Over the last couple days after doing some research into different artists who specialise in tableaux style images, I decided to start planning for my own tableaux photoshoot inspired by tableaux in contemporary photography.
I started jotting down some ideas in the form of a mind-map to get my mind flowing and so I could write down anything that came to my min and I was commenting on the idea of re-creating my own childhood memories by looking at my own personal archive and to do this I would pay close attention to the use of costumes and props in order to tell a narrative. This was a great idea when I first cam up with it because I would take inspiration form artist such ass Irene Werning who looks at her own old childhood memories in the form of images her parents took when she was younger. This was something I was very keen to pursue but I the realised it would not show a very interesting narrative or let me explore the idea of memories and our relationship with our past and the memories we hold in our lives – the moments we cherish which has brought us happiness – I feel like this shoot would not allow me to explore this in the depth I wanted.
I also begun discussing the idea d using certain apps on my iPhone which allow users to take pictures in the effect of old and retro images – an analogue film effect that adds graininess and low quality to your photos to create a sense of nostalgia. The app I won called ‘8mm’ also alters the proportions of the frame/aspect ratio to add to the notion of creating a photo that looks like it was taken on an old film/disposable camera and this is something I still wish to explore but for the shoot I aim to complete this week, I want to look at something more contemporary – something inspired actually by an artist that I have not studied – being Rita Puig-Serra Costa – this is because I was not fully attached to either Almendros or Kapajeva’s images. I love Almendros’ contemporary, very polished style of his photos and I hope to transfer this over to my images but I will be mainly documenting on Costa’s work and in particular her series which focuses on portraits of family members and the objects they cherish themselves.
I hope to, this week compete this shoot once I have planned some more and I full understand what I wish to achieve and how I am going to go about it. I will need to contact several people who are close to me and ask them if I can photograph them individually and I will also ask them to collect an object whether that be a document, a teddy bear, a photo, a pencil – anything that has some meaning to them, preferably something which takes their mind back to when they were a child. I will then photograph this object against a black background in a mini studio set up and once both images of the person and the object which relates to them are done, I will then pair each corresponding one up. I hope to do this task with my mum, my step-dad, my girlfriend, my papa, my nan as well as myself and perhaps my dad and my sister.
Although I am not directly linking this tableaux shoot to my own childhood and re-creating my own childhood memory, I am doing it with my other family members and their own childhood memories so that I am linking the theme of family and archives. As well, I believe it will be nice effect to get each relative to write up a little passage, almost like a diary entry or a description of the object they have chosen and the relevance it has to them for me to then insert and quote this in the final production/sequence of images so it tells more of a narrative.
https://vimeo.com/124694405
