'You love life and we love death'. These are the words attributed to an Al-Qaeda organisation after the Madrid train bombing that prompted Nick Waplington to examine his own love of life/death. Starting with photographs taken when a teenager and ending 20 years later with the birth of his first child, You Love Life charts inconsequential moments that make up the patchwork of his art and being.
"Art flies around truth, but with the definite intention of not getting burnt. Its capacity lies in finding in the dark void a place where the beam of light can be intensely caught, without this having been perceptible before" - Franz Kafka.
"You love life as much as we love death".
"This statement was posted on a website sympathetic to the aims of Al-Qaeda in response to the Madrid train bombings of 2003. It was then re-interpreted by the president of the USA a couple of months later as: "You choose life while we choose death" I couldn't get these two statements out of my head and the subtle but profound differences which exist between them. It was this dichotomy and it's many possible interpretations that provided me with the inspiration to produce this work, a work about life and the choices I have made and the choices which have been made on my behalf. With these statements as my guide I have put together a book that does not answer any of these questions but enabled my understanding of why I took these pictures in the first place to expand. It is, I hope, an uplifting piece of work which tracks my last twenty or so years from when I first picked up a camera until the present day." - Nick Waplington, April 2005.
You Love Life is a limited edition of 1000 copies; available with a print at £100 or without at £30.
