‘Family’ is a social relationship shared between different people, who are considered to be ‘related’ in some way to one another. Family has a very open-ended and general meaning. After researching on thee internet I found numerous interpretations of what family means

• a group of people related to one another by blood or marriage
• the children of a person or couple
• all the descendants of a common ancestor
• a race or group of peoples from a common stock
• close friends or group of friends

The definition of family isn’t hugely important. The important idea to grasp is that  family is effectively a strong bond shared between people or groups of people that is built on trust and understanding. Family whether through friendship, community or blood, is arguably the strongest bond between human beings, and has massive influence over a person’s morals, beliefs, ideas and livelihoods. Family usually lasts through an individuals life and is critical towards the decisions a person makes, there general well-being and personal development, with both  negative and positive effects. Instinctively, people feel a strong need to join into different social relationships and organisations. ‘Fitting in’ to a social group of some description can help to provide a person with a sense of comfort and security. It is based on a survival instinct – people feel less vulnerable to attack if they belong to a supportive group, hence the concept of ‘safety in numbers’.

Exploring Family through different forms of art.

The broad meaning of family makes it an effective topic to study . The openness of the way family can be interpreted allows for creative and original responses. An artist exploring the idea of family has the freedom to question its meaning.

In photography, an insider perspective of family may be easy or difficult to explore dependent on the artists viewpoint. A photographer willing to reveal an honest, emotionally attached perspective may find such a concept very easy. On the other hand, a photographer who finds such an idea difficult to reveal to a larger audience because of personal reasons may struggle much more with this idea. An insider perspective, i.e. photographing members of your family does have a considerable advantage because the photographer is less likely to face challenges getting access. It can however be quite limiting because you are only photographing what you already know, issues that strectch onnly within your comfort zone.

American Photographer Tina Barney is well known for photographing her close friends and family. She therefore explores the idea of family from an ‘insider’ perspective.

An outsider perspective may present similar challenges. Although it allows for an observed, detached perspective which some photographers may find more comfortable to explore, with greater diversity and rang, it is often however more challenging because the photographer is not considered ‘one of the group’, and therefore may face the challenge of gaining trust to photograph different people. Because photography is a very personal form a communication, many people may find the idea of being photographed by a stranger very uncomfortable.