An additional key theme is the concept of change, the word change has various different meanings such as: ‘make or become different’; ‘take or use another instead of’ and ‘an act or process through which something becomes different.’ Both Toledano and Abril develop this in very similar but also slightly different ways. Laia Abril looks at change after death and how this effects the people within Cammy’s life. This differs to Toledano’s work as he explores the change in his fathers mental state as well as referencing change after the death of his mother, which is where the two projects link.

Abril investigates the aftermath of Cammy’s death within the family showing the family life after this significant event, which has changed, smiles turning into frowns and laughter turning into silence. The project includes extracts of Cammy’s diary, which states her feelings on the specific date of the 5th of September 1995 “How i’ve felt today, let’s see it people could ignore me more, Kaky is going out w/ banks & taking Auchra & Maggie. Umph, leave me and Becky out. Bitch, she’s not cool.” (including a photograph of a crying animated face.) There is also an extract which her brother explains “She starts losing weight before college, we all thought it was a positive thing, nobody actually knew what was really going on.” This suggest this is where the crucial change in Cammy’s life began. Throughout the book there is a consistent exploration of triggers and where this change occurred in her life and when the family started noticing something was seriously wrong. This is implied through images and context developed by the family themselves. There are also images of Cammy within the project where Bulimia has not affected her and these can clearly be compared to images of her when she was distinctly unwell. This displays a change in her physical condition as well as her mental state. Finally, there is also a huge change in the family atmosphere and relationship as her brother Tommy reveals “Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are brutal holidays in our family.” However, he mother admits “I remember feeling a relief  because she is in a safe place.” There is a continuous conflict in feeling grief and happiness that she is no longer in pain or miserable as she constantly tries to reach her vision of perfection. The families emotion change as well as their relationships with each other as they feel they feel the need to be closer to prevent feeling this loss again. I personally, feel the context within the book to be truly powerful and contribute to the meaning of the photographs. This specific photograph is of Cam, who is the mother of Cammy’s boyfriend Adam.  The image is a portrait style image, capturing her shoulders upwards as she stares straight with a glazed over look in her eyes. Suggesting she can’t focus or feel due to her pain.  Her eyes do not look at the camera but it appears she knows it is there but is feeling numb. The caption written next to the photograph reads “Everybody was waiting for Adam to propose to Cammy that fall.” This implies she feels some sort of guilt that her son was with Cammy while she was ill, also hurt and suffering to imagine her son’s grief as well as her own. This photograph refers to how future plans can be changed quickly and something/someone you love can vanish before your very eyes. As far as the quality of the image technically, I personally feel it is a strong image. The woman presented in the photograph is the main focus of the image as the background is blurred, centering our eyes to her face. The light used is natural and seems to be coming through the window, which is located behind her resulting in shadowing. The change in emotional state within this photograph reflects the effect of her death. This is something that would alter the familie’s life forever.

On the other hand, Phillip Toledano interpreted the idea of change slightly differently. Toledano explores the change in his fathers mental state as well as referencing change after the death of his mother. We observe a son, which is Phillip Toledano trying to ask the questions that never got asked in all the preceding years. It’s a tale of the mysteries and challenges of aging, the search for connection, the exposing of real selves, and the moments of love that come full circle when the roles are reversed and the child takes care of the parent. This reflects the change a  person goes through as a result of getting older. In the case of this project, memory loss is explored as well as the change in their life since the death of Toledano’s mother. One of these important changes is his fathers emotions, this refers to both his confusion due to his illness and also his grief as a result of his wife’s death. Toledano explains that “Sometimes, when we’re talking, my dad will stop, and sigh, and close his eyes. It’s then that I know he knows. About my mum. About everything.” Suggesting the emotional state has changed as he starts to remember upsetting events. This could also be linked to his physical change as his father was described as ‘firm-star handsome’ when he was young and this change into “a man no longer beautiful upsets him deeply.” This implies he does not like the changes within his life but knows and has always known that these days would come. It’s outcome of aging and it cannot be stopped. The changes in his life are challenging and hard to comprehend, which often leads him to feel “it is time for him to go, that he’s been around for too long.” This suggests this is a new feeling his father expresses, the way he feels about life is altered by the experiences he is faced with and the changes which have occurred. Throughout the book there is a consistent exploration of changes and where these might of occurred in his life and due to what events or experiences. This is implied through images and context developed by Toledano himself as well as quotes taken from his father. There are only images of his father when he is ill and the changes have already occurred, these cannot be compared to what his father was like before the illness through images but can be through context provided by Toledano. This displays a change in his physical condition as well as his mental state, focusing closely on confusion and grief. The context within the project gives the audience a deeper understanding of his father’s life from the past and the present. 

This image is a portrait of his father presented in a landscape format, again capturing the shoulders upwards. The main focus of the photograph is the man’s face as the background is blurred, leaving the focal point sharp and clear. He has a painful expression on his face, suggesting he is crying or hurt. This is clear as his nose is crumpled; his eyebrows frowning and his teeth clenching. His eye gaze is directed towards the floor and his back seems to be hunched over, rounding his shoulders as if he feels the pain physically. This suggests the change in his mental and emotional state, showing his frustration. This image was captioned with context which stating “Eating is often a miserable experience.” Toledano explains the one thing he did love was eggs: scrambled eggs; egg salad; egg-drop soup.” This implies he would stick to what he knew he liked and this was probably easy to make. The main reason I like this photograph is because it radiates emotion, which makes me sympathises towards him and his family. It is a painful image, which can be compared to contrasting photographs, which show times when he is happy and cheerful. The lighting of this image is dark on the viewers left side, which is contrasted with the right as it appears to have a beam of light shining on the top of his face, which I assume is coming from an artificial light. I personally feel this image is extremely strong and can be linked to straight or documentary photography as he documents his fathers emotions.

Straight photography understood 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 movement was first publicised in the early 1900’s through a note by The New York Times on an exhibition in New York with photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn, Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence H. White and many others. In the 1904 article ‘A Plea for Straight Photography,’ A critic Sadakichi Hartmann, expressed his regrets about the excessive handwork and painterly flourishes that characterised much of what he saw in Pictorialist photography, arguing, “We expect an etching to look like an etching, and a lithograph to look like a lithograph, why then should not a photographic print look like a photographic print?”   Straight photography was a result of Pictorialism. Pictorialism was in the time period of the 1880’s, which was around the time of the second industrial revolution. Romanticism was extremely popular at this time and this linked well with pictorialism photographs as they were like paintings, engravings or a drawings. It was a way of projecting an emotional intent into a viewer’s imagination. The characteristics pictorialism displayed were the blurred, fuzzy and textured images that almost look like paintings, this was through manipulating images, which is a key feature in pictorialism. This then provoked the idea of straight photography, which is completely different to Pictoralism as people felt images were being manipulated too much and therefore preferred photographs having more realistic features. They then focused on documenting events and every day life as they saw it. The key characteristic was really just true and real images, which represent elements of social, economical, political and culture and this was later named documentary photography. Similarly, realism claims to have a special relationship with reality and shows the cameras ability to record real events and real life without manipulation. Its a way in which the photographer sees the world and the way they choose to photograph it, portraying the truth. 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 photographic 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 story close to the truth of his experiences showing that manipulation of images is not needed to express this.  I have adopted a snapshot approach as I wanted the photographs to be raw and genuine, 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 simple 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.” – The guardian. 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. 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 an insight 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, she investigated and documented how a 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.