How to Disassemble a Watch, Phone, and Lawnmower: The Unmounting Photo Project by Todd McLellan

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In childhood, all of us were interested in learning how the surrounding objects are arranged. However, the elders for some reason did not encourage experiments in disassembling "adult" things. I had to be content with little things: cars or dolls. For many people, children's curiosity has not disappeared over the years, and no one can forbid uncles and aunts. Todd McLellan's photographic project "Disassembly" is a boy's dream come true to disassemble a clock and see what's ticking.

34-year-old Canadian photographer Todd McLellan lives in Toronto. Many people in his family loved to take pictures, but he himself only discovered this hobby after his first year in college.

Todd McLellan went to college to be a graphic designer. The year was not easy: the freshman had to work for hours at the desk. We managed to really shake things up only in the summer. It was then that the student turned up a camera under his arm. Since then, they have not parted, and for the last 6 years, Todd McLellan began to make money with commercial projects.

Todd McLellan's latest project, which he will pursue to the best of his ability, is about human curiosity and the technical perfection of old things. A telephone, a typewriter, a lawn mower and their brethren were bought by the photographer for a pittance. Yes, perhaps these devices are obsolete, but it turned out that they are still in working order. Why send them to the landfill?

Todd McClellan decided to take a series of photographs of a masterfully crafted technique that has never bothered with years. Here, they say, look, before things were done conscientiously, but now every now and then you run the risk of running into junk. But how to convey to the viewer the message “old is not worthless”? Todd McLellan tried this and that, but couldn't find anything better how to disassemble the watch, the lawnmower, the camera and show that the parts are in order.

Each item is presented twice in a series of photographs. The first picture shows how a master would disassemble the watch into cogs and gears: carefully laying out the parts so as not to lose anything. The second one demonstrates what a young researcher would do with things, such as in a poem by Emma Moshkovskaya: "I did not break the watch at all, But I just did not understand Who walks there and walks, And translates the arrows …"