Did another shoot with my dad last week, and for the most part the photographs are rubbish, but I do like two and ironically they are the only ones that didn’t go to plan. The lighting I set up didn’t fire, creating a silhouette. They were the only two moments that felt like something was happening without being forced, which is why the flash didn’t fire; I was reacting instinctively to a moment that felt right and the flash hadn’t had time to re-charge. I had been really stuck with this project, feeling like my time restriction was forcing me into a contrived reaction to the archive photographs, but after a good tutorial/crit I feel I’ve made a breakthrough…
Vincent standing at the bedroom window
Vincent sitting at the bedroom window
Up until now I have been trying to fashion a really tight and conceptual portrait project as a response to all of the information I’ve been collecting, which was becoming really difficult for me. At my last tutorial I presented samples of everything I had: my own photographs, interviews, archive photographs, family photographs and ephemera representing family history/connections to South Africa. From this, with the help of my tutorial group, I have decided instead to embrace the chaos in all of this. I went to two exhibitions straight after making this decision in which the artists have worked in a similar mode as I intend to. The first was the Catherin Yass curated show at Jerwood Space: Passing Thoughts and Making Plans, which had some interesting moments. The second was Jim Goldberg’s show at the Photographers Gallery: Open See, which was absolutely incredible – I will dedicate another post to that. So the plan as it stands is this: to create a portrait of the immediate members of my family, with a focus on their respective relationships to SA. It will be a loose series of portraits alongside photographed objects which will help describe them/us further. I will be playing with the power balance in representation (between photographer and subject) by letting them influence their representation in a number of ways: Through language, choice of objects, collaboration in the photographic process and various interventions after the fact. My own thinking will also be present in all of this and the objects that represent this will be the Archive images. Through my own family portrait I hope to investigate more universal themes and a history that is far bigger than my own family. Full revised proposal and more photographs up in the next couple days.
