On this mind map I have just placed the main thoughts I have about this up coming projects and the different paths I could take. The main ideas that I could explore are my families FAITH or my grandmothers DEMENTIA and how the roles have changed between family members. I took inspiration from my exam project as I really enjoyed that project. I also want to incorporate that into my project. Through difficult and upsetting times our families faith has kept us together and given us hope, its such a large part to our family. Less so but my great grandmothers dementia is also a large part of the family as my Nan has to work around this and look after her mother like shes her child. The roles in my family have somewhat changed.
As further experimentation to the idea of family photography and the difference between documentary and tableaux and the links with family and archives, i decided to do a mini project. When i think of archives i think of my mums photo albums that she used to make when i was younger and they were full of images of the most important events and celebrations of that specific year. As these were also printed out images i wanted to replicate this as much as possible and therefore got a disposable camera because then they will have that old style film camera look. Linking again to family photography i am going to focus on capturing the most important events and celebrations that i experience in the month of september with my family and friends(which is like another family). the challenge of the film camera is that it has a set number of exposures therefore i have to make sure to only take a few good photos at each event. I feel this will extend my photographic ability as i will be having to think about the images that i want to capture and the placement of these images.
The photographs will become a mixture of archival images which are both documentary and tableaux because i am assuming that some will be taking very much in the moment and some i may get a group of people to gather round to get a ‘family style’ photograph.
These are the final outcomes of my shoot i had them developed at the end of September and found that i was being so careful with what images i captured that i didn’t even use all of the exposures. I really enjoyed doing a shoot/ mini project in this style because it has left me with archival images of my family and friends which are pictures of important and significant events but only a few key images. The shoot links back to the idea of family archives as these images will now become my archives of September 2017 which i will keep and be able to look back on similarly to what my mum had created when i was younger.
In my opinion this style of archive focuses more on tableaux photography as the images have had to be staged in a way to get a group of my family/friends to stand together and look at the camera. This is a true representation of what most family albums (archives) are created from and brings a real sense of family to my images.
“July 1st, 2009, birth of Joséphine. Doubt and fear mingle with joy and pride. Having a child can be the simplest thing in the world. For us, it was long, unlikely, unique. In maternity, they call it a “precious pregnancy”. It is also an imbalance announced to our life as a couple, a love story for two to rebuild to three.”
This series by French artist, Arno Brignon looks at the fragility of birth and being a mother and how carefully you need to transform your life in order to mold this new introduction into your being as human – what you lived for before pregnancy all of a sudden changes and this explored through a very diverse range of portraits and landscapes delicately addressing the topic of birth and the fear of your family crumbling.
I believe the concept and content of this very moving series is relatable to my thoughts for my project where I will look at the fragility of family life through divorce and the events that come after this. I love the colours in this series and the textures that are achieved from using film as opposed to digital. The graininess is very nostalgic and suitable.
Paul Gaffney - We Make The Path By Walking
The British Journal Of Photography writes “Nothing much is happening in the images and there are no people in sight, yet everything is happening; knotted, overgrown roots catch the light and weave in and out to form complex networks; a craggy cliff-side reveals an intricate patterned texture; windswept vegetation exposes an inviting pathway. Gaffney’s sensitive handling of the landscape allows his subjects to breathe, and through their very subtlety the images sing.”
It is Gaffney’s first self-publishes book and contains photographs taken in rural Spain, Portugal and France. The idea he explains was to explore long-distance walking as “a form of meditation and personal transformation.”
Although this project does not include any people whatsoever and focuses solely on landscapes and the environment around us, the images included in the series I hope will influence the style of imagery I capture for the images I produce of the environmental/location aspect of my project. What I like about the images are the very surrealist sense about them, as in some examples, it looks very overgrown with greenery and this often juxtaposes against an urban background. My images will not be as dramatic as this but will adapt the effect of looking hazy.
Heikki Kaski - Tranquility
https://vimeo.com/125994256
Heikki Kaski (born in Kantvik, Finland, 1987) lives and works in Finland and throughout Scandinavia.
In the series, ‘Tranquillity’, there is a tension, a beat-down quality, that is beautifully conveyed in the barely balanced framing and dusty, drained palette of the photographs.
Heikki Kaski’s pictures of the town in California with a now population of 799 people and its inhabitants. It is a fractured series of reflections on a landscape that seems to have outlived its own history. He tells the story of the very quiet and isolated town and the people within through smart and sleek images of objects, portraits and landscapes. The images are very aesthetically pleasing and it something I am hoping to show in my project consisting of similar style images. Although a completely different context, the look and meaning behind the project will be similar to that of Kaski; I will look to the show the people that have a particular relation to environments and how this affects the lifestyle of these people. Although focusing on divorce, I am focusing on memories and the thoughts of my mum and dad that take them back to “good times” as such which will be displayed through very simple images of environments and portraits.
What I like about the project is the physical book which showcases the work so very elegantly. The set-out of the images on the pages, the colours involved and the overall look is very representative of the thoughts I have in mind to be minimalist in my presentation.
Rita Puig-Serra Costa - Where Mimosa Bloom
Rita Puig-Serra Costa’s work is very captivating and speaks lots about family and the relatives within shown through the thoughtful use of showing a family tree through the archival portraits of her family members.
Dealing with the grief that the photographer suffered following the death of her mother, ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ by Rita Puig Serra Costatakes the form of an extended farewell letter; with photography skilfully used to present a visual dedication through speech and imagery to her deceased mother. This grief memoir about the loss of her mother is part meditative photo essay, part family biography and part personal message to her mother. These elements combine to form a fascinating and intriguing discourse on love, loss and sorrow. “Where Mimosa Bloom” is the result of over two years work spent collecting and curating materials and taking photographs of places, objects and people that played a significant role in her relationship to her mother, writes the site’s statement in which the book is available of purchase.
The concept is something similar to what I hope to follow through with in my own memoir to my mum and dad and myself and the lives we have since followed after the division of the family. I will be focusing on the relatives from then and from now who have played significant role in shaping my life to what it is now and who I am now because I feel using the technique of including myself and revolving the project around myself will make it easier for me to tell a better story.
I have already looked at the work of Serra-Costa and really enjoyed producing something so contemporary which revolves around the close collaboration with my subjects to produce the end result – I look forward to doing so again in my current project but on a much larger scale.
My Idea
I am going to focus my study on my mum and dad and the event that changed my own experiences as well their own and the events we would come to experience together, as a collective throughout my upbringing as a child into a teenager and into a young adult to who I am now – their divorce. When I was at the tender age of 4 – when I was aware of my surroundings and what went on in my life – who my most closest relatives were and who I could put my trust into to develop as human to who I am now. At 4, however, you don’t know the concept of love and what the event of you being born can do to a couple who were once unconditionally in love with each other. It causes stress, friction and unwanted distancing from one another – love has the potential to eventually break the people involved.
I have therefore chosen to explore this very fragile and mildly taboo subject of divorce further in my own personal investigation for the year to come. The final result of this very in-depth and rigorous investigation about the relationship which was once there between my mother and father and to what it is now will be a photobook consisting of the images I aim to produce for the remainder of my A2 year.
When handed the task to collate several ideas about what you wish to hone in on for your own personal study at the beginning of the week, it is an understatement to say that I struggled to find something I had the passion and motivation to do. I wanted to focus on the concept of family because I feel like more of a narrative can be told through this concept and I was very eager to start exploring own family. Hover, I did not know what this “special” thing was that I actually wanted to look into because I couldn’t think of anything that would generate some exciting thoughts in my mind. I had the idea to use my sister – to show the contrast between my childhood and hers through t use of my own personal archival imagery, or maybe the use of my girlfriend and her own family and the juxtaposition of her own and my now family and idea of “family”, however, this did not excite me enough and I finally came to the conclusion to investigate the divorce if my mum and ad when I was at the tender age of 4. This very influential event has affected my life since the very day I found out the spit of my parents and even though I d not fully understand this very complex subject and concept when told at the time, it has followed me throughout my life and it has moulded how I am, as well the rest of my family, including my now 4 year old sister herself and my relationship with her.
I will be focusing predominantly on the work of Japanese photographer,Yoshikatsu Fujii. In particular, I will be using her book, Red String as my inspiration for my project based around my parents and myself and my relationship with both of them.
Yoshikatsu Fujii was born and raised in Hiroshima City. He graduated from Tokyo Zokei University of Arts with BA in Art Film. He began photography work in Tokyo in 2006. His photographic works often deal with historical themes and memory lingering on in contemporary events.
What I love about Fujii’s work is the very diverse range of materials and resources used in the book. Not only is the actual book handmade very carefully with fabric and actual red-string used as decoration throughout, but he has used archival imagery from his personal archive about his mother and father, but also inserts of texts and transcribed discourse from his parents and contemporary imagery to balance out the theme of looking back at the past but also living in the moment and exploring more about his present day family.
The reasoning behind the title ‘Red String’ is because of a legend that use to exist in Japan. In Japan, legend has it that a man and woman who are predestined to meet have been tied at the little finger by an invisible red string since the time they were born.
Unfortunately, the red string tying my parents undone, broke, or perhaps was never even tied to begin with. But if the two had never met, I would never have been born into this world. If anything, you might say that there is an unbreakable red string of fate between parent and child.
Fujii’s book about his parents divorce ‘Red String’
On Tuesday the 10th October, I had a study period and due to my school being in close proximity to a graveyard, I chose to visit the site and develop a feel for taking images ahead of my visit to the churches of Jersey on Sunday. As I photographed the scene, I noticed the pictures were increasingly dark causing me to decrease the ISO to around 100/200 which decreased the grainy texture of the image also, however, for my shoot on Sunday I will bring a tripod and adjust the shutter speed so it is longer, allowing more light in.
Among the tombstones were elements of nature, for instance, this mushroom. I found this tiny little fungi in the middle of dead leaves, that have dried up in the moisture of winter. These two juxtapositions were interesting to photograph and stimulated ideas in my head to capture elements of dead vs. living in my project by using the graveyards of churches. In my mind, I envisioned the leaves to be symbolic of graves and the mushroom to represent a person temporarily visiting the dead. The mushroom grows through and is attached to the ground of the graveyard, giving an emotional attachment to this place by either memories or the burial of a specific person, demonstrating how there is a correlation and common ground between the dead and living.
Photography can lie we see this constantly in online media and newspapers whether that’d be an image that has been cropped a certain way or an object that has been removed from the image completely giving the photograph a completely new meaning. As most individuals now days have access to editing software photographs have somewhat become unreliable. However, most people do still see a photo record as something reliable. When a photo is released in a newspaper or news channel people take it for granted that the photo has not been tampered with or edited in anyway. Yet when we look through the past news photos often been edited to convey a certain way, showing bias towards one point of view or dramatizing a certain event. Most of the time these little subtle changes go unnoticed however there are many cases the audience have picked up on the changes.
Photos can change the way people view certain situations and literally change the worlds decisions. A good example of this is the photo below. The photo is of the a Vietnam soldier mercilessly executing what looks like an innocent civilian in the streets. In the this photo the man with gun is clearly portrayed as the bad guy in this situation. This photo was recorded from the violence of the Vietnam war in 1968. This photo was taken back to america for millions of people to witness. This caused peoples attitudes towards the war to change as this photo captured the graphic, raw, brutal and violent side of war. The name of the man with the gun is called General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Nguyen Ngoc Loan was denied medical attention at an Australian hospital after being shot in the leg. He was then sent to America where there was a campaign to have him deported all due to this photo below. People didn’t want a stone cold killer in their country. For the rest of his life he was hated by anyone who recognized him. The photographer himself said
“Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.”
It was later discovered that the man getting shot in the photo wasn’t as innocent as people thought. The man on the right was a Vietcong officer Nguyen Van Lem who was captured at the site of a mass grave that included the bodies of at least seven police family members. This man was a killer. Yet because people only saw photographic evidence of him being killed they saw the General as the bad guy. This is a clear example of how photography can misdirect people to believe something that never happened. A photograph with no words or explanation can be as dangerous as a gun. This is the point the photographer has now released after this photo was so misunderstood. Photographer said he had a lot of sympathy for the shooter and wished he had never published the picture. The article below explains how the officer had done the correct thing yet he was persecuted for the rest of his life.
This is a clear example of how photography can actually lie without there being any sort of editing. This was all due to the fact people were not exposed to the story behind the photo. However, the photo below clearly shows how editing can take place not to change the story necessarily but instead make it clear. The photo of an anti-war demonstration at Kent State University, Ohio, May 4, 1970. Four students were killed when Ohio National Guard troops fired at 600 anti-war demonstrators. As you can see the first photo hasn’t been edited and some would say that the more reliable, less bias version of the photo however, it looks like the pole is coming out of the women’s head so the photographer removed this. Personally I think this was ok as it is not change the story the photo is trying to tell it is only making it clear for the view what has happened.
To record and share an event has become so easy now day as almost every person has access to a camera and some form social media. This given everyone the opportunity to share their stories and experiences they have had around the world that main media such as the news may have not cover if it wasn’t for the amateurs using their device to record this. We see this a lot with terror attacks as often people use their camera to record the aftermath and even when its happening. This can be used as evidence and to give awareness of the brutality that may have taken place. Due to the internet and these recording devices information has never been so easy to access.
A Stroke occurs when the blood supply to your brain is interrupted or reduced. This deprives your brain of oxygen and nutrients, causing your brain cells to die. A stroke may be caused by a blocked artery, which would be called a Ischemic stroke or the leaking or bursting of a blood vessel, which is called a hemorrhagic stroke.
You are more likely to suffer from a stroke if the individual is overweight, aged 55 or over, have a family or personal history of strokes, doesn’t often exercise, drinks alcohol heavily, smokes or uses drugs.
The main symptoms an individual will experience would be:
Confusion- This can be trouble communicating such as with speaking and understanding.
Headaches
Numbness or inability to more parts of the face, arm or leg, particularly on one side of their body.
Trouble seeing- This can be in both or one eye
Trouble walking- Including dizziness and a lack of co-ordination
There are also some long term problems which arise from Strokes:
Bladder or bowel control problems
Depressive moods
Pain in the hands and feet, getting worse with movement and changes in temperature
Paralysis or weakness on one side of the body
Trouble controlling or expressing emotions
How is a Stroke Diagnosed?
Strokes happen fast and will often occur before an individual can be seen by a doctor for a proper diagnosis.
There are several different types of diagnostic tests that doctors can use to determine which type of stroke has occurred:
Physical examination – a doctor will ask about the patient’s symptoms and medical history. They may check blood pressure, listen to the carotid arteries in the neck, and examine the blood vessels at the back of the eyes, all to check for indications of clotting.
Blood tests – a doctor may perform blood tests to find out how quickly the patient’s blood clots, the levels of particular substances (including clotting factors) in the blood, and whether or not the patient has an infection.
CT scan – a series of X-rays that can show hemorrhages, strokes, tumors, and other conditions within the brain.
MRI scan – radio waves and magnets create an image of the brain to detect damaged brain tissue.
Carotid ultrasound – an ultrasound scan to check the blood flow in the carotid arteries and to see if there is any plaque present.
Cerebral angiogram – dyes are injected into the brain’s blood vessels to make them visible under X-ray, to give a detailed view of the brain and neck blood vessels.
Echocardiogram – a detailed image of the heart is created to check for any sources of clots that could have traveled to the brain to cause a stroke.
Ischemic strokes and hemorrhagic strokes require different kinds of treatment.
How the two types of strokes are treated:
How is ischemic stroke treated?
Ischemic strokes are caused by arteries being blocked or narrowed, and so treatment focuses on restoring an adequate flow of blood to the brain.
Treatment can begin with drugs to break down clots and prevent others from forming. Aspirin can be given, as can an injection of a tissue plasminogen activator (TPA). TPA is very effective at dissolving clots but needs to be injected within 4.5 hours of stroke symptoms starting.
Emergency procedures include administering TPA directly into an artery in the brain or using a catheter to physically remove the clot. Recent studies have questioned the effectiveness of these methods, and so research is still ongoing as to how beneficial these procedures are.
There are other procedures that can be carried out to decrease the risk of strokes or TIAs. A carotid endarterectomy involves a surgeon opening the carotid artery and removing any plaque that might be blocking it.
Alternatively, an angioplasty involves a surgeon inflating a small balloon in a narrowed artery via catheter and then inserting a stent (a mesh tube) into the opening to prevent the artery from narrowing again.
How is hemorrhagic stroke treated?
Hemorrhagic strokes are caused by bleeding into the brain, so treatment focuses on controlling the bleeding and reducing the pressure on the brain.
Treatment can begin with drugs given to reduce the pressure in the brain, control overall blood pressure, prevent seizures and prevent sudden constrictions of blood vessels. If the patient is taking blood-thinning anti-coagulants or an anti-platelet medication like Warfarin or Clopidogrel, they can be given drugs to counter the medication’s effects or blood transfusions to make up for blood loss.
Surgery can be used to repair any problems with blood vessels that have led or could lead to hemorrhagic strokes. Surgeons can place small clamps at the base of aneurysms or fill them with detachable coils to stop blood flow and prevent rupture.
If the hemorrhage was caused by arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), surgery can also be used to remove small them if they are not too big and not too deep within the brain. AVMs are tangled connections between arteries and veins that are weaker and burst more easily than other normal blood vessels.
Rehabilitation
Strokes are life-changing events that can affect a person both physically and emotionally, temporarily or permanently. After a stroke, successful recovery will often involve specific rehabilitative activities such as:
Speech therapy – to help with problems producing or understanding speech. Practice, relaxation, and changing communication style, using gestures or different tones for example, all help.
Physical therapy – to help a person relearn movement and co-ordination. It is important to get out and about, even if it is difficult at first.
Occupational therapy – to help a person to improve their ability to carry out routine daily activities, such as bathing, cooking, dressing, eating, reading, and writing.
Joining a support group – to help with common mental health problems such as depression that can occur after a stroke. Many find it useful to share common experiences and exchange information.
Support from friends and family – to provide practical support and comfort. Letting friends and family know what can be done to help is very important.
Rehabilitation is an important and long part of treatment. With the right help, rehabilitation to a normal quality of life is possible, depending on the severity of the stroke.
First-time incidence of stroke occurs almost 17 million times a year worldwide; one every two seconds. There are over 1.2 million stroke survivors in the UK. 3 in 10 stroke survivors will go on to have a recurrent stroke or TIA. 1 in 8 strokes are fatal within the first 30 days
Some Statistical facts
There are more than 100,000 strokes in the UK each year; that is around one stroke every five minutes.
There are over 1.2 million stroke survivors in the UK.
Every two seconds, someone in the world will have a stroke.
Stroke is the fourth single leading cause of death in the UK and the third in Scotland.
There are over 400 childhood strokes a year in the UK.
Black people are twice as likely to have a stroke compared to
white people.
Stroke is a leading cause of disability in the UK – almost two
thirds of stroke survivors leave hospital with a disability.
More than 8 out of 10 people in the UK who are eligible for
the emergency clot-busting treatment thrombolysis
receive it.
Only 3 out of 10 stroke survivors who need a six month
assessment of their health and social care needs receive one.
The NHS and social care costs of stroke are around £1.7 billion x2 a year in England.
My idea is to create a project about my granddad, showing how his life has changed dramatically from illness, which started from a stroke, leading to other illnesses impacting his life. He did not only change physically having his eye removed, losing control of the left side of his face, the incapability to walk and having difficulty communicating. But he also changed emotionally, his personality changing hugely, his sense of humour changed as we found he was now a more serious person than he ever was before. He often gets frustrated with himself when he can’t do tasks he once could do, such as walk long distances, driving, having a bath, read a book, fly on a plane to go on holiday and making dinner.
Now as a result of his illness, he can’t:
Walk far at all and when he does walk he has to use a walking stick and often gets heart pains, he use to love walking and exercising so this becomes frustrating and upsetting for him as he can’t do what he once enjoyed.
He can’t drive as he got his driving license taken off him as he would be incapable to drive safely on the roads, as he is only now has one eye and finds it hard to feel his feet, often they cramp up, leaving him with an extreme pain. This is hard for him to get out the house to go to various places, which stops him going out at all. He goes out once a week normally to play dominos at his local pub, he looks forward to this time of the week.
He now has to have a shower instead of a bath as he is unable to get into the bath and out of the bath, which makes him feel helpless and as if he can’t do anything for himself anymore. You can really see that this affects him.
He loved books and learning new things, he was and still is a very intelligent man. However, he now can’t read the small text in a book, so often uses a kindle, which he can change the text size or has to use a magnifying glass to make the words big enough for him to read. His reading speed is increasing getting slower, which makes it hard for him to read.
He also has been advised not to get on flights longer than an hour, which makes him anxious about travelling, this results in me and my family not seeing him as much as we would like as we would have to flight to see him all the time, which is hard for my parents to get time off work and flights become expensive.
My project will consist of archival images of my granddad before he was affected by the stroke, when he was the person everyone in his life before this remembered him, some of these will be adapted. It will also include documentary photographs of him performing his daily routine and I will also take images of images, which have great significance to his routine. Some of these images may be slightly staged but they will all be of things he would usually do on a day to day basis.
The main concept of this project is how a change biologically can affect the individual mentally and physically. The project aims to show these changes.
When looking back at the previous projects certain ones really stand out for me. The majority of the ones I enjoyed the most were portrait projects as I enjoyed manipulating peoples faces and distorting them in different ways as well as bringing out certain important and striking features. I enjoyed doing staged photo shoots, shoots that were different and interesting. These often caused problems however I enjoyed work around those problems and working on them. Just like the shoot that is displayed on the left above. Here I had to work round the drum kits but also incorporate it. I also enjoyed Johnny Briggs task as I found it enabled me to have an even more creative stance in photography giving me more freedom to not get everything perfect and encouraged to make mistakes. Like the previous projects I have talked about I also enjoyed working on the identity project as I found an artist that produced creative and striking work. I wanted to recreate this in my own way but still doing the original artist justice.
I also really enjoyed my exam project as I was able to tear and rip my work. This felt much more creative than just taking photos. I also liked taking good photos with good lighting then ripping them up. For some reason I felt a sense of freedom in this project. Throughout all these projects there is a sense of creativity and something different. I’d like to incorporate this in my next project as this will encourage me to actually get work done as I will enjoy want I am doing.
Churches are all around us in different shapes, sizes and forms for different religions. I am going to specifically focus upon the Christian church as this is an area I have the most knowledge in and within the Western region of the world, particularly England as Christianity is the most prominent religion according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_Kingdom.
Initially, I researched the influence of religion within my tiny Channel Island and that’s when I discovered; “two fifths of the island are… irreligious”, signifying the decreasing power of the Christian church over society. Getting as close to home as possible, I studied the history of Saint. Clement’s and the four churches within the parish, although only two of these are Christian churches. This is the parish where I live so these churches are very accessible, but with the help of my trusty moped and due to the small nature of Jersey I am able to study all Jersey Christian churches. Following my research upon the religious scene in Jersey, I discovered Jersey’s established church is the Church of England, and although Christianity equates for half of Jersey’s population, wikipedia states irreligion has been an increasing force in Jersey. A demographic which I come under as I am an atheist, however, I do respect the values that Christianity promotes, especially as they correspond with modern day law and legislation.
The Parish Church
Fundamentally, what I do not support about Christianity is how in history and even more contemporary, in less educated global regions, the papacy have exploited the good-will of church goers for their money, demonstrating their indoctrination to religion. Recently, I watched a documentary known as “Deception of the Ages Nigeria”, which is available on YouTube. The documentary establishes this sense of exploitation of the lower class which angers me as these people have no money, they cannot afford for their children to have efficient education, yet the church is coercing finances from these families as they are not educated enough to understand the hoax they’re being gulled with, portraying life’s vicious cycle. This is just one of many examples I could provide to signify my anger towards the purpose behind the church.
A Christian Church in Nigeria
In response to the task set, I have decided to steer my focus towards the Christian church and how they have exploited the ancient literature of the Bible to gain money and power from the common people. Another reason why the Christian church has angered me is as recently, I unfortunately had to attend a funeral for a family friend who is the mother of one of my close friends. At the young age of 47, this lady lost her ten month battle with cancer. This lady was a mother of four extremely successful and lovely natured children and this death would leave a void in their lives all too soon. However, on the day of the funeral, with hundreds of people attending who were crying, sobbing, snuffling, the church televised an extract from the Bible. The b***** Bible. At such a tender time, the priest discussed how now sweet Elizabeth will rest with God. I can’t really justify why this angered me except to say its selfish. At this point, these four suffering children are numb with tears streaming down their face whilst a priest recites a quotation from the Bible. It goes unsaid I appreciate my mother’s health and eternally grateful that I wasn’t in that position, but I envisioned myself in that position of my close friend. I imagined that I was stood in her position, crying and having to say goodbye to my mother for the final time whilst this priest mumbled and gargled shit from the Bible. I stand outside of the ceremony starring inside to again, see my friend crying which is when I remember a thing I once discovered from a source I have now forgotten but it was the ‘seven’ stages of grief and this relates so well to what I can see happening to my friend.
Another reason to base upon my work upon grief, the church and orientate the production around the number ‘seven’ is that, within the content of the Bible, it states there are ‘seven’ deadly sins. I think basing my piece around the number seven will also give me some guidance to how I should arrange my work.
7 Deadly Sins List & Meanings
Envy = the desire to have an item or experience that someone else possesses
Gluttony = excessive ongoing consumption of food or drink
Greed or Avarice = an excessive pursuit of material possessions
Lust = an uncontrollable passion or longing, especially for sexual desires
Pride = excessive view of one’s self without regard to others.
Sloth = excessive laziness or the failure to act and utilize one’s talents
Wrath = uncontrollable feelings of anger and hate towards another person
On Sunday the 15th of October, I plan to photograph as many churches as I can from outside in order to create a typology of churches. This will give me experience with photographing churches and discovering what churches are the best buildings to capture images of for future preference.
Due to my shoot being on a Sunday, I may also capture the services churches hold on a Sunday in order to gather more images for the future.
From my current project by looking at family and Environment, I am looking to move onto my own project based on where I explore my own environment that is of particular significance of me. I have completed activities recently by trying to include influences from archives when and where I could. This has included my own personal archive and public archives such as the ones at Alliance Francaise. I have found it particularly interesting taking shoots of documentary and Tableaux and understand the principles of how this can be implemented in my work for this year.
After this past year since joining Hautlieu, I have explored many different topics, some which I enjoy particularly more than others which essentially some have stimulated my creative desire to explore certain topics further. I believe that from this, I have a strong understanding of certain subjects which I believe I can strive in. I particularly enjoyed looking at my landscape: Abstract and Surrealism, and structure topics that I believe I have explored the differing environments which fascinate me which has influenced my decision to persue looking at my own Christian environment. However topics which I feel I haven’t felt I have enjoyed as much is particularly the portrait work that I have completed. This is because portrait work for me I feel limits me in expressing my on views and opinions where landscpae photography opens up a lot more opportunity in order to be creative.
When working alongside Jonny Briggs and Tanja Deman I feel I have learned to appreciate different motives of photography and broadened my horizon in possible choices when considering how I can explore my independent project. By working with both artists, I have gained skills that are transferable in how I can construct a photograph in order to convey a particulate message like Jonny, or with like Tanja, how we can show others how we see the world through or eyes. With this I am more confidant, considerate and careful in when I construct a photograph, or when I look for something to document in a certain way.
By looking at both very different photographers who look at different genres, I now can look for specific details and wider composition within photographs that help define the image and has influenced the format in the particular photographs relating to my independent project. I have a strong interest in expressing my own feelings towards a particular interest, and with this independent project which I shall explore my own Christianity, I can focus on the specific details which I have learned from my previous topics to help convey what the meaning of faith and Christianity is to me. This concept will be very significant this year in how I use this composition to explore my feelings at a certain time towards a particular point in my Christian Journey.
One major aim is to explore to the full extent of my own current state of emotions and feelings at a particular point in my life, with the help of archives, producing links between now and the past and so hopefully I can elaborate where I have come from, where I am, and where I may be going next. In the past I have worked on a lot of photograph manipulation, particularly in my landscape work, However in my own independent project I shall be looking to work on a more documentary approach to this where I shall do much less manipulation than in the past. This is because I want to focus more on the realities of my life, and don’t want to distort the truth from the truth and I believe minimal manipulation can help paint a most accurate picture of my Christian journey. Therefore my work I expect will be a much more simple approach in my editing process where I will particularly look to enhance certain colors or make minor changes that help enhance the truth of how I feel.
Rita Puig-Serra Costa’s work is very captivating and speaks lots about family and the relatives within shown through the thoughtful use of showing a family tree through the archival portraits of her family members.
