“Conway’s images are often just outside the ‘normal’ captured moment; either just before or after” - Stevie Pearce
Owen Conway’s series We Have to Carry On Somehow is these moments, before and after, as Stevie Pearce described. He photographed quiet visuals that contain soft light and interesting patterns. The images are so quiet but are screaming with emotion. Loss, memory, longing are just some of those emotions that emanate from the photographs. A majority of the images are taken at the very moment that the sun goes down or the sun is just coming up. This time allows you to feel this longing through the lack of specific light source. The light becomes just a haze; bright enough to light the surrounding. Conway used different elements to shield his subjects. It is the misty fog on a window, a patterned mirror, or a light curtain. Hiding the subjects allows the viewer to feel they are missing something, the image and knowledge that is presented is never complete. The empty quiet images will make the viewer long for something in a moment. The emptiness and vagueness allows them to make their own connections to longing or missing memory. Despite this the bright pop of occasional color brings hope back to the visuals. That memory or something one lost will come back with time. Hope comes after loss.
- Keri Halloran
