What you want to explore?

For my exam project I want to explore the relationship between growing up in Jersey (mostly teenage life) and the way we value friendships. I chose this as a way to present the theme of simple or complex as some people believe that friendships are simple things that are easy and require little effort, but as many people know it is the complete opposite. I also wanted to connect this to being a teenager as adults sometimes think that we have simple lives but in reality we can sometimes feel that we are put in the most complex situations for our age. Friendships in teenage years can have a great effect on individuals especially when they enter young adulthood, i wanted to portray this in my project nad photo book as i have found great comfort in my friends.

Why it matters to you?

I wanted to base my project around friendships as I have found that as a teenager they have become some very important people in my life, I wanted to portray the need for companionship in this stage of life in my photobook by using questionnaires and portraiture. I believe that in mid to late teen years we develop very stable friendships that we rely on to get through most situations that we are put in, we have new experiences and feelings with them and they helps us understand different sides to every story. Teenage friendships are also valued a lot more as we that they are the only ones that truly understand us.

How you wish to develop your project?

I will be using images of myself and three of my closest friends in my exam project, i chose to only include three of my friends as i wanted to focus more into how females and males tend to have different dynamics in their friendships and as I cannot cater for the male perspective i will be using the female perspective on friendships. I will include individual portraits of our faces and different part of our bodies as well as clothing and shoes. There will also be duo photographs and group images to try and break up the individual photographs. I want to experiment with both naturalistic portraits where the subjects will not be posing and just caught in their natural state but I will also use posed portraiture in the studio to get a more professional look to some of my images.

When and where you intend to begin your project?

I will being my project by getting each of my subject to wear their favorite outfits as it relates to one of the questions that I will be including in my questionnaire. I want some of my images to connect specifically with the questions, I will do this in the photography studio in school as I want and clean and neutral background for this specific photoshoot. I will also be trying to find different places around Jersey where I will be able to create interesting photographs but that also I will be able to match with the studio images. I want to try and get images down in St Ouens, possibly with the sunset as i want to try and recreate an image inspired by Kayla Varley, when you can see the silhouette of her subjects with a saturated gradient in the sky.