Eid at Al’ Rahman Mosque, Pitsmoor, Sheffield. Wearing traditional Libyan dress, including qamis (shirt), sirwal (trousers) and sadriya (vest)
SU NDAY BE ST SHEFFIELDERS PHOTOGRAPHED, SUITED AND BOOTED
Sunday Best. If you’re going to a party, Church, or anywhere with your Mum and Dad, and you’ve got to dress up and look smart… As my mother used to say when she’d see my father looking at me: There’s worshipping! Throughout Jonathan Turner’s photography project, we recorded snapshots of audio. So the first couple of shots are just a test shot. I’m trying to work out what the correct exposure is... At one level, when you look at a portrait you can’t really have any idea who the person is. If you do, it’s because you think you know them. That’s how you realise the camera doesn’t do justice. I don’t know if this is Sunday Best, but yes, this is Sunday. Audio also fails to do justice. I think as Christians we have to set an example. We cannot go wrong like anyone else. In the exhibition of these portraits at Exchange Studios, we are bringing the audio and the visual together. Where will we see that one, Jonathan? Fragments of conversations, songs and traffic noise combining. A portrait wearing someone else’s voice. New clothes... A new look also… These five images are of worshippers. 14
Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to be good. Lovers. If, for example, I am given an invitation to visit the Queen of England, I definitely have to dress very nicely. So visiting the King of Kings, I have to dress nicely to be in his presence. Ready for the day. You’ve got to dress with your best clothes today… It’s actually a day of celebration. It’s a day of breaking the fast as well… At home. I’m wearing the Yemen traditional dress… Remembering. When I was small, we always had like three sets of clothes. You had your school clothes, your plain clothes and they called it your Sunday Best. Images and soundscapes, their contexts confusing and conflated, suddenly at odds. I’m just recording people’s answers to Jonathan’s idea of Sunday Best… We didn’t know that.
Tim Neal jonathan-turner.com