These were photos taken before and after surgery documented by my mum. These are the original images and I am going to put them all into lightroom classic cc to edit and sharpen some of the images.
These images are a mix of before and after i had surgery. I had spinal surgery back in 2015 and it have had such an impact on my life.
All of these images I want to use in my book to help tell the story of what happened to me visually and will give the audience some context behind everything and why it happened.
Bibliography- Adams,R. (1996) Beauty In Photography. New York: Aperture
Quote: how to incorporate a quote inside my own writing
(own text info before) critic Robert Adams says ; ‘THE POET William states succinctly what most poets believe: “Ideas are always wrong” This conviction helps account for the uneasy place of artists in the academy, the home of ideas.'(Adams 1996: 23)
I have chosen to look at her work because she uses a documentary photography style to showcase her battle with chronic illness much like what i want to do.
“An invigorating – if ultimately heartbreaking – experience.-The Guardian
Influential photographer Jo Spence’s (1934–92) work documents her diagnosis of breast cancer and subsequent healthcare regime throughout the 1980s. Her raw and confrontational photography is shown alongside Oreet Ashery’s (b. 1966) award-winning miniseries ‘Revisiting Genesis’, 2016. Ashery’s politically engaged work explores loss and the lived experience of chronic illness in the digital era. In October 2019, a new commission by Ashery, exploring the recent death of her father, will be added.
Follow your own path through this exhibition, challenge your understanding of ‘misbehaving’ or ‘untypical’ bodies, and reflect on how illness shapes identity”
Currently exhibiting her work. 30 May 2019—26 January 2020
Undoubtedly, her most heroic work was The Picture of Health, in 1982, which she began after being diagnosed with breast cancer. This series of self-portraits is both alternative therapy and a critical response to modern medicine, with Spence regaining ownership of her body by documenting her treatment.
In all of her work, Spence confronted us with the things society tries to conceal – not least women’s unconventional physiques. In The Picture of Health she upped the ante, bringing disease into the frame. In one bare-chested photo, she stands before a mammogram, her breast laid out between its slabs like a separate entity. Later, she poses in a biker’s helmet, holding up her arms to reveal battle scars.
Spence survived breast cancer, preferring Chinese medicine to more aggressive treatment. It’s incredibly sad that she then died of leukaemia in 1992, though she continued creating her playful, defiant photos until the end
For my personal study I am to going to explore the theme of liberation more in depth. Focusing on on critical illness and how cover coming it can be liberation but the scars and side effects still remain. I am going to be focusing my scoliosis spinal correction surgery and what like was like before and after. How i was given the chance a proper life with no limitation but how there actually are limitations side effects both psychological and physical. In 2014 I underwent spinal surgery to correct a curvature within my spine which was diagnosed as scoliosis. My spine was at a 70 degree curve meaning that my rib cage and internal organs were becoming severely affected by the curve. So, the doctors gave me the diagnosis that I was to have spinal correction surgery. This meant that I was to have two metal rods placed either side of my spine and twelve metal screws drilled into the spine so that it would not be able to go back to its original position. Unfortunately, as a result of this is that my spine is completely fused from T1 – L5 resulting in me having limited movement in my spine. So, all my movement comes from the top of my spine at Cervical vertebrae C1-C7 and the rest of the movement comes from the bottom of my spine at sacral vertebrae S1-S5. As you can see this serious limit the main areas for bending and twisting of my spine. After the operation I have been left with extreme pain as a result of extensive nerve damage in the lower portion as my spine causing me to rely on painkillers, physiotherapy. I don’t have a single day where i am not in pain. I want to document my hole experience to inspire others and so they know it not all bad. I have achieved many things after my spinal surgery despite my physical disadvantage. I am part of the island swim team and have gained national records and titles. Also I became a lifeguard and am currently training to be a swimming instructor. I want to show from this project how it dramatically affected my life but how i still got through it all.
I was to try speak to other people other people who have been through this same experience and trauma as me and get there personal recollections. I want to have casual interviews with them and tape the whole experience and uses some of the things they say in my photographs if that is writing over the images or incorporating in a photo montage. I don’t want it just to be about my experience I can to explore more how it effects people of all ages and how it impacts there life’s and how it is different and similar to mine.
Photo Shoot Ideas: 1. Body shoots looking at the damage to the body- Trying to do torso shots and then full body standing shots. I am going to do these of myself to start off with and then if i feel like it needs other people i will ask others but to start off i just want it to be about me.
2. Photographing medications and drugs that i have to take daily. I want to do it like a documentary kind of style. Almost like a day in the life of what i have to go through. Certain pills timings, pain relief jells that i have to put on my back.
3.Hobbies and occupations- swimming how it has been effected. Adaptions that have been put in place and how i have learned to overcome my disability. How other people judge me in a competitive scenario, being over looked.
4. Rehabilitation after my operation could be interesting to document. Looking at physiotherapy and pain management, how I have to go through abnormal processes to live day to day life as a normal person.
5. Archive photos- Images from before and after my surgery that help to document and tell my full story. I am going to as family and friends to see what images they have then I am going to take these edit them and with no doubt use them in my project.
Looking at archives medical records from the hospital. My first take is to contact the hospital where i had my surgery and try get all of the photos available like x-rays, documents, family shots e.g pics that my mum has of me before and after surgery.
I want to get family and friend to give there recollections of my operation what it was like from an outside perspective. Also looking at any images they have and seeing if i want to use them as archive material in my project.
1.modern character or quality of thought, expression, or technique.”a strange mix of nostalgia and modernism”
2.a style or movement in the arts that aims to depart significantly from classical and traditional forms.”by the post-war period, modernism had become part of art history”
3.a movement towards modifying traditional beliefs in accordance with modern ideas, especially in the Roman Catholic Church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Time period : The first half of the 20th century
Key characteristics/connections: Published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917, the photographic journal Camera Work featured some of the most important modernist photographers of the early twentieth century. Stating that he wanted to create ‘the best and most sumptuous of photographic publications’, Stieglitz published the journal with the aim of promoting photography as an art form in its own right. The final issue celebrated photography as the ‘first and only important contribution thus far of science to the arts’.
The effects of the First World War saw a dramatic change in attitudes towards the human body. Previously depictions of the human body were largely either for academic study, used as reference points for painters and draughtsmen, or in pictorialist compositions in which the female body was typically highly aestheticised.
This was reflected in artists’ and photographers’ depictions of the human form. Modernist photographers experimented with cropping and framing a single body part, distorting and accentuating its curves and angles. In 1936, the philosopher Walter Benjamin compared the camera to a surgeon’s knife, able to permeate the body by splicing it into fragments. As a result the body was often depersonalised, instead appearing as something unfamiliar, often almost plant or landscape-like
Modernist photographers enjoyed bringing together objects to reveal or create relationships between them. This can be seen in Tina Modotti’s Bandolier, Corn and Sickle 1927 or Margaret de Patta’s Ice Cube Tray with Marbles and Rice 1939. The result creates jarring or stricking compositions and heightens the texture and surface of each object.
Artists associated: Photographer, art dealer and publisher, Alfred Stieglitz is credited as one of the leaders of American modern photography in the early twentieth century. Revolutionary in his portrayal of still life and technical mastery of tone, Stieglitz called for photography’s acceptance as an art form, as well as introducing Avant-garde. European artists such as Pablo Picasso, constantin Brancusi and Francis Picabia to America’s art scene. Influenced by new developments in art, Stieglitz moved away from a more decorative, soft-edged ‘pictorialist’ style. His work The Steerage 1907, with its sharp focus and striking angles is often considered as a benchmark for the beginnings of modernist photography.
The 1920s and 1930s saw a close relationship between celebrity portraits and fashion. Modernist photographers including Irving Penn, Man Ray, George Platt Lynes and Edward Steichen, photographed artists, writers, musicians and Hollywood stars including Salvador Dali, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and Jean Cocteau. Featuring in magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, these portraits were instrumental in shaping the celebrity’s public image. Rather than focusing on the sitter’s occupation and status, the images were innovative in their pose, composition and cropping, as seen with Penn’s corner portraits. Presenting well-known figures in unexpected or even abstract ways created iconic images rather than mere likenesses
Man Ray’s artistic career spanned painting, sculpture, film, prints and poetry, working in styles influenced by cubism, futurism, dada and surrealism. In 1930 he said that ‘painting is dead, finished’, and moved towards photography. He is perhaps most recognised for his use of the photographic method, solarisation and using photograms (developing directly onto photographic paper rather than onto film) which he dubbed as ‘rayographs’. Creating surreal and experimental work, often of famous figures such as Lee Miller and Dora Maar, Man Ray became a key figure within modernist photography.
Associations / business associated: The Bauhaus was one of the most influential art and design schools in the twentieth century, a seedbed of nearly all the art forms we now think of as modernist. The Bauhaus existed in three cities: Weimar 1919–1925, Dessau 1925–1932 and Berlin 1932–1933, where it closed due to pressure from the Nazis. Its aim was to bring art back into contact with everyday life, so design and craft were emphasised as much as fine art.
The Bauhaus embraced new technologies. This was particularly evident in the photography department, where the celebrated artists laszlo Moholy-Nagy. and Walter Peterhans encouraged students to use their cameras to imagine new worlds and focus on experimentation such as close-ups and photomontage. As Moholy-Nagy stated ‘everyone is equal before the machine … there is no tradition in technology, no class-consciousness’.
Methods/ techniques/ Proceses: Mounting a false brass lens to the side of his camera, American photographer Paul Strand would photograph his subjects using a second working lens hidden under his arm. Known as the candid camera technique, this allowed him to capture people without their knowledge. As the photographer describes, he wanted to make ‘portraits of people the way you see them in New York parks – sitting around, not posing, not conscious of being photographed’. From Jewish patriarchs to Irish washerwomen, Strand’s street photography offered a drastic alternative to posed and formal studio portraits.
Published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917, the photographic journal Camera Work featured some of the most important modernist photographers of the early twentieth century. Stating that he wanted to create ‘the best and most sumptuous of photographic publications’, Stieglitz published the journal with the aim of promoting photography as an art form in its own right. The final issue celebrated photography as the ‘first and only important contribution thus far of science to the arts’
Quotes:
Here are a few quotes by modernist photographers:
It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realise them Man Ray
The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Photography is a major force in explaining man to man Edward Steichen
PostModernism
Postmodernism is one of the most controversial movements in art and design history. Over two decades, from about 1970 to 1990, Postmodernism shattered established ideas about art and design, bringing a new self-awareness about style itself. An unstable mix of the theatrical and theoretical, Postmodernism ranges from the ludicrous to the luxurious – a visually thrilling, multifaceted style.
Postmodernism was a drastic departure from the utopian visions of modernism, which had been based on clarity and simplicity. The Modernists wanted to open a window onto a new world; Postmodernism’s key principles were complexity and contradiction. If Modernist objects suggested utopia, progress and machine-like perfection, then the Postmodern object seemed to come from a dystopian and far-from-perfect future. Postmodern designers salvaged and distressed materials to produce an aesthetic of urban apocalypse.
Postmodernism had begun as a radical fringe movement in the 1970s, but became the dominant look of the 1980s, the ‘designer decade’. Vivid colour, theatricality and exaggeration: everything was a style statement. Whether surfaces were glossy, faked or deliberately distressed, they reflected the desire to combine subversive statements with commercial appeal. Magazines and music were important mediums for disseminating this new phase of Postmodernism. The work of Italian designers – especially the groups Studio Alchymia and Memphis – was promoted across the world through publications like Domus . Meanwhile, the energy of post-punk subculture was broadcast far and wide through music videos and cutting-edge graphics. This was the moment of the New Wave: a few thrilling years when image was everything.
Modernisum VS Postmodernisum
Modernism
Postmodernism
Modernism began in the 1890s and lasted till about 1945.
Postmodernism began after the Second World War, especially after 1968.
Its aim was criticism of the bourgeois social order of the 19th century and its world view. Modernist painting is considered to have begun with the French painter Édouard Manet.
The first use of the term postmodernism dates back to the 1870s. John Watkins Chapman referred to a postmodern style of painting which differed from French Impressionism. J.M. Thompson used the term to refer to changes in attitudes and beliefs in religion.
Low forms of art were a part of modernism. Simplicity and elegance in design are the characteristics of modern art.
Postmodern art brought high and low culture together by using industrial materials and pop culture imagery. Postmodern art is decorative.
Modernism was based on using rational and logical means to gain knowledge. It rejected realism. A hierarchical, organized, and determinate nature of knowledge characterized modernism.
Postmodernism denied the application of logical thinking. Rather, the thinking during the postmodern era was based on an unscientific, irrational thought process, as a reaction to modernism.
Modernism is based on European and Western thought.
Postmodernists believe in multiculturalism.
Modernist approach was objective, theoretical, and analytical.
Postmodernism was based on an anarchical, non-totalized, and indeterminate state of knowledge.
Modernist thinking is about the search of an abstract truth of life.
Postmodernist thinkers believe that there is no universal truth, abstract or otherwise.
Modernism attempts to construct a coherent world-view.
Postmodernism attempts to remove the difference between high and low.
Modernist thinking asserts that mankind progresses by using science and reason. It believes in learning from past experiences and trusts the texts that narrate the past.
Postmodernists believe that progress is the only way to justify the European domination on culture. They defy any truth in the text narrating the past and render it of no use in the present times.
Modernist historians believe in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it.
Postmodernist thinkers believe in going by superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show less or no concern towards the depth of subjects.
Modernism considers the original works as authentic.
Postmodernist thinkers base their views on hyper-reality; they get highly influenced by things propagated through media.
Modernists believe that morality can be defined.
Postmodernists believe that morality is relative.
The year 1939 is considered to have marked the end of modernism. In the 1970s, postmodern movement entered music. In art and architecture, it began to establish itself in the early 1980s. The exact year when modernism ended, and whether it ended in the real sense is debatable.
It is considered that postmodernism started going out of fashion around the late 1990s, and was replaced by post-postmodernism which has developed from and is a reaction to postmodernism. Metamodernism is a related term that was first used by Zavarzadeh in 1975 to describe aesthetics and attitudes emerging in the American literature in the mid-1950s.
During the modernist era, art and literary works were considered as unique creations of the artists. People were serious about the purpose of producing art and literary works. These works were believed to have a deep meaning, and novels and books predominated society. During the postmodernist era, with the onset of computers, media, and advancements in technology, television and computers became dominant in society. Art and literary works began to be copied and preserved by means of digital media. People no longer believed in art and literary works bearing one unique meaning; they rather believed in deriving their own meanings from works of art and literature. Interactive media and the Internet led to distribution of knowledge. Music by those like Mozart and Beethoven, which was appreciated during modernism, became less popular in the postmodern era. World music, Djs, and remixes characterized postmodernism. The architectural forms that were popular during modernism were replaced by a mix of different architectural styles in the postmodern times.
These are some ideas that i came up with with the stimulus we have been given of occupation vs Liberation. I have highlighted ideas that resonated with me and i felt I could work with.
We were given an hour in class to write the first two paragraphs of our photographical essays. We were meant to come up with some possible essay questions and then base our two paragraphs upon this. So this a good starting point for writing our essays.
Posible essay Question :How chronic illness inspired Joe Spence to document her story through documentary photography as a way of healing and expression/ showing the media what real women look like?
‘Influential photographer Jo Spence’s (1934–92) work documents her diagnosis of breast cancer and subsequent healthcare regime throughout the 1980s.’() Her raw and confrontational take on chronic illness is profoundly documented in her photography. She hons in on the self-portraiture and body shots to document how breast cancer has disfigured her body to become unappealing to mainstream beauty standards. ‘In all of her work, Spence confronted us with the things society tries to conceal – not least women’s unconventional physiques.’() Through all her pieces of work there is a sense of power and stability though the positions she is standing in which can I feel be empowering for both men and women alike. ‘In The Picture of Health she upped the ante, bringing disease into the frame. In one bare-chested photo, she stands before a mammogram, her breast laid out between its slabs like a separate entity. Later, she poses in a biker’s helmet, holding up her arms to reveal battle scars.’() The way she gradually reveals herself more and more through her work could show that she is coming to terms more and more each day with her illness and not treating it as something to be ashamed of or a burden. Consequently, treating it as something liberating that others can seek sanctuary within her work and learn from her experience meaning they can find a way to come to terms with their own health problems. Her works intention was to give people in similar situations a sense of self-worth and being able to reappreciate their own body’s again.
‘Undoubtedly, her most heroic work was The Picture of Health, in 1982, which she began after being diagnosed with breast cancer. This series of self-portraits is both alternative therapy and a critical response to modern medicine, with Spence regaining ownership of her body by documenting her treatment.’() Her photography before her encounters with cancer were never as well known. She is known as a ‘influential photographer’ because of her works with chronic illness. I think this was because her approach to documenting her journey was so abrupt and real that people connected to it so well because of the rawness and how prevalent cancer is today. She explores alternative therapy and modern medicine, how these differ but have the same intention. You can see Jo ‘regain ownership of her body’ and coming to terms with the physical and psychological scars much like how I intent to peruse my own work. This was something she learned when going on this photographical documenting journey and I feel her work isn’t just about the product, it is more about the emotions that have built up to the signal piece. Each image can be unpicked to unravel every base idea behind it. There is no complex subplot for these images, or an indefinite answer left up to the audience to decide the whole main meaning of the image. This I believe is why her work became so well-known because it was graphic blunt images that were straight to the point and I feel people really could connect with this. It was a real break from the arts modernistic works where they make you question everything about the works even your own interpretations. People liked it because it was simple to grasp the concept of but has real emotional value which can be connected to by anyone who has experienced cronic illness or externally been affected by it e.g relatives family or friends.
References need to be put in as they are saved on computer at home.
In the studio using a still life set up with a colored background like Mirach does using a background color that contrast the base color to make the items in the images pop. Using old geometrical instruments from the math’s department this mage the images look a lot more like Milachs work with the bold structural lines going through the images.
First, I imported all the into light room and then went through a process of discarding and keeping all the images i wanted. I did this through the x and p keys of the key board. X was images to be discarded so they would come up with a little flag on the corner. I discard images when the were out of focus or i felt the composition wasn’t right. I used the P key to keep all the images that i felt i could take on to edit and have an effective final piece of of them. This is what in looks like in light room classic cc when all my images are highlighted that i want to take on to edit.
When editing in light room I use the develop section to edit my images. For this images i kept the temp and tint the same but then when on to lower the exposure slightly and up the contrast to give my images more of a vibrant contrast between the red background and the red bandage container. The highlights are increases as will so the sliver of the tin really stands out. The shadows are decreased so that you can see the real detail on the metal geometric shapes rather than it just being solid black lines. You can see bits on black paint flickering off and the joins where the metal has been forged together i feel that this adds another layer of depth to the image.
Before staring to edit this image i decide to crop it because the background was rather plain ether side and I didn’t fell like it brought anything to the image. Also the background slanted up on the right side of the images which i felt didn’t look as good as a crisp clean line for the background. This is because all the lines in the image are completely straight so i feel like it looks cleaner and sharper with a straight background.
I then went on the edit the cropped version of the photo.
Then i decided to see how the images would look in black and white as Ralph uses black and white images within a lot of his photo montages.
I then went on to edit my macro miniature people images making a lot of the images sharper so the look more chrisp and in focus to give the image more clarity and look more effective.
Rafal Milach celebrates people power in The First March of Gentlemen
Polish photographer, Rafal Milach. This body of work is a fictitious narration composed of authentic stories. Historical events related to the town of Września in Poland came to be the starting point for reflection on the protest and disciplinary mechanisms experienced under Communist rule. In the series of collages, the reality of the 1950s Poland ruled by the communists blends with the memory of the Września children strike from the beginning of the 20th century. This shift in time is not just a coincidence, as the problems which the project touches upon are universal, and may be seen as a metaphor for the contemporary social tensions and politics currently playing out in Poland . The project includes archive photos by Września photographer Ryszard Szczepaniak.
More than 100 students of the Catholic People’s School took part in a strike against the Germanisation of their education, which would aim to eradicate the Polish language from their teachings, and the physical violence used by teachers. The strike, though historically remembered for its triumph, is synonymous with Września, and over the years has become somewhat a cliché of association.
Silent, loud, peaceful, political – whatever form protest takes, the mobilisation of people to challenge authority has grown in confidence through history. The thing about protest is that the impact it desires is not instantaneous but, even though the results may take time to shape, they do eventually become manifest. It is, after all, the power of protest that began the domino effect of the disintegration of the Soviet-controlled communist regime in Poland in 1989. Sparked by dozens of workers’ strikes in coal mines and shipyards around the country, it was the demands of the people that propelled the Solidarity movement led by Lech Wałęsa into the first democratic government in almost half a century.
Skip ahead to present-day Warsaw, and the echoes of dissent can be heard upon the streets once again. Last time I spoke to Polish photographer Rafal Milach (for BJP’s September 2017 feature on the latest work from Sputnik Photos, the collective he co-founded), he told me that protesting the alarmingly fast political changes brought about by the PiS (Law and Justice) government felt like his new hobby. And he reiterates this today, speaking of the “permanent state of demonstration”.
Milach was wary of this obvious reference point, but given the timing of the residency – which coincided with a series of massive street rallies demonstrating against the government’s grab for extra judiciary powers – he couldn’t ignore it. And so it ultimately formed the backbone of the resulting project. The First March of Gentlemen, a 72-page photobook composed of collages that mingle elements illustrating the 1902 Children’s Strike with characters that lived during the communist era a half-century later, delineates a fictitious narrative that can be read as a metaphor, commenting on the social and political tensions of the present day.
“The most important thing was to create a story that would be accessible to everyone because this is, in the first place, my vision of a society, in which individuals can protest in the public space, regardless of consequence,” he explains. “The initial idea of working with the archive was sustained, but the topic changed as I began looking for material that could occupy two spheres – discipline and pacification, and the sphere of freedom – and to bring these elements together in a series of collages.”
Milach found it in the work of local amateur photographer Ryszard Szczepaniak, and his archive of images shot in Września during the 1950s and 1960s. He photographed his and his brother’s friends in formal street poses, many of them while on leave from the military, some of whom came from the Armia Ludowa, a communist partisan force set up by the Polish Workers’ Party while under German occupation during World War II.
They pose for the camera, hands crossed and guns poised, but with a glimmer of a smirk at the side of their pursed lips. Those not in uniform are well-dressed, dandy-esque figures, standing around with cocked hips and cigarettes, their long dusters, waistcoats and hats beginning to show signs of wear.
“They were a poorer version of the glamour they probably knew from American films,” Milach observes. “This intrigued me… The photo shoots that Szczepaniak was doing were somehow detaching the guys from the context of contempt in those days. The 1950s in Poland was a pretty oppressive time in terms of the communist regime, and these guys were just having fun in some remote areas within Września county… posing, staging shooting scenes… It was like being part of the system, but making a joke out of it.”
By extension, Milach detaches them physically, cutting out the figures and pasting them onto brightly coloured backgrounds, hinting at ideas of contrast and displacement. The resulting book, beautifully designed by his wife, Ania Nałęcka-Milach, references a children’s exercise book in its choice of size and coloured papers, bound by a long red thread to contain its assembly.
The design is “like a toy, like a candy – something nice to look at and to touch,” Milach says. “But it’s only a camouflage; a beautiful skin to disguise these spheres, to somehow smuggle them into your daily life” – just like the jubilant propaganda posters of the 1950s, or the cheery chat shows on the newly nationalised television stations of today. Page by page, the singular figures in these candy-coloured landscapes are joined by gatherings of larger groups, and geometric shapes representing mathematical teaching aids begin to appear as symbolic cages.
As these structures grow to command the composition of each image, the positioning of the figures becomes more claustrophobic. The young men are trapped into constricted spaces, yet their faces remain fixed with an expression of naive indifference. Do they not understand that their freedoms are an illusion that is entirely under the control of a superior authority? Akin to a children’s animation, the scenes build, frame by frame, and then break down again.
“The linearity of the book is very important,” Milach says. “It has a certain structure that you read from the front to the back – gathering, deconstructing, pacifying and then again, it loops and the story repeats.”
The repetitiveness of the story is also key, he says, because whether it be the early or mid 20th century, or the protests of today, “the patterns are pretty much the same”. “But still, the people act and react, and this is the bottom line of the entire project,” he continues, “that you’re active and you’re responsive regardless of any possible consequence – that’s the story.”
Milach wouldn’t call himself an activist, nor is this book an object of activism, though you will often find him on the street campaigning with his peers. He is, however, a great believer in the power of the people’s voice, which he wants to encourage to grow louder. Rather than just preaching to the converted, he’s targeting the people who have taken a back seat.
“It is titled the ‘First March’ because it is the characters’ first experience of being an active citizen,” he says. “The ‘Gentlemen’ is just a figure of speech. It’s not a gender-related thing, it’s just a representation of some activated unit. To me it was rather a metaphor of being in some sort of bubble where you don’t really have to act because you are comfortable.”
Later, reflecting on his own actions within the bigger picture, he adds: “You have to use the tools that you have. Does art change the world? Or photography? I don’t think so, but it can be a tool. And it can be just a fraction of something bigger.”
