The joys of hoarding.

I'm the weird type of person that grows emotionally attached to objects and often attributes them with feelings. Better again if these object have faces then I can fully fall heads over heels for them. I often wonder if I was left to my own devices off in some isolated country house somewhere with non frequent visitors could I become a fully fledged certifiably crazy hoarder. Unable to depart with any of my junk and over-come by guilt because I couldn't possibly pay everything sufficient attention. Then one day my family would turn up with an American cable channel and they'd try to preform an intervention as I break down with them attempting to pry my egg carton plants from my bare hands.

So with this insight to my neurosis in mind, you can imagine how attached I become to actual people. I think this is what drives my photography addiction, which is also getting out of hand. Why actually experience something when you can photograph it. Derp!

There are times though, when I'm so glad to be the way I am. These pictures of my great uncle Hughie are case and point. I think I took them about 10 years ago. I was a photography student at the time, learning how to process and develop and as you can see making a right mess of every print I got my hands on. Despite the dodgy processing these shots make me happy and a little sad. They bring back memories and I always smile when I remember the story Hughie told me and my brother about why he had no right thumb. We were obsessed it, or rather the lack of it.  We constantly questioned everyone but him about it. One day when we were feeding the cows and lambs I got up the courage to ask him why and he told me a cow ate it when he was a wee boy. I couldn't understand why he would keep feeding them cows after they'd ate his thumb. He told us if we didn't feed them then they'd die. It was such a dilemma for Patrick and I. We certainly didn't want the animals to die, especially the lambs but we were quite attached to our own thumbs too. The next time we went to visit Hughie we came prepared with rubber gloves and kitchen tongs. We had a job to do but we weren't about to lose our thumbs in the process.