Over half term I plan to take photographs for the theme of family of my mum in her different working environments, by taking photographs of her through out the day from when she wakes up getting ready for work to her working without interfering, taking photos of the buildings/ houses she works in from different angles, people she interacts with and objects and interesting belonging’s within the buildings. I’m aiming to photograph 3 different locations during this period. My mum works part time in wealthy households during the day and occasionally receives shifts at an old people’s care home and at night she works at the Town Hall.
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Atlantus
Atlantus is a photography project which Mr Toft and Gareth Syvret have been working on it explores the historical links between Jersey and New Jersey using photographs from the archive as a vital point . The project was inspired by 350th anniversary of the naming of New Jersey in America after Jersey by Sir George Carteret. This project is very research based in order to find identities, historical and geographic links between the two places for example: the Jersey cow being shipped too New Jersey as a gift. The project includes a wide variety of photographic styles from documentary, portraits, landscapes, interior and set up photographs.
One of my favorite photographs from the project is one of an African American woman standing on Asbury Park beach because of the story behind it which made it more interesting, Mr Toft found a photograph in the archive from years ago of Asbury’s wealthy community on the beach with African American slaves, the wealthy community then left. Today there is a large African American in Asbury the photograph shows the link between this and shows how this community has now evolved.
I liked the layout and the way that Atlantus was displayed as the narrative and flow of the images were quite easy to understand. I think this format is a new and creative way of displaying projects. The newspaper is folded into four this allows the receiver of the project to experiment and makes the project more interactive. Finally, I think newspapers are an easier way of presenting and can be distributed quicker.
Family beyond blood
I photographed birthday meals over two days of my closest friends, as part of my second idea of exploring what defines a family and family beyond blood relation. In the photograph’s I took are of my point of view of what was happening by ‘bare witnessing’ as most of the time they weren’t aware of me taking the photographs. Below are my favorite outcomes.
Sally Mann
“In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality” – Alfred Steiglitz (quote used to describe this photograph)
This photograph was taken by Sally Mann of her eldest daughter for her publication Immediate Family. This photograph can be seen as controversial because it’s of a girl who looks around 12 years of age holding a cigarette. I think the controversy makes the photo more powerful because it draws your attention. The girl is holding the cigarette in what can be deemed as an ‘adult pose’ which could also be described as the girl ‘playing adult’. The background is blurred you can just make out that they are in woods outdoor type of environment. This is done to make to main focus of the photograph the girl. There is also a strong contrast between black and white this makes the subject stand out more. In this photograph we don’t know what happened before or after, I think in this case the less we know about what is happening the more interesting the photograph becomes.
Tom Pope exhibition
I Am Not Tom Pope, You All Are Tom Pope
We visited the Tom Pope exhibition in St. Helier which represents the work he has created within the 6 months he has been in Jersey. One of his objectives for this project was to spread photographs from the Jersey archive into the community to ‘keep the archive alive’. Pope did this through his genre of work which incorporates repetition, chance and play into the making of his photography.
One of my favourite pieces of Tom’s work is “We Can Be Together” which is wearable face masks of people within the archive. I like this piece of work because I think it’s a good way to engage with the public, and it goes with Tom’s genre of play. For example one of the photographs displayed was of a group of people on the beach wearing the masks. However the way Tom displayed the masks in the exhibition wasn’t as interactive as the idea itself.
Another piece of his work which I also liked was the video which Tom made called “propositions”. The video displayed different photographs of postcards with photographs from the archive. Pope then wrote over the postcards and put the post cards into people’s bags without them realizing. I think that this is an interesting and unusual way of spreading the archive into the community. This idea came from back during the Nazi regime where a man put postcards into peoples belonging’s without them realizing and on the postcards there were retaliations against the Nazi’s.
Family album
I started looking through my family albums and found some photographs of my mum’s side of the family before and right after I was born. However I don’t have access to photographs which were taken any earlier than in 1997 because they are with my Nan who lives in Madeira. My mum is part of a 6 sibling family I was able to find photographs of two of her siblings who were living in Jersey at the time. I also found a photograph of my auntie and two of my cousins in Madeira outside my Nan’s house.
Family Ideas
Brainstorm of ideas:
- Traditions and beliefs
- Immediate/ extended family
- Different perspectives
- Past family – photo albums
- Daily routines
- Emotions
- Family of friends
- Blood relatives, adoption, careers
- What defines a family?
- Acceptance into families
I want to explore the Idea of family beyond the people that you are related to by blood such as communities, close friends and teams which can come through things such as hobbies. Linked on to this Idea I also want to explore what defines a family in the modern day rather than a typical traditional family. I’m going to try and photograph what it is like to be within a non- related family and the things that they get up to while spending time together on an everyday normal basis.
The second Idea that I would like to explore is the Idea of past family members, memories and old photo albums. By photographing what it’s like living without them now for example: taking pictures of what is going on in their past homes and what it was like before they past away by incorporating different photographs from family photo albums.
Sally Mann
Sally Mann is an American photographer now aged 64 who is well known for her black and white photographs of her young children and of landscapes which suggest decay and death. After she had graduated she worked as a photographer at Washington and Lee university. Her first publication was in 1984 and it was called Second Sight. She found her ‘trade mark’ with her second publication At Twelve: Portraits of Young Woman, 1988. This publication stimulated a minor controversy, the publication included photographs of “captured the confusing emotions and developing identities of adolescent girls [and the] expressive printing style lent a dramatic and brooding mood to all of her images.”. Sally is also well know for her publication called immediate family which includes black and white photographs of her three children taken at her family’s remote summer cabin. I particullary like this publication because it’s appealing to the eye, the images look natural and I like that Sally took a risk in exposing her children for the rest of the world to see and that her children also got a say in which photographs would be published.
Family photographers
“What is remarkable about the photographs is the special way in which they make the intimate something public”
Nick Waplington born in 1965 is a artist and photographer who is based in New York. He studied art at West Sussex College of Art & Design in Worthing, then Trent Polytechic in Nottingham and at the Royal College of Art in London. He has many publications his first one being ‘Living Room’ .In the late 1980’s England was under the Conservative government for now 10 years there was a collapse in the industry and a rise in poverty and unemployment. Photographer Nick Waplington decided to spend 4 year photographing the everyday life of middle class families in a council estate in Nottingham rather that photographing contemporary photography. He photographed family’s intimate moments in their living room by capturing physical and emotional dysfunctionality of everyday families.
Inaki Domingo is a Spanish photographer who made a book called Ser Sangre which is a photographic project that was made by Inaki Domingo in collaboration with his family members on their summer vacation. The title means ‘being blood’ which suggests that this book looks to explore what it’s like to be related and exploring the family flow whilst doing normal daily activities. Inaki’s idea was for his family members to be part of his final project and take part in the decision making that goes with it. Each family member contributed to the project in a way that they thought was relevant for example: paintings, recipes and illustrations. Inaki combined these contributions and the photographs he had taken throughout the holiday to make his final project.
