From Inside a
Cigar Box
From Inside a Cigar Box is a working-project instigated by the coming to light of a photographic archive.
I was often told by my Aunts and Uncles ‘You know, Granddad used to be really into his photography’, yet I did not once see him with a camera in my nearly thirty years of knowing him. I'd ask him about this and he wouldn’t share a huge amount; that was his nature. On several occasions I would search his house and garage up and down for the apparent stash of negatives. They always remained elusive.
It was only when he passed away that a beautiful, worn, wooden cigar box came to light, gold and green on the edges, the lid held in place with a fraying elastic band. Inside: a latent collection of vernacular photography more substantial than anything I’d hoped for. Hundreds of black and white negatives had been made at Nana (Lorna LaFrenais) and Granddad (Neville LaFrenais)’s hometown in Sri Lanka, taken over a period of four years between 1958 and 1962, before migrating to England.
Inside the box lay a unique insight into life in Sri Lanka at that time; at work, social occasions, family portraits, sports, leisure pursuits, as new parents, and more, all meticulously documented.
Over the course of two years 600+ negatives have been scanned.
