My Personal Investigation
I began my personal investigation exploring the relationships, and visual conversations, that can exist between photographs. After researching a range of photographers who explore diptychs in their work, I created a set of my own diptychs, where the visual dialogue between the photographs was evident. I researched a range of different photobooks, but I was primarily drawn to those with a clear focus and relationship between the images, where the photographer had thought carefully about the narrative. I was drawn to ‘Wild Flowers’ by Joel Meyerowitz, primarily due to the candid style of his photographs and theme - all of the photographs focusing on flowers shot in the streets or in natural habitats. Similarly, ‘Edges’ by Dolores Marat was another key inspiration, especially in terms of the spontaneous street photographs, which appear poetic being arranged as a visual journey throughout her book.
After considering the importance of narratives and relationships that exist between photographs, I began to focus on the creation of my own photobook. I decided on street photography as the subject, which was not only an interest, but also a chance to improve my confidence of shooting in the streets. I was initially drawn to photographers such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Beat Streuli. Their approach differs considerably from some of the most influential street photographers, as they don’t follow Robert Capa’s rule: “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough”. Both photographers use telephoto lenses to crop tightly into their subjects. Lorca diCorcia uses a remote flash to illuminate and isolate his subject’s faces. I took inspiration when shooting street portraits, using available sunlight to isolate pedestrians against the shadowed background. In Moorgate, I positioned myself at the top of some steps, where a ray of sunlight was reflected off of a glass building, illuminating the faces of people against the shadowed background as they ascended the steps.
I was also drawn to the complex compositions of Alex Webb’s photographs. I constructed my own complex compositions. My images were composed of a range of different elements - colour, sunlight, shadow, people, colour, shape, textures, etc. I found the experience of travelling to shoot in different locations exhilarating - I had to be alert and constantly looking. The outcome of my street photography was varied, from candid portraits and crowds of people, to compositions made up of a range of shapes, colour and light. My process of editing down and processing my images was extensive - I selected my most successful images from the thousands that I had taken. I subsequently spent hours laying out hundreds of my photos to find visual relationships or contrasts between them. When pairing diptychs, I was primarily looking for clear relationships between the colours and visual elements in my images, or finding contrasts visually or in terms of subject matter. After experimenting with image pairings and my selections, I made experimental maquettes, before refining my outcome to create a published photobook printed by Blurb. The strongest aspect of this book was the conversations between images I had created, and the flow of the book.
Following this, I investigated Threshold Concept 7: 'Photographs are not fixed in meaning, context is everything'. I was interested in documentary photography, and the ability of photographers to create convincing evidence of reality. I was fascinated about how the context and information surrounding a photograph could change its meaning completely. Moreover, I was especially interested in the power of photography, and the ability of photojournalism to convey information. I also investigated the manipulation of truth in photography, and how photography can never be fully objective - photographs are always open to manipulation and the interpretation of the person taking the photograph. The ideas and concepts (surrounding traces of human activity on the environment) in Peter Fraser’s work significantly influenced my ideas and practice. After hearing Peter Fraser talk at length about his concepts and practice when he visited my school, I was inspired by his focus on traces of human interaction and the residue of human activity in the environment. He describes these photographs as ‘portraits’ despite the fact that they rarely contain people.
I began to investigate photographs as evidence, particularly the ability of photographs to document reality and photo essays to provide a narrative. My exploration of photographers such as Antonio Olmos and Diana Matar prompted me to investigate the ways in which photographs warp our sense of time, reminding us of things lost (linking to Threshold Concept 10). I was fascinated by photography’s ability to capture the world in a moment of time, documenting reality at the moment the photograph was taken. I also loved the ability of Antonio Olmos and Diana Matar to reveal traces of human activity in the environment. In response, artists such as Izaac Enciso, Keld Helmer-Petersen, John Maclean and TJ Tambellini and Lark Foord’s ‘Same Page’ prompted me to respond with a set of photographs exploring traces of human presence in the urban landscape. My images revealed a combination of textures and vibrant colours. They are as much about the formal language of photography as they are cultural studies.
However, I wanted to embark on a more personal project, focusing on a major theme to produce sets of photographs. I chose football, producing several sets of images, from the architecture and identity of particular football clubs, to supporters and the vibrancy and energy of football culture. Football grounds offer traces of the supporters who have left their mark - flags, murals, litter etc. Again, I was interested in the relationship between photography and time. I was drawn to the stadia where thousands have experienced euphoric emotion whilst drama unfolds on the pitch; conversely my photographs focus on the empty shell of this emotion, the deserted stadiums with traces of memories left behind. Photographers like Stuart Roy Clarke have captured the emotion and energy of football throughout the years, whilst others, such as Ross Cooke, Louis Bamford and Marcus Drinkwater, have provided a documentary narrative of local football and captured the details and culture of the sport. Through my own photography, inspired by these photographers, I set out to document the details and culture of football.
I subsequently photographed at a local club, Welling United. I focused on the traces and objects left abandoned by supporters, that almost look like unconsciously made art, dotted around the ground - for example, polystyrene cups left on the terrace that would normally be overlooked. I photographed these traces alongside the material history of the ground, like the layers of paint built up on the main stand over the years. For my final set of images, I photographed football in my local area, focusing on traces again, but also in the context of the local community. I took pictures of local amateur football, documenting the rusty goalposts in the local park, as well as my local football club, Charlton Athletic. I photographed the ground in the context of the local community - photographing the concrete and steel arena, dwarfing local terraced houses. I produced medium format photographs, double exposing my film, combining people and architecture. These experiments were significant in increasing my understanding of evidence, through photography, as well as improving my ability to document evidence and traces. Selecting elements and subjects to photograph, cropping what I wanted to include in the frame, created subjective images - I was selecting what to document and what to exclude. Equally, I didn’t interfere or tamper with my surroundings. However, with my medium format double exposure, I was manipulating the images. These images were largely successful - in the double exposures, traces and marks of the football club on the landscape were combined with images of the football clubs themselves. Due to the limited numbers of exposures with medium format, I had to observe and focus carefully - forcing me to hone my eye onto the key pieces of evidence that can provide a narrative, and effectively document a subject.
I expanded my work to produce a number of mini projects. I experimented with colour film to produce a photo essay of the Thames Path. However, I wanted to produce an even more personal project, a document of intimacy and of an emotional bond. I had studied ‘Else’ by Hannah Lenz, which documents the daily life of an elderly woman living in Denmark, including her everyday activities and the details and memories that have accrued over the decades. I was particularly inspired by the way in which Lenz documents and records the everyday life of this woman, through the medium of documentary photography. In ‘Pictures from Home’, Larry Sultan documents his relationship with, and between, his parents, whilst also examining their archives of photographs, Super 8 films and memories. This relationship sparked ideas about how I could combine my grandad’s extensive photography collection, with my own photographs exploring this relationship. How could I explore my relationship to my grandfather’s photography? I had only recently discovered my grandad’s lifelong passion for photography after inheriting his extensive collection of analogue cameras. This was especially poignant given his recent diagnosis of dementia.
I wanted to focus on his passion for photography, especially as he had passed this down to me, originally teaching me about photography and how to operate a camera. I wanted to explore my grandparents’ archives of photographs, whilst re-igniting my grandad’s passion and interest in photography. I produced a set of medium format portraits focusing on my them and their village, but I used my grandad’s medium format camera that I had inherited, re-photographing them with the same camera that he bought in the 1950s. Julian Germain’s series ‘For Every minute..’ prompted me to also document my grandparents’ extensive photo archive, similarly to the way Germain documents the memories captured in his subject’s photo albums.
I re-photographed the extensive archive of my grandparents’ photographs when they were young, which were taken on the same medium format camera that I was using - around 60 years later. I was subsequently able to experiment using the medium format film, layering the negatives in the enlarger to produce prints that appeared double or triple exposed - for example, a portrait of my grandparents layered with a photograph of the detailed textures of the local river. After examining Anouk Kruithof’s ‘The Bungalow’, where Kruithof layers and investigates our memory of images, I produced a number Photoshop experiments. I layered my portraits of my grandparents on top of the archive photographs. Through these experiments, I physically combined my photographs with my grandfather’s, examining my relationship to his photography. Moreover, I was focusing on the contrast of age, my grandad as a young man developing his photographic skills through his photographs, compared with myself, developing my own skills through this photo series. My photographs, where portraits become merged, were the most successful - especially the contrast of portraits, old photographs merged with new images.
After reviewing the range of photographs created, I produced a typology, documenting the objects and ornaments which they have collected over the course of their lives.
Alongside this, I documented the large boxes of my grandad’s 35mm slides. I enjoyed holding each up to the light, illuminating the rich, vibrant Kodachrome colours. I enjoyed their material, physical nature - in contrast to printed or virtual, digital photographs. It was exciting to load them into the slide projector; slotting the slides into the projector to enlarge the images and reveal their full quality and vibrant detail. This process was similar to how my grandfather invited family at Christmas to view the slideshow of holiday photographs. I produced a video, where I filmed projections of the slide film, running across the frame. Photographs of my family, as they had grown older throughout their lives flashed across the frame, before disappearing and being replaced by other documentary images. I was especially inspired by the way that my grandfather photographed my dad, aunt and uncle growing up.
For my first final outcome, I experimented by combining my own photographs with my grandad’s. I wanted to bridge the gap between my photography, and his - exploring the relationship between them. I printed a range of images from each set of photographs I had produced, displaying them on a white wall, grouping them together similarly to Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibition displays. I subsequently projected the film of my grandfather’s colour slides on top of my installation - adding another layer of imagery. I was particularly drawn to the new compositions and layering of shapes and images; my photographs, with the projected slides creating unusual effects. I filmed the installation, focusing on particular details, creating new compositions. I cropped in on certain areas, as faces and shapes flashed across the installation, illuminating my photographs for a brief period. I think that this outcome was successful - the combination of my varied photographs combined with the projections was effective, especially the way in which new compositions of colour and shapes were created through the layering of projections and photographs. I have certainly created a very personal initial outcome.
Conceptually, I wanted to progress my work further, where I could combine the action of my photography, physically combining this with my grandparents’ physical act of photography. I wanted to make photographs where my photographs are physically combined with my grandparents’ photography. For this experiment, I used 35mm film. My idea was to shoot a roll of 24 photographs, and then double expose these photographs with my grandparent’s photographs layered on top. After I had shot 24 frames, I had to rewind the film in a dark room. I had to open the back of the camera - ensuring that the film didn’t fully rewind back into the cannister. This was a very difficult process - I had to feel my way around in the darkened room. I subsequently asked my grandparents to shoot 24 frames on top of my photographs - I relinquished all control and allowed my grandparents to shoot at will. I wanted to explore chance results - I wanted to lose all control and allow the photographs to be made by the chance of double exposures producing results. Moreover, I wanted to explore the process of physically combining my photography with my grandparents’, a main concept of my investigation. Threshold Concept 6 was a primary focus - ‘Photographs rely on chance, more or less’. Although I composed and selected the exposure values for my set of 24 photographs, I relinquished all control when my grandparents were shooting over the top of my photographs. The outcome of these final double exposures was left completely to chance. I combined these images into a continuous video, with a stream of merged, overlapping images scrolling across the video.
After partially resolving this idea, I turned my focus to the physical cameras that I had inherited from my grandfather. I wanted to turn my attention to the marks and residue of usage left on the cameras themselves, from an extensive period of time. I was inspired by Roland Barthes’ idea that, ‘cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing’ - the idea that cameras are a device for recording time. This links back to Threshold Concept 10 - ‘Photographs warp our sense of time; they remind us of things lost’. I shot a series of macro photographs of the cameras, focusing on the mechanical details, as well as the dust, scratches and residue of years of constant usage that have built up on the surface of the cameras themselves. I then shot a more objective typology of the cameras, in response to my emotive, more sensitive macro photographs. I created straightforward, objective images of the cameras (ranging from the early 1900s to the modern day), like a typological history of my grandfather’s life. I also experimented with different processes, printing photograms using my photographs of the cameras.
In preparation for my final outcome, I wanted to experiment with the processes and methods that my grandfather previously used. I focused on my grandfather’s extensive collection of colour slides. Similarly, I wanted to experiment with shooting slide film, to potentially combine my photographs with my grandfathers’, by experimenting with slide projections. Using the medium that my grandfather had used throughout his life, colour slides, I subsequently shot a portraiture series. I produced photographs of my grandparents at home and in their local landscape. I also photographed my grandparents examining and engaging closely with my grandfather’s slides, as well as his bulging albums of photographs.
I staged an installation, setting up two slide projectors - one loaded with my grandfather’s slides from around the 1960s and 1970s, and the other with my own set of colour slides. I set the projectors up so that the slides partially overlapped, with the projections, the imagery merging together. I introduced disruptive three dimensional elements to the projections, adding new textures and layers. I also combined my video slideshow, adding the collaborative photographs, which physically combined my photography with my grandparents’
I explored combining the slide photographs with the cameras themselves, creating an experimental installation in the darkroom. I hung a series of photograms of my grandad’s cameras, clipping them to the washing lines running across the darkroom. I then positioned the slide projection, pointed in the direction of the washing lines. I loaded the slides, running a slideshow of images, flashing across the washing lines of images. The result was a combination of imagery, with the cameras that were used to shoot them, as well as the shadows running across the back wall.
For my final resolved outcome, I created an installation, which combined still images alongside the slides and video. I designed this installation to be a comprehensive outcome of the personal investigation of my relationship to my grandfather’s photography. After mounting a selection of images onto fill lights, I combined two slide projectors alongside a third projector of the video outcome. Whilst running the film of the collaborative double exposures, my colour slides and my grandfather’s colour slides flashed across the installation - illuminating the mounted photographs, creating interesting compositions of different elements and colour. This project effectively explored the passion for photography that my grandfather had passed down to me. As my grandfather bought my first camera, and taught me my first photographic skills, I wanted to examine this relationship in the form of an installation. Overall, this outcome was an effective realisation of my developed investigation: How can I investigation my relationship to my grandfather’s photography?
Bibliography:
‘Edges’ by Dolores Marat
‘Wild Flowers’ by Joel Meyerowitz
Robert Capa Biography: http://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=
MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL535353
Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes
http://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-7.html
http://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-10.html
‘Else’ by Hannah Lenz: http://www.hannalenz.com/index.php?/project/at-home-with-else/
‘Pictures from Home’ by Larry Sultan
‘For Every Minute…’ by Julian Germain: http://www.juliangermain.com
/projects/foreveryminute.php
‘The Bungalow’ by Anouk Kruithof
http://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-6.html
After considering the importance of narratives and relationships that exist between photographs, I began to focus on the creation of my own photobook. I decided on street photography as the subject, which was not only an interest, but also a chance to improve my confidence of shooting in the streets. I was initially drawn to photographers such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Beat Streuli. Their approach differs considerably from some of the most influential street photographers, as they don’t follow Robert Capa’s rule: “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough”. Both photographers use telephoto lenses to crop tightly into their subjects. Lorca diCorcia uses a remote flash to illuminate and isolate his subject’s faces. I took inspiration when shooting street portraits, using available sunlight to isolate pedestrians against the shadowed background. In Moorgate, I positioned myself at the top of some steps, where a ray of sunlight was reflected off of a glass building, illuminating the faces of people against the shadowed background as they ascended the steps.
I was also drawn to the complex compositions of Alex Webb’s photographs. I constructed my own complex compositions. My images were composed of a range of different elements - colour, sunlight, shadow, people, colour, shape, textures, etc. I found the experience of travelling to shoot in different locations exhilarating - I had to be alert and constantly looking. The outcome of my street photography was varied, from candid portraits and crowds of people, to compositions made up of a range of shapes, colour and light. My process of editing down and processing my images was extensive - I selected my most successful images from the thousands that I had taken. I subsequently spent hours laying out hundreds of my photos to find visual relationships or contrasts between them. When pairing diptychs, I was primarily looking for clear relationships between the colours and visual elements in my images, or finding contrasts visually or in terms of subject matter. After experimenting with image pairings and my selections, I made experimental maquettes, before refining my outcome to create a published photobook printed by Blurb. The strongest aspect of this book was the conversations between images I had created, and the flow of the book.
Following this, I investigated Threshold Concept 7: 'Photographs are not fixed in meaning, context is everything'. I was interested in documentary photography, and the ability of photographers to create convincing evidence of reality. I was fascinated about how the context and information surrounding a photograph could change its meaning completely. Moreover, I was especially interested in the power of photography, and the ability of photojournalism to convey information. I also investigated the manipulation of truth in photography, and how photography can never be fully objective - photographs are always open to manipulation and the interpretation of the person taking the photograph. The ideas and concepts (surrounding traces of human activity on the environment) in Peter Fraser’s work significantly influenced my ideas and practice. After hearing Peter Fraser talk at length about his concepts and practice when he visited my school, I was inspired by his focus on traces of human interaction and the residue of human activity in the environment. He describes these photographs as ‘portraits’ despite the fact that they rarely contain people.
I began to investigate photographs as evidence, particularly the ability of photographs to document reality and photo essays to provide a narrative. My exploration of photographers such as Antonio Olmos and Diana Matar prompted me to investigate the ways in which photographs warp our sense of time, reminding us of things lost (linking to Threshold Concept 10). I was fascinated by photography’s ability to capture the world in a moment of time, documenting reality at the moment the photograph was taken. I also loved the ability of Antonio Olmos and Diana Matar to reveal traces of human activity in the environment. In response, artists such as Izaac Enciso, Keld Helmer-Petersen, John Maclean and TJ Tambellini and Lark Foord’s ‘Same Page’ prompted me to respond with a set of photographs exploring traces of human presence in the urban landscape. My images revealed a combination of textures and vibrant colours. They are as much about the formal language of photography as they are cultural studies.
However, I wanted to embark on a more personal project, focusing on a major theme to produce sets of photographs. I chose football, producing several sets of images, from the architecture and identity of particular football clubs, to supporters and the vibrancy and energy of football culture. Football grounds offer traces of the supporters who have left their mark - flags, murals, litter etc. Again, I was interested in the relationship between photography and time. I was drawn to the stadia where thousands have experienced euphoric emotion whilst drama unfolds on the pitch; conversely my photographs focus on the empty shell of this emotion, the deserted stadiums with traces of memories left behind. Photographers like Stuart Roy Clarke have captured the emotion and energy of football throughout the years, whilst others, such as Ross Cooke, Louis Bamford and Marcus Drinkwater, have provided a documentary narrative of local football and captured the details and culture of the sport. Through my own photography, inspired by these photographers, I set out to document the details and culture of football.
I subsequently photographed at a local club, Welling United. I focused on the traces and objects left abandoned by supporters, that almost look like unconsciously made art, dotted around the ground - for example, polystyrene cups left on the terrace that would normally be overlooked. I photographed these traces alongside the material history of the ground, like the layers of paint built up on the main stand over the years. For my final set of images, I photographed football in my local area, focusing on traces again, but also in the context of the local community. I took pictures of local amateur football, documenting the rusty goalposts in the local park, as well as my local football club, Charlton Athletic. I photographed the ground in the context of the local community - photographing the concrete and steel arena, dwarfing local terraced houses. I produced medium format photographs, double exposing my film, combining people and architecture. These experiments were significant in increasing my understanding of evidence, through photography, as well as improving my ability to document evidence and traces. Selecting elements and subjects to photograph, cropping what I wanted to include in the frame, created subjective images - I was selecting what to document and what to exclude. Equally, I didn’t interfere or tamper with my surroundings. However, with my medium format double exposure, I was manipulating the images. These images were largely successful - in the double exposures, traces and marks of the football club on the landscape were combined with images of the football clubs themselves. Due to the limited numbers of exposures with medium format, I had to observe and focus carefully - forcing me to hone my eye onto the key pieces of evidence that can provide a narrative, and effectively document a subject.
I expanded my work to produce a number of mini projects. I experimented with colour film to produce a photo essay of the Thames Path. However, I wanted to produce an even more personal project, a document of intimacy and of an emotional bond. I had studied ‘Else’ by Hannah Lenz, which documents the daily life of an elderly woman living in Denmark, including her everyday activities and the details and memories that have accrued over the decades. I was particularly inspired by the way in which Lenz documents and records the everyday life of this woman, through the medium of documentary photography. In ‘Pictures from Home’, Larry Sultan documents his relationship with, and between, his parents, whilst also examining their archives of photographs, Super 8 films and memories. This relationship sparked ideas about how I could combine my grandad’s extensive photography collection, with my own photographs exploring this relationship. How could I explore my relationship to my grandfather’s photography? I had only recently discovered my grandad’s lifelong passion for photography after inheriting his extensive collection of analogue cameras. This was especially poignant given his recent diagnosis of dementia.
I wanted to focus on his passion for photography, especially as he had passed this down to me, originally teaching me about photography and how to operate a camera. I wanted to explore my grandparents’ archives of photographs, whilst re-igniting my grandad’s passion and interest in photography. I produced a set of medium format portraits focusing on my them and their village, but I used my grandad’s medium format camera that I had inherited, re-photographing them with the same camera that he bought in the 1950s. Julian Germain’s series ‘For Every minute..’ prompted me to also document my grandparents’ extensive photo archive, similarly to the way Germain documents the memories captured in his subject’s photo albums.
I re-photographed the extensive archive of my grandparents’ photographs when they were young, which were taken on the same medium format camera that I was using - around 60 years later. I was subsequently able to experiment using the medium format film, layering the negatives in the enlarger to produce prints that appeared double or triple exposed - for example, a portrait of my grandparents layered with a photograph of the detailed textures of the local river. After examining Anouk Kruithof’s ‘The Bungalow’, where Kruithof layers and investigates our memory of images, I produced a number Photoshop experiments. I layered my portraits of my grandparents on top of the archive photographs. Through these experiments, I physically combined my photographs with my grandfather’s, examining my relationship to his photography. Moreover, I was focusing on the contrast of age, my grandad as a young man developing his photographic skills through his photographs, compared with myself, developing my own skills through this photo series. My photographs, where portraits become merged, were the most successful - especially the contrast of portraits, old photographs merged with new images.
After reviewing the range of photographs created, I produced a typology, documenting the objects and ornaments which they have collected over the course of their lives.
Alongside this, I documented the large boxes of my grandad’s 35mm slides. I enjoyed holding each up to the light, illuminating the rich, vibrant Kodachrome colours. I enjoyed their material, physical nature - in contrast to printed or virtual, digital photographs. It was exciting to load them into the slide projector; slotting the slides into the projector to enlarge the images and reveal their full quality and vibrant detail. This process was similar to how my grandfather invited family at Christmas to view the slideshow of holiday photographs. I produced a video, where I filmed projections of the slide film, running across the frame. Photographs of my family, as they had grown older throughout their lives flashed across the frame, before disappearing and being replaced by other documentary images. I was especially inspired by the way that my grandfather photographed my dad, aunt and uncle growing up.
For my first final outcome, I experimented by combining my own photographs with my grandad’s. I wanted to bridge the gap between my photography, and his - exploring the relationship between them. I printed a range of images from each set of photographs I had produced, displaying them on a white wall, grouping them together similarly to Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibition displays. I subsequently projected the film of my grandfather’s colour slides on top of my installation - adding another layer of imagery. I was particularly drawn to the new compositions and layering of shapes and images; my photographs, with the projected slides creating unusual effects. I filmed the installation, focusing on particular details, creating new compositions. I cropped in on certain areas, as faces and shapes flashed across the installation, illuminating my photographs for a brief period. I think that this outcome was successful - the combination of my varied photographs combined with the projections was effective, especially the way in which new compositions of colour and shapes were created through the layering of projections and photographs. I have certainly created a very personal initial outcome.
Conceptually, I wanted to progress my work further, where I could combine the action of my photography, physically combining this with my grandparents’ physical act of photography. I wanted to make photographs where my photographs are physically combined with my grandparents’ photography. For this experiment, I used 35mm film. My idea was to shoot a roll of 24 photographs, and then double expose these photographs with my grandparent’s photographs layered on top. After I had shot 24 frames, I had to rewind the film in a dark room. I had to open the back of the camera - ensuring that the film didn’t fully rewind back into the cannister. This was a very difficult process - I had to feel my way around in the darkened room. I subsequently asked my grandparents to shoot 24 frames on top of my photographs - I relinquished all control and allowed my grandparents to shoot at will. I wanted to explore chance results - I wanted to lose all control and allow the photographs to be made by the chance of double exposures producing results. Moreover, I wanted to explore the process of physically combining my photography with my grandparents’, a main concept of my investigation. Threshold Concept 6 was a primary focus - ‘Photographs rely on chance, more or less’. Although I composed and selected the exposure values for my set of 24 photographs, I relinquished all control when my grandparents were shooting over the top of my photographs. The outcome of these final double exposures was left completely to chance. I combined these images into a continuous video, with a stream of merged, overlapping images scrolling across the video.
After partially resolving this idea, I turned my focus to the physical cameras that I had inherited from my grandfather. I wanted to turn my attention to the marks and residue of usage left on the cameras themselves, from an extensive period of time. I was inspired by Roland Barthes’ idea that, ‘cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing’ - the idea that cameras are a device for recording time. This links back to Threshold Concept 10 - ‘Photographs warp our sense of time; they remind us of things lost’. I shot a series of macro photographs of the cameras, focusing on the mechanical details, as well as the dust, scratches and residue of years of constant usage that have built up on the surface of the cameras themselves. I then shot a more objective typology of the cameras, in response to my emotive, more sensitive macro photographs. I created straightforward, objective images of the cameras (ranging from the early 1900s to the modern day), like a typological history of my grandfather’s life. I also experimented with different processes, printing photograms using my photographs of the cameras.
In preparation for my final outcome, I wanted to experiment with the processes and methods that my grandfather previously used. I focused on my grandfather’s extensive collection of colour slides. Similarly, I wanted to experiment with shooting slide film, to potentially combine my photographs with my grandfathers’, by experimenting with slide projections. Using the medium that my grandfather had used throughout his life, colour slides, I subsequently shot a portraiture series. I produced photographs of my grandparents at home and in their local landscape. I also photographed my grandparents examining and engaging closely with my grandfather’s slides, as well as his bulging albums of photographs.
I staged an installation, setting up two slide projectors - one loaded with my grandfather’s slides from around the 1960s and 1970s, and the other with my own set of colour slides. I set the projectors up so that the slides partially overlapped, with the projections, the imagery merging together. I introduced disruptive three dimensional elements to the projections, adding new textures and layers. I also combined my video slideshow, adding the collaborative photographs, which physically combined my photography with my grandparents’
I explored combining the slide photographs with the cameras themselves, creating an experimental installation in the darkroom. I hung a series of photograms of my grandad’s cameras, clipping them to the washing lines running across the darkroom. I then positioned the slide projection, pointed in the direction of the washing lines. I loaded the slides, running a slideshow of images, flashing across the washing lines of images. The result was a combination of imagery, with the cameras that were used to shoot them, as well as the shadows running across the back wall.
For my final resolved outcome, I created an installation, which combined still images alongside the slides and video. I designed this installation to be a comprehensive outcome of the personal investigation of my relationship to my grandfather’s photography. After mounting a selection of images onto fill lights, I combined two slide projectors alongside a third projector of the video outcome. Whilst running the film of the collaborative double exposures, my colour slides and my grandfather’s colour slides flashed across the installation - illuminating the mounted photographs, creating interesting compositions of different elements and colour. This project effectively explored the passion for photography that my grandfather had passed down to me. As my grandfather bought my first camera, and taught me my first photographic skills, I wanted to examine this relationship in the form of an installation. Overall, this outcome was an effective realisation of my developed investigation: How can I investigation my relationship to my grandfather’s photography?
Bibliography:
‘Edges’ by Dolores Marat
‘Wild Flowers’ by Joel Meyerowitz
Robert Capa Biography: http://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=
MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL535353
Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes
http://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-7.html
http://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-10.html
‘Else’ by Hannah Lenz: http://www.hannalenz.com/index.php?/project/at-home-with-else/
‘Pictures from Home’ by Larry Sultan
‘For Every Minute…’ by Julian Germain: http://www.juliangermain.com
/projects/foreveryminute.php
‘The Bungalow’ by Anouk Kruithof
http://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-6.html