"I became borderline obsessive": Why I couldn't stop photographing covered motorbikes

Sometimes, even I am surprised by what catches my eye. Photographing the less obvious aspects of the world is something I’m inherently drawn to. I’m more likely to be photographically ‘happy’ working in suburban scrubland on the outskirts of a semi-industrial port than in some classical photogenic chocolate-box landscape.

During my travels in 2022, I became partly obsessed with covered motorbikes. At first, I didn’t realise it was happening. However, I noticed when looking through my files that I’d shot several, almost without consciously thinking about what I was doing. 

Having acknowledged that I found these covered bikes a photographic curiosity, my eyes became attuned to noticing them more intently. Through the act of looking, I saw more and more of them, to the extent that it became borderline obsessive. I only have half a dozen or so from various countries in the world that I’m happy with, but I plan to keep my eyes open for more until I have a decent body of work. These four were taken in Greece, Costa Rica, Turkey and Israel respectively (clockwise from the top left).

I’m trying to process the origins of my interest in these covered bikes, not to mention myriad other minor photo-obsessions… which got me thinking. Perhaps the answer lies, in part, with French artist Marcel Duchamp. I’ve always been drawn to ideas around Duchamp’s ‘readymades’ and find the basic concept deeply appealing. A ‘readymade’ is an artistic approach most famously illustrated by Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ – the urinal that he signed and hung on a gallery wall. The basic idea is that by acknowledging something, anything, as art, you can elevate it to that status. 

Maybe it’s something along these lines that’s happening here, with these covered motorbikes. I sense that I respond to the bikes as if they were beautiful street sculptures and delight in the fact that for the most part, I’d assume they’re largely ignored and slip unnoticed into the background visual noise of a street scene.

Apart from anything, it’s an interesting way to engage with the world from a new perspective. Find your thing and give it a go – you never know where it might lead you. 

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