How Many Stories Can You Tell In One Second?
Giles Duley’s new book is a humanist tour-de-force
Storytelling is powerful and very much needed as therapy, to heal, to sell and to connect us as people. It’s the latter that creates hope for mankind’s future to coexist. The stories that touch us and make us think about someone other than ourselves, those are the stories that create empathy and a sense of interdependence — the understanding that you and I are one and your suffering is mine and that I look after you and you look after me.
Empathy and interdependence as an outcome of one second of storytelling is what award-winning photographer Giles Duley achieves with One Second Of Light, a collection of photographs that Duley created over the past decade. It is moving and beautiful.
One Second Of Light is an anthology of stories, moments that let us glimpse the lives of others. Whilst the photographs are created in places of conflict and disaster, these are not images of victims or events, but rather moments of life and normality, scenes that we can all relate to. They are stories about a shared humanity.
“When putting this collection together,” said Duley, “I became fascinated by the question of time. Most of my images are taken at 1/60 sec or 1/125 second, which means when you put this whole collection together, the reality is they only add up to a second of light. A second that gives insight into other lives, but also makes us question how much we don’t see.”
“I see myself as a storyteller, and this exhibition represents my reflections on the most powerful stories I’ve been entrusted with.”
