I want to focus my project on isolation and the disconnection with my life on jersey as I have a lot of nostalgia for places I lived before. After moving from Scotland where I had lived my entire life, I found it difficult to adjust to the smaller space with sufficiently more people. Nostalgia to me has always been attached to places and people, and the memories I have from them, this project is focused on the loss of home and comfortable space and the small joys from having something familiar. I want to make a photobook that focuses on this theme of isolation and nostalgia by creating landscapes, still life, and self portrait.
Compiling all of my images into a Photobook would allow the viewer to have something physical to hold and look through, it would also allow me to place my images in an intended order to create a loose through narrative. I want to use different photomanipulation techniques such as stitching inspired by the work of Carolle Benitah who uses it to show estrangement and isolation in her family throughout her childhood. I also admire the aesthetic value that Laura Letinski achieves in her work especially the way she photographs still life and colour grades her images it gives them an almost clinical feeling which I think would hand itself well to my project based around isolating experiences. A main inspiration for this project is Francesca Woodman. specifically herself portraits. I wanted to lean into self portraits for this project as I think being photographed typically makes me uncomfortable, self portraiture seems the best way to convey this discomfort I’ve had with changes to the environment around me.
I plan to shoot mostly outside as I want to capture the natural landscape specifically the ocean as with Jersey being an island you can not easily leave without a boat or flying, I plan to take these images early in the morning to get a slightly subdued light on a more overcast day. For objectivity and self-portrait I want to stage the images for the best result, I want to create self portraits from both the way Francesca Woodman would use a slow shutter speed to obscure her images and Carolle Benitah’s addition of stitching and lettering to create a more unconventional image. I want attempt to collage some images and draw over the top of them using both physical paints and photoshop. Within the book intend to have the images with little accompanying text as I think it better shifts attention to the images which I intend to have merged and manipulated with letters from family and other meaningful items.
Ari, and excellent statement of intent. It would be good to see images you have made in response to your them of isolation.