Assignment 1

My first assignment is the ‘Square Mile’ there is a concept within welsh culture called Y Filltir Sgwar (The Square Mile).

I have to make a series of six to twelve photographs in response to the above, I will need to shoot many more than twelve from which to make my final edit, the final set should sit together as a series which complement one another and communicate my idea. I can approach this assignment however I choose, although it should communicate something about my interests, motivations, and ambitions for my  interest in photography.

I researched the practitioners mentioned in the brief for ideas and inspiration, Jodie Taylor took me back to my youth, I remembered climbing trees with my siblings, playing hide and seek around the back of houses, running through alleyways and garage blocks. We were children from broken homes, latch key kids, times were very hard, but we were happy.

Gawain Barnard made me think of different ways to express myself through pictures, by using different settings when taking pictures, could I use high and low key settings within my mile, maybe there could be a reason for capturing photographs out of focus, could I use different lighting or shadows, or different times of the day, movement, angles and so much more.

Keith Arnatt made me question the realism of the photography, the invisibility, the shadows, could I incorporate something that wasn’t what it seems? Turning the photographs into black and white could add to nostalgia.

I found Tina Barney’s photographs gave me very different thoughts and ideas, her photographs were very brightly coloured, the wealth and affluence shone through them, however personally I didn’t feel the passion and emotion in the pictures.

So I brainstormed and mind mapped and brainstormed some more……..

Where is my ‘Square Mile’ going to be and what is it going to incorporate? This isn’t going to be easy, the more I think about it the harder its getting!

One Square Mile.

My first impression of the brief was to think outside the box and dream up something completely out of context, I had so many different thoughts and ideas, but after looking at other practitioners works my thoughts kept ending up at the same place, especially Jodi Taylors work, she really influenced me, she brought back many happy childhood memories of the sink estate we lived on after my parents divorced.

So my mind was made up, I decided the first thing I would do was go for a walk around all the old haunts where I grew up, reminiscing and picturing all the children playing together, it was quite nostalgic, but how and what I would photograph and how it would tell a story of that era of my life or how would it sit together as a set?

My initial thought was about my parents divorce, it was a very difficult time for everyone, so I wanted an image to portray the great sadness we all encountered, from that moment on we had to fend for ourselves, find our own amusement and utilise our surroundings as one giant playground.

Every nook and cranny was somewhere else to explore, nowhere was out of bounds, every night after school we would meet up with other children and entertain ourselves until dusk and then we would have to go home until tomorrow.

 

I experimented with many different techniques for my photographs, I used high and low key settings, different ISO, aperture and shutter speeds as I wanted to capture the feelings and emotions of children’s imagination at play.

It was strange to go back in time and see how much things had changed, it looks so dated and dreary, like a concrete jungle, not at all how I remembered it back then, we had to work and study so hard to realise the dream that others took for granted, but I will always have a soft spot for those times and can now reflect on the happy childhood that I had.