How can photographs be a way to connect to the past and a way to create a sense of nostalgia?

‘the power to photograph, the power to archive, the power to create a certain set of memories.’ ¹– Collin Pantall

In my personal project I have chosen to explore the theme of nostalgia through photography. Nostalgia is a sense of longing affection for a period in the past, photography is a great way to create this sense as it allows you to capture this moment in time and lets you look back on these moments. To do this I studied the photographer Irina Werning whose most known project, “Back to the Future”, is all about nostalgia and how photography can be a way to reconnect to the past. To respond to Werning I looked through old photo albums to gather images which I was planning to recreate. In doing these photoshoots a sense of nostalgia was created for the models recreating these images, it was like reliving the past. Alongside Werning I also studied photographer Samiksha Chaudhary who created a project which also relates to nostalgia and memories. In my response to Chaudhary I photographed my families old objects, specifically my grandmothers. Whilst doing this I learnt more about my families past as I was told stories which accompanied each of the old objects.

Nostalgia itself goes back to the 17th century the Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer described the feeling of nostalgia as a disease, and those who felt it suffered from an ‘afflicted imagination’ ². This was seen as a dangerous condition and it was thought to be caused by an imbalance of the four bodily fluids, which was a huge cause of disease in this era. It was also believed that it could cause physical health issues, especially if those affected were away from their native places for prolonged periods. It was not until the 18th and 19th centuries that nostalgia began to shift from a sickness to an emotional experience. The Romantic period was when nostalgia really began to be understood as a universal human feeling, an emotional reaction that was linked to memory as well as identity. Today, nostalgia is considered to be a complex emotional state which can create both positive and bad feelings.

Irina Werning:

Irina Werning is a freelance photojournalist who focuses on personal long-term projects. She is based in Argentina and has a bachelor’s degree in economics, a master’s degree in history and a master’s in photojournalism. Werning won the Ian Parry Scholarsip in 2006, the Emerging photographer fund in 2012, and he first place Sony world photography award for portraiture in 2012. Irina Werning became world-famous as a result of her project ‘Back to the Future’. In this project Werning photographed people as they reenacted their childhood portraits. This unique series shows how people look and feel 20 years after their childhood portraits, Werning took her camera and portrayed hundreds of people as they go back to their future. She was inspired to create this project after she scanned some older photos and after she ended up in one of the locations where one of these photos had been shot.

In this image taken by Irina Werning, three relatives have come together to reenact an old portrait of the three of them when they were younger. Although this may not create a sense of nostalgia for the viewer, it would have created one for them as it is a recreation of a time in their childhood. In her book The Photography Reader, Liz Wells stated, ‘memories evoked by a photo do not simply spring out of the image itself, but are generated in an intertext of discourses that shift between past and present.’⁴ This suggests that the sense of nostalgia created from old images is subjective to the viewer. One viewers may see an image as nostalgic whereas another may not, this is because everyone has a different past and presence which may not connect to these images in an emotional way.

My response to Irina Werning consisted of me photographing mainly my mother. When recreating these old found images it created a sense of nostalgia not for me but for her, as she was the one who lived the moments captured in these photographs. This adds to the concept that the feeling of nostalgia is subjective as everyone gains a sense of nostalgia from different things depending on their past.

Samiksha Chaudhary

Samiksha Chaudhary believes objects function as memory keepers and he found himself reliving these memories through photography. This all began in lockdown when Chaudhary found himself stuck in Mumbai, whilst his parents were back home at Calcutta. Chaudhary found this time lonely as he missed his parents, therefore he aimed to revive and relive little moments which were created by these objects. He released a set of photographs taken of these objects as part of a bigger collection which he previously shot during 2019 whilst being at home with his parents. Chaudhary found photography to be a way of tracing back memories all the way to his childhood. It was also a way to feel closer to his parents and a way to hold onto old memories. Each of his unique objects tells a story which takes him back to his home. Chaudhary wishes to capture the object’s value to his personal history, rather than the value of them. These objects create a mental map to his childhood and they are also a way of knowing his family’s history. With the objects laid out they all tell a story. They capture a lifetime within them, not only his own but also that of his parents and relatives.

This image by Chaudhary is taken of a wooden doll, a wedding gift to his mother. It held a small vial of perfume and this amongst many other objects were showcased in his home when he was growing up, some were inherited whereas some were received as gifts, and some were collected by his parents themselves, mainly his mother.

In my response to Chaudhary I chose to photograph mainly my grandmothers old items, one of which being a ruler from when she was ages 14 during 1966. Whilst photographing many of these objects I gained a sense of nostalgia as she told me the stories which accompanied each of these valued items, despite not experiencing this time period myself. Looking at all these old items also allowed her to travel back in time through bringing back old memories which she has connected to these objects.

Bibliography:

1. Collin Pantall (2019) Remembering the Past, Remembering the Present. Location of site: Here ↩︎
2. Johannes Hofer (1688) Coming home again. Location of site: here (Page 2) ↩︎
3. Image from project ‘Back to the Future’. Location of image: here ↩︎
4. Annette Kuh (2003) Remembrance The child I never was. Location: here ↩︎

I believe my final photobook was extremely successful. However, to improve I believe my experience would’ve been a lot easier with more preparation In prep for my next mock exam and the final exam, I must remember to complete small details which should not be left until the final 3 day exam, as this will waste time and may prevent me from finishing all my tasks. Unfortunately I was not able to print my book to Blurb on the final day of the mock exam, and instead had to order it the day after, this can not happen in my real exam and must be completed within the time limit. However, this mock has taught be to work more efficiently with time and pay attention to the blog posts, planning and prep hat needs to be done in the weeks leading up to the final mock. I believe that however, I worked well under the pressure and solved any issues which resulted. For example, my images were not of a high enough quality to be posted onto my book, this was an issue I had to overcome, and attempt to find images of better quality which would not result in low quality and blurry images in my final book. Another issue I also faced is my final complete blog post with all screenshots and aspects of my mock process was unable to saved and erased from the blog, the outcome of this has been a highly less detailed analysis of my work completed on the mock date, however, with extra work and more explaining I will be able to overcome this by attempting to replace any screenshots that were erased and attempting to find clear pictures that I can use to input into my analysis blog post. I also need to beforehand, work on a practice book on Adobe Lightroom, where I can experiment with photo layouts and what kind of layout will look clean and effective to help my images be presented in the best way possible. An aspect of my work I am glad I included was a small paragraph demonstrating my intention for each magazine at the beginning of the book, this sort of contents page has helped to escalate the quality of my book and helped the reader to understand my intention of female gender stereotypes over time. I have focused mostly on the contextual and conceptual side of my work and focused more on a storyline of work and demonstrating a feminist viewpoint and both critiquing and praising the works of photographers through time. I also referenced both of my inspiration photographers Cindy Sherman and Helmut Newton in my book through my essay. I incorporated their work into a paragraph of analysis on their work and their intention. I then focused a paragraph on image analysis of their work and how I can relate it to my own, I then also compared a theorists with their work and highlighted the differences and similarities of their work, alongside the positives and negative of their viewpoints. I also incorporated my two inspiration photographers by including a photoshoot each in my book of images inspired by their work, this has helped my work be more relatable to the analysis I have completed on their work, and how modern day photography can relate to their work, without provocative and negative stereotypes of women.

PHOTOBOOK: Mon-Wed + MOCK EXAM
Follow these steps:

You want to aim for a draft layout before the Mock Exam begins, then use the two days allocated to fine tune final layout and design.

Draft Layout of Photobook.

1. Write a book specification and describe in detail what your book will be about in terms of narrative, concept and design with reference to the same elements of bookmaking as above.

Narrative-

Narrative: – Describe in:

• 3 words – Female Gender Stereotypes

• A sentence– The importance of stereotypes forced upon women in the past and present day and how it affects society and young adolescent girls.

• A paragraph– The topic I would like to explore is girlhood and femininity. I will be focusing particularly on older teenagers at the age of 17-19 and the struggles of moving from adolescence to adulthood and the hardships young women face. I like this topic as it is a current topic which is faced globally, and I feel it is a topic which I will enjoy expressing my opinion on and it is an important topic which needs embracing by young people especially. I would like to initially explore how the media portrays women in positive and negative ways and how it creates derogatory and unrealistic stereotypes of women. Gender Identity and roles is a topic I wanted incorporate and the stereotypical themes and personality traits a woman is expected to have. I find this topic interesting as expectations and views on women are changing but not particularly quickly. By focusing on multiple branches of femininity and youth such as empowerment, stereotypes, different eras, I would like to cover different aspects of women, femininity gender stereotypes, identity and rights. The idealised view of women is the key part to my chosen topic, and I feel I can expand on this by including both positive and negative viewpoints. 

• How you want your book to look and feel– I would like my book to be a hard cover rectangular/ squared book with a clean sleek feel to it. I would like it to be relatively large (around A4) this is to create a book which is not too difficult to read and so that my images are not too small to see the details and understand the message behind them.

• Paper and ink

I am using a magazine layout style book which will have thinner paper for my book to have a more magazine feel to it rather than a book feel.

• Binding and cover

• Title – My title will be something to do with the male gaze. I would like the title to just plainly be ‘The Male Gaze’ but I feel this title may be slightly too basic and not capture an audiences attention as quickly. However I also like the idea of ‘Through his Eyes: Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes, I really like this title as it is including the male gaze in a way of not directly saying Laura Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze but instead saying it in a less direct way. The next part of ‘Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes’ also is a short way or explaining the project I am exploring. However this second section may make my title slightly too long, however I really like this title but could also shorten it to ‘Through his Eyes’ as a large title and then accompanied and anchored with the subheading of ‘Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes’. Here are some other ideas for title names:
• – The Male Gaze
• – The Gaze
• – Gazing
• – Through their eyes
• – Through His Eyes: Exploring Femininity and Stereotypes

• Design and layout

I am going to have a book with a main front cover, a first front cover with a magazine interpretation of a 1960s/70s magazine., using Cindy Sherman inspired images. I am then going to have a magazine cover of a modern day girls magazine with promotional images of products inside, I will then have a final magazine cover from a modern day women’s empowerment magazine with Helmut Newton inspired images inside.

• Editing and sequencing

I am going to create this book on Adobe Lightroom and It will include images that are edited by using black and white filters and also editing resources provided by Lightroom to make my images bolder and higher quality. I will also be editing a section of images on Adobe Photoshop, which make the images look like promotional images with brands such as Gucci, Charlotte Tilbury promoted inside the book, I have also edited the magazine covers on Canva in order to create realistic magazine covers from software specialising in covers, this has helped to increase the value and complexity of my work to make it more realistic and believeable.

• Images and text-I would like my images to take up the whole page so that they are large enough to see, however this may be a struggle as many of my images are portrait and many of them landscape. This may means that my e.g. portrait images would not be able to fit the page completely. However, any portrait images could have a small white border around them, but still take up the majority of a page, or vice versa. I do not think that I want more than 1 image on a page, however when it comes to my second section and I am focusing on the fashion and beauty industry pushing beauty products onto young girls in order to make them want to be beautiful and purchase their their products.

2. Produce a mood-board 

Here is a mood board of the Blurb Inspired photobook I have seen. I would like my images to be presented in a clean, sleek way which makes the book easy to read and enjoyable. I like his layout of clean white lines to separate images as I think it makes the page look less busy and does not clash with other images which decreases the quality of the book.

9. EVALUATION: Upon completion of photobook/ film and presentation of prints make sure you evaluate and reflect on your learning and final outcomes. Comment on the following:

I believe my final photobook was extremely successful. However, to improve I believe my experience would’ve been a lot easier with more preparation In prep for my next mock exam and the final exam, I must remember to complete small details which should not be left until the final 3 day exam, as this will waste time and may prevent ,e from finishing all my tasks. Unfortunately I was not able to print my book to Blurb on the final day of the mock exam, and instead had to order it the day after, this can not happen in my real exam and must be completed within the time limit. However, this mock has taught be to work more efficiently with time and pay attention to the blog posts, planning and prep hat needs to be done in the weeks leading up to the final mock. I believe that however, I worked well under the pressure and solved any issues which resulted. For example, my images were not of a high enough quality to be posted onto my book, this was an issue I had to overcome, and attempt to find images of better quality which would not result in low quality and blurry images in my final book. Another issue I also faced is my final complete blog post with all screenshots and aspects of my mock process was unable to saved and erased from the blog, the outcome of this has been a highly less detailed analysis of my work completed on the mock date, however, with extra work and more explaining I will be able to overcome this by attempting to replace any screenshots that were erased and attempting to find clear pictures that I can use to input into my analysis blog post. I also need to beforehand, work on a practice book on Adobe Lightroom, where I can experiment with photo layouts and what kind of layout will look clean and effective to help my images be presented in the best way possible.

5. Print a set of small work prints (4 to one A4 page) on the Laserjet, cut them up in guillotine and lay them out on the big white table for editing.

6. Decide on format (landscape, portrait) size and style of your photo-book. Begin to design your photo book, considering carefully, narrative, editing, sequencing, page spreads, juxtaposition, image size, text pages, empty pages, use of archival material etc.

7. Add your illustrated essay at the end of your photo book, including title, any captions (if needed), bibliography, illustrations of artists work (incl data) and images of your own responses. Think carefully about font type, size and weighting.

8. Produce screen prints of layout ideas as you progress and add to Blog for further annotation, commenting on page layout/ narrative/ sequencing/ juxtaposition of pictures.

• How successful was your final outcomes (book, film, prints etc)?
• Did you realise your intentions?
• What references did you make to artists references? 
  comment on technical, visual, contextual, conceptual?

10. FINAL PRINTS: Select a set of 5-6 photographs as final outcomes and evaluate – explaining in some detail how well you realised your intentions and reflect on what you have learned in OBSERVE, SEEK, CHALLENGE project.

11. Save final prints in our shared PRINT folder (no later than 15:00 end of your Mock exam day) in a high-resolution (4000 pixels on the long edge.) Save each images in your name i.e. first name_surname_title_1, and 2, 3 and so on.

M:\Radio\Departments\Photography\Students\Image Transfer\YR13 PRINT FOLDER PERSONAL STUDY 2025

12. Virtual Gallery: Produce gallery mock-ups in Photoshop or create online gallery space using Artsteps.com

M:\Radio\Departments\Photography\Students\YR 13 OBSERVE, SEEK, CHALLENGE 2024-2025\Gallery Mock-ups

www.artsteps.com

13. Make sure all blog posts are finished including, research, analysis, experimentation, annotation and an evaluation of final outcomes.