Straight photography as we see it today captures an image of a scene as we see it in reality, often using sharp focus, wide depth of field and refraining from image manipulation. This style of photography relates to my own project that I am working on, as well as the artists’ work I am exploring. In my own study of my Granddad I wanted to capture a realistic insight into his life, struggles and illness, by taking photographs in a documentary style creating a true story and shows that a large amount of manipulation of images is not needed to express this. I have used a snapshot approach as I wanted the photographs to be raw and true, with hints of the vernacular present throughout. This reflects a closeness, a familiarity, intimacy and every-day connection. It is not staged.
However, some images in my book have been converted to black and white or even cropped, but these are very simply and is not manipulated enough for the image to be untrue. Realism is about giving “the observer a feeling of intrusion on privacy when looking at it.” This is another aim of my own project as well as the artists.
Phillip Toledano’s work for example gives outsiders a personal view of his father’s last days as he has photographed him experiencing everyday life inside his home, which people who are on the outside of their life would not be able to witness, if not for Toledano’s photography. This notion is what inspired me to follow a similar aim in my own photographs. For example, accessing archival imagery of my granddad is something which can be seen as something very personal and as a photographer, putting these images into to my own project gives outsiders a taste of his personal life behind closed doors previously as well as showing more recent photographs of his life now, letting the viewers make a comparison and detect change between then and now. On the other hand, the photographs produced by Phillip and myself can also be seen as narrative photography as the sequence of images are made to tell a story to the viewers through the pages and images produced. Narrative photography can be both documentary style photography or tableaux photography, both myself and Toledano use narrative photography in a documentary style. This means it’s more of a story of true events and situations compared to tableaux, which are staged and made up photographs, however, they can be based on a real event. Another example of a artist who uses both documentary and narrative photography is Laia Abril, who is a well-known photographer, which I have researched previously for this specific personal study. She investigated and documented how the family coped with the aftermath of losing their daughter to bulimia. Separating the work into sections allowed her to approach different aspects through different platforms, not only in the multiplicity of perspectives but also in a constantly evolving visual stimulation. All three projects ‘Days with my father’, ‘The Epilogues’ and my personal study entitled ‘The Aftermath’ all tackle emotion subjects, specifically change, absence and fate.
Paragraph 2 and 3 will be more investigation into the 3 key words, which are ‘fate,absence and change.’ I will also insert images in between these paragraphs to reinforce the text. I will also include influences for both my own work and also Phillip’s work as well as analysing his work as well as cross-referencing the work of Laia Abril to help support my text and ideas.