 October 1996 in a plane crash near Lima, Peru, along with everyone else on board including her husband, Mark. They were on their honeymoon.
I don’t remember Frances. At Newport School of Art and Design I was a film student (at the so-called Newport Film School), but I knew a lot of the photography students who were on the well-respected documentary photography course where the likes of Martin Parr and Daniel Meadows taught. There was a fair bit of piss-taking between the film and photography students. A fellow film student and myself used to go around telling everyone “The still image is dead”, perhaps not anticipating Instagram. Still, I think we were probably right.
But in truth, the photography students were taking great black and white photos on a prestigious course set up by David Hurn in 1973 whilst us film students were making embarrassing, terrible 16mm films and not really learning anything. Saying that, Justin Kerrigan in the year below me went on to make Human Traffic; Asif Kapadia, who must have attended different years to me, made the stunning film The Warrior (starring Irrfan Khan, who died far too young last year). I don’t know what anyone else did.
I haven’t been back to Newport since 1994. I had a quick look at the town on Google Street View. I didn’t recognise anything about it at all.
Previously on Barnflakes
Three recent coincidences
Two Funerals
Notes on Julian House & Ghost Box
The Park
Homeless Movies