I think its important to establish who you are photographing before you start shooting. My Gran is 74 years old, born in 1944 in Nottingham, she experience WW2. She was meant to be born in Alderney but everyone on the island was evacuated, her and her family sheltered in a house on the mainland but not for too long as the war was nearly over. Since living in Jersey she met my late grandad and had two babies , they divorced when their youngest child went to uni. My gran moved to the current house she is living in now on her own, shes had love interests since but they either didn’t work out of died. I met her mother when I was little but around when I was 3 years old she died in Alderney. I never met her father, she hardly ever mentioned him. She currently has four grandchildren but two are at boarding school and this is my last year on island and I can tell that she is being to lose purpose.

The house she lives in now has great significance to me, it was the first place I slept without either of my parents, it was the place I would go when mum was at work or going out, it became my third home after my dads. I remember so vividly counting sheep in the attic room to get myself to sleep as I thought the house was haunted and I still do today. The kitchen has significance because its where I made my first cake and she would always make cheese on toast for me and no one could make it better than her.

I used to as a child think it was weird she lived alone when she had a committed boyfriend but I understand it, she likes her own small space and I think after years and years of looking after my grandad she just wants to look after herself and not relive it with another man. She likes her small house because its easy to keep tidy and it doesn’t feel empty to her. She frequently is out playing squash, cards, country dancing, holidays, meals, visiting friends and family, but when I see her she’s always at home, when I think of her the house is a part of my image.

My Images

Analysis

Overall I am pleased with my shoot as I feel I have several successful images. All images of my gran are candid as required of the task but I wanted to also include close up images of item and furniture in her house in order to get a further sense of who my gran is. I’ve always wanted to capture images of my grans house as I feel it has so much character to it, all the trinkets and photos hold meaning and have a story behind them. I feel her house mirrors her age well because modern houses are usual minimal, mostly white and lack individuality. When I arrived she was just sat on her sofa listening to the radio with a paper in her hand so I captured that, rather then placed her in an unnatural position, I wanted it to feel as authentic as possible, therefore I had low levels of control. She then later went in the kitchen to make a cup of tea so I followed her and just took shots of her getting on with it and then some close ups of features in that room. I used natural lighting in all my images and a mixture of close ups and wide angle images. I have cropped every photo in lightroom to get rid of any unnecessary space to make sure the focus of the image is clear. I chose to have both colour and black and white images as I wanted to replicate her my memories in her house differ, some are hazy(black and white) and others are very vivid(colour). The contrasting tones of light and dark also represent how life in that house has been for my gran, some sad things have happened since living in their as well as amazing things.