Narrative

I struggled for quite a while for ideas for this project. I had missed the initial lecture about the project due to a holiday I was on (more on that later), so even though the presentation was on myuca, I didn't get all of the explanation and thus lacked the inspiration to start a good project. I think that because of this I haven't really got any strong work yet, but pushing forward I would like to strengthen my work into a final piece that I'm proud of.

One photographer that I found was Michael Northrup, and the work that I looked into was his 'Dream Away' project. What I liked about this project at first glance was the aesthetics of the photos. From the subdued colours and the subject matter, I enjoyed the warm look of what seems like an old 70s family photo album shot on film. When reading more into it however, I became more interested. I was interested to know that the project is centered around relationship with his former wife.

Dream Away is an insight into a very intimate relationship, with photographs of a roast dinner, the birthday cake, and several photographs of the child they had together. Northrup said in an interview: “It’s mostly autobiographical but that’s by accident. I think there is some kind of hidden non specific narrative to my images but I couldn’t tell you what it is. I want to keep a certain amount of openness to my work so viewers can get inside the image. I like seeing things come together out of context.” I think that I would like to employ Michael's storytelling style with my project. I have photographed my holiday with my family which I think definitely reflects his subject matter, and it also reflects the familial intimacy shown in his work as well. I also enjoy the snapshot aesthetics in his work. Snapshot aesthetics, a term popularised in the 60s, is a type of photography that focuses on mundane every day subject matter with off centered framing. The idea is interesting, but because of the nature of a holiday it won't be very ordinary, and I don't like to not think about framing when taking an image, so it would be quite difficult to turn that switch off, and I don't think that the images would fit together visually if things weren't aligned properly.

Giya Makondo-Wills is a British/South African photographer based in the UK, and has exhibited in Lagos, Johannesburg and Dusseldorf as well as widely within the UK. The specific project that I am intrigued by is 'Doyenne', an ongoing project about Giya's grandmothers, one living in east Sussex, the other in a township near Johannesburg. The project is about her trying to get to know her grandmothers better, saying: “It’s really changed my relationship with both of them, as I’ve started to get to know them as individuals rather than just my grandmothers". I think that this is a brilliant idea for a series, because it not only tells the story of a granddaughter trying to get to understand their elders, but also the stories of the grandmothers, who hadn't been able to tell them before.

The narrative strategy used here is very effective, as it allows us to assume our position into the family, and view it from the inside, which is a very intimate and complicated thing to show someone. It also shows her sharing her identity with us, as she is literally showing us where she came from. It shows us the stark contrast between the two grandmothers, which allows insight into family politics as well. Giya said “The project has been a bit of a ‘coming of age’ process for me, really exploring my identity and these two incredible women who in part make me who I am today”

Giya has presented her work in exhibitions. I think I would like my images to be presented similarly, with individual images working in a series.

I am intrigued by the narratives at play here. I like the theme of family, more specifically family politics. I liked the stories told by individual portraits, and how they are linked to the artistic photography of the surroundings. I would like this work presented as individual photographs because I think that images speak best for themselves in a series on a wall.

WEEKLY PROJECTS:

Week 1: Text That Anchors, Text That Relays

This exercise has allowed me to think about text and how it can work contextually with an image. The first one is very direct, with the title of the news article stating exactly who she is and what she’s about. The second one allows some insight about who this woman is and her background, and the last one is thought provoking and mysterious. Perhaps I should look into pairing images with quotes to provide enough context to things without giving too much away.

Week 2: Images That Evoke, Images That Illustrate

This exercise was interesting as well, as it showed me that I can fit several different contexts of images inside one title. I chose a line from a fiction book about space travel and how time works differently. For the first image, I had to represent the line as literally as possible, so I chose someone gazing into the stars. I found it quite amusing thinking about how he could be trying to read a clock on a passing star. For the second image, I was supposed to choose something that doesn't represent the line exactly, but evokes a feeling of it. I chose a physics laboratory because the nature of the line and what it's about is very scientific, and I imagined someone who would typically be found in a physics laboratory saying this.

Week 3: Tableaux and Detail

This exercise was fun. I had to take an original image, and crop it into four identically sized images, and then arrange them in a series, thinking about the reasoning behind placing them a certain way. The first way I tried I wanted to lead with the least visually interesting image and get progressively busier as the image goes on. The second series served as a way for me to separate the manmade looking ones from the organic looking ones, The manmade looking ones referring to the crops with bricks, and the organic looking ones refer to the crops with leaves in, however image three in that series combines the two nicely towards the end of the series. With the last series, I was trying to sequence them thinking about visual links. The first crop being the bike frame, with black bars going down the top and leaves growing around brickwork. That leads into the crop with the drainpipe going down some more brickwork. Next we look at more brickwork and geometric lines, and lastly we end off with the crop with mostly leaves, which ties it around nicely to the beginning again. This exercise allowed me to deepen my thought processes when it comes to sequencing images, and how that can aid me in a narrative sense.

Week 4: Montage

With this exercise, I had to pair a portrait (left) with several other images. With another portrait, an image of a place, a still life, and an image of my own choosing. I think that pairing portrait is a very effective method of narrative because it automatically suggests that there is a relationship and a personal story there. A place can also suggest narrative alongside a portrait because it suggests a connection to that place, whether it be that they were born there, or something important to happened to them there. A still life with a portrait is also a good narrative tool because, again, it can suggest a personal connection. It could be a family heirloom, something someone found, or something out of a collection, putting the still life next to an image of a person will instantly visually connect them. Lastly, putting my own image next to the portrait allowed me to think for myself about what image reflects the person in the portrait, and will help me in deciding which image to put where in the timeline.

I am going to a pretty big event. Not big to everyone, just on my mother's side of the family. There are four aunts that are meeting for the first time in 21 years, and we're celebrating by everyone getting together in Dorset, where one of the aunts live. Considering I have been doing all of this research about projects dealing with the chipping away of the shroud of mystery hanging over unknown family members and the intimacy of family, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to complete this project. I am not very close with my mothers side of the family, so all that I know is the stories that my mother tells me about everyone and their drama that happened before I was born. I would like this project to explore my relationship with these four and my mothers side of the family. I would also shoot it candidly, much like Michael Northrup's work, so that it feels more close and intimate for the audience so they can get a more natural feeling of family from the work. I also thought about using text, but decided against it because both of the photographers I researched hadn't employed it in their work, and I felt that the idea of their family dynamics and every day life was well portrayed without it.

Also, a while ago my mother, brother and I went on a trip together to South Africa, where my family originates. So this provides an even deeper story into my family, and it introduces a new narrative of it being a journey around the country. This trip is especially important because it was my brother's first time visiting our family in South Africa, so documenting that will provide a narrative there as well. I would like to explore both these ideas in depth, exploring different ways of presenting these ideas.

I started to do some research on how to present my work. One way that I found is called a triptych, which is an image comprised of three photographs that relate to each other. One specific artist that I found called Adde Adesokan uses this method of telling the viewer about a stranger by photographing their head, hands, and shoes. While I might not decide to go with the same subject matter, the triptych seems like a fun exercise that I would like to try.

What I like most about the triptych is that it's using the rule of thirds. It works so well, and I think that linking three images together to tie certain parts of a story would be a great way to present the work.

During my holiday to South Africa, I took quite a few photographs. It's fortunate, then, that I have all of these images now because I can use them for this project. I have a very deep familial link to South Africa, on both of my parent's sides. Plus, since, I was documenting the entire journey, I thought that these photographs combined with that link would serve as an ideal set of triptychs. When trawling through the many photographs that I had taken, I decided on an anchor between each grouping. It turns out that the only person that shows up more than twice is my brother. It would make sense to make the work about him because similar to my link to SA, I have a link with him, one of the strongest out of the whole family, Now with a set of photographs of my brother in hand, I retraced my steps through the extensive archive to look for photographs that bared a visual resemblance.

This is the first one I made, and you can start to see the resemblance almost instantly. All three have a story in common as well; long, painstaking journeys. The first image on the left was just before we scaled Cape Town's Table Mountain. At least we thought we were going to, but we ended up taking the wrong route and ended up scaling three of the 12 Apostles as well as Table Mountain itself. Worth it in the end, though, The photo on the right is of when we went on a train journey on an old vintage steam train to this Christmas fair type thing. It was underwhelming, but I still had fun. On the way back, things started to get very foggy, as it often does in Pietermaritzburg's summer. It also started to rain, which meant that the wheels on the train couldn't get any traction, so the train was stuck on the tracks for a good hour or so. The middle one is a reflection of my brother's arm onto a pane of glass overlooking the runway. This was also a very tedious journey, but it certainly was worth it in the end.

This set is a little darker than the last one, so perhaps a few edits to increase the exposure is in need. The image on the left is of some runway markings and the stairs up to the plane, the image on the right is off the patio of where we were staying in Pietermaritzburg. As I said, it definitely likes to fog up there in the summer. And lastly, the middle is my brother getting ready in the hotel room we stayed at in Cape Town. As you can see, I have decided to place the photographs of my brother in the middle of each triptych. I have done this because I think that because I am making this work about him and how I experienced these goings on with him, it only made sense to put him there.

The image on the left is of a bird of prey found in South Africa. We had gone to a bird sanctuary one day and each bird had a story of how it ended up there. I cannot recall this particular bird's story, but nonetheless it needed the sanctuaries help. The one on the right is a reflection of me in the headlights of my uncle's 4x4. I wanted to include this one because it shows who's point of view this story is in. Like a novel, it's clear who's perspective the book is in, so I thought I would reveal that here. Also, I like how the shape of the headlight flows with the eyelines of both the figures on the left and in the middle. Speaking of which, that's the brother before we climbed Table Mountain - an experience that only made us closer. I quite like this series as all of the photographs suggest a perspective of some kind.

The image on the left is of a view outside the room that I was staying in. It shows two quite interesting things, my uncle's passion for gardening, and the fact that they needed bars over the windows to stop the monkeys that roam around from getting in. The image on the right is of a reposed zebra. I quite like this image because without the context of the fact that it had just been lying down, it might appear that it could be dead (don't worry, I saw it get up and move around after the photo was taken). It highlights the poaching issue that Hluhluwe iMfolozi national park has often. The middle is of my brother posing for a photograph that wouldn't look out of place in a fashion magazine. I paired all of these images together because they all show a small subject in the middle (or thereabouts) of the frame. There is a nice diagonal going down from the Aloe to the zebra as well.

And last but not least, my favourite triptych I made. The image on the left is of a stream that we stumbled upon on our trek up Table Mountain. The water was a deep orange in colour (due to iron deposits, my brother let me know that fact), there was an odd white foam on top, and there were tadpoles and frogs swimming around. Not only is that one of my favourite photographs I have taken on that trip, it also shows a families home, much like what this whole project is about in the first place. The image on the right is an experiment that I was trying where I was doing long exposure light drawing but with the flash firing on the first instant of the shutter opening, resulting in a clear image of some plants but with a light drawing over the top of it. The middle image is of (you guessed it) my brother, throwing his medication into the air resulting in a blurry image. There are several ways in which these images link. The colours, the plants (the middle image is in a tent in Hluhluwe national park, there were plenty of plants there), the length of exposure in the last two, and what I originally paired them up for, the white objects in them. I thought that the foam and the light drawing resembled the pills being thrown into the air a bit, so I put them all next to each other.

At the beginning of the unit, I was quite intrigued about how I could incorporate narrative into the work. I knew that I didn't want to be too obvious and tell a story outright, like Michael Northrup's work. I wanted it to be ambiguous. I also knew that I wanted to incorporate memories in as well, as these are incredibly important to family. I made the two work together by not letting the images contain any clues or references to the memories themselves, instead I made them reflections of smaller parts in the bigger moments. That way, the images only serve as fractions of the story, which allows the viewer with opportunity to obtain details of the overarching story without actually being there. The idea that I had didn't really change through my working on the project, I was quite dead-set on it in fact. However, I think that was down to my lack of research on this project. Since I had the idea down I subconsciously skipped a lot of it. I'll try in future to increase the amount of research I do. I think that I certainly challenged the storytelling and narrative aspect by not putting the photographs in any particular order, instead sorting them by aesthetic similarities only. I instead employed a more non-linear storytelling style, where the five triptychs all work together to tell the story. When sorting these images into threes, I considered a few things. I considered whether the images had any similarities, and if they did then they went into a group. I also thought about how the images flowed when looking at them from left to right, as one would conventionally read a book. I also placed the photographs of my brother in the center of each triptych, which shows that he is the main character of the story, which was documented by me. I would like to present this work on a projector, because a few of the images are quite dark, and I'm afraid that some of the details may not come out on a print. I think that the projector would provide enough light so that the images can be seen entirely. I would also like these images to be presented quite large, so that the audience can spend their time with each image, as if it were a page in a book being slowly read as to encapsulate the message that it was conveying.

I also wanted to explore the big family event of the four aunts meeting again for the first time in 21 years idea. I wanted it to be shot in a similar style to Giya's work, where I will be shooting candid portraits as well as environmental shots, and how they are presented in a timeline with individual shots. I also want it to show the family drama, the memories, the close connections, and the distance that some of us share, so that the audience can understand the true narrative of the event. I also want to use my previous work for this unit as a jumping board into this one, I think that the arranging of the images to create narrative is effective, but rather than just relying on that to tell the story, I will use the images to tell the story instead, with the arrangement helping it along.

I looked into a photographer called John Divola and his work 'Evidence of Aggression'. It is comprised of 48 found continuity film stills that were printed by anonymous photographers working under Warner Brothers in the 1930s. They were high quality photographs taken of a set so that when shooting a scene nothing gets moved out of place.This provides an insight into Hollywood and how important visual narrative was in the 20th century. I enjoy these photographs because they are a halfway point between the story taking place and the final film at the end. Because these are images of sets that actors have to use to tell a story, the sense of narrative is immediately invoked because you know that something has happened in the room, whether it was a quarrel between friends or an attempted murder. Even the title of the project itself is referencing that, telling us that something violent happened here, but it's leaving us to decide what happened.

It's injecting context into a space which gives it meaning and makes it a setting for a story. I would like to reflect this in my work, so I will also make sure to take photographs of the family's surroundings, using other images and perhaps the title of the project to give meaning to the photographs. I think that John also uses a title effectively here, as it gives the images a context in which to fit together and become a series. That would also be worth looking into, so that my images have some inherent meaning. I also enjoy how the work is presented, as prints all separate from each other but all part of the same series. I particularly enjoy this method of presentation because it is like small snapshots in a timeline that you get to place yourself. Hopefully, my work that links to family history and drama will reflect this sense of a story and a timeline that might not be visible through what's in the image, but how the people are reacting off of each other.

I wanted to try using a different camera to shake things up a little. I have a very early video camera that can also take photographs. These are horribly low quality, but that could serve as an aesthetic bonus in making the photos look like they are stills from old family home videos. Also, because the camera is fairly small and there is no viewfinder (only a small screen where you can see your image), it will be fairly difficult to properly compose a shot, which could tie my work to Michael Northrup's work aesthetically as well because it would make it look as if it were shot in the Snapshot Aesthetic style that Michael loved.

This shoot was interesting. I decided to shoot these images landscape rather than my usual landscape in order to shake up the way I compose images, and to further capture that Snapshot Aesthetic style. The annoying part about this shoot is that the camera's setting was automatically set to show the time on each photograph, but the internal clock in the camera was set to the 30th of January, 2012. So now, on each image, it displays a time seven years ago. I think that it could be a happy accident, as the whole shoot turned out to be about the theme of absence and how people grow in that time, so having the date miss a huge chunk of time would be appropriate, however I don't think that it really does anything for the narrative of the shoot, other than to mislead the audience into thinking that they are older images. The one way that I could fix this is by cropping, like I used in the weekly excercise. This then could create a smaller image that could be interspersed into the higher quality DSLR images. I think that if I were to do this again, I would eliminate the need to crop the images by either turning the time feature off, or at least setting the correct date. However, I do enjoy the aesthetics of the images from this camera, I think that the low digital quality, motion blur, and slightly off kilter composition play into Snapshot Aesthetics perfectly.

Contact Sheet:

As I was cropping these images to try and remove the incorrect timestamp, I wanted to try something different, similar to one of the weekly exercises where we had to creatively crop the photographs. I decided to crop the images to push the narrative of absence and separation in the family.

I decided to look into photographers that employed this method in their work, and see how I could incorporate their methods into my own work. I looked into Matt Siber, and his work 'The Yellow Wall, Italy'. He removes the text from the image and moves it to one side in order to bring attention to the fact that we are bombarded constantly with advertisements and text of that nature. He also removes the text from the original image, which brings further attention to the bombardment because you don't really notice things until they are gone.

I think I can use this to push the narrative that I mentioned earlier, by taking photos of three family members and cropping them, and taking those crops and moving them to the side in the same place. I don't think that keeping the image with the people missing would do the same thing, because the whole idea of this experiment is about the people, and not the place.

To achieve the effect that I wanted, I opened up the image in an image editing software.

I then proceeded to crop square images of each individual. I then added a new layer, and imported the smaller cropped images over the top.

I then placed the image exactly over where it was in the image, and did it for each person. I cropped each person in different sizes, based on how much I interacted with that person at the reunion. This cropping method now visually and contextually shows how each person is getting on with their own lives, and how we are separated. The sizes of each crop as well adds my own personal twist to it, providing an insight into how I interact with this side of the family.

I then put a white background over the original image, and then I had my final image.

I then proceeded to repeat the process with some more photographs.

I like how these pieces came out. I wish that I took more images of three people so that I am able to choose which pieces made it to the exhibition, but I ended up with three, which is still a good number to have. The way that they are made make each image look like they were taken at different times and locations, even though it was a snapshot of the same moment. I feel that this represents how this side of the family operates, all part of the same system but everyone's lives are separate and have different things going on around them. I would consider using these as final pieces, but I would have to compare how they look and show narrative with the other series shot on the DSLR first before making that decision.

The shoot went fairly well, however because we didn't move anywhere outside of the kitchen or the garden, the locations of the shoot are limited. I also managed to keep things candid, which I think adds to the narrative aspect of the project as it draws the audience in and makes them believe they are in this situation. It also reflects the visual style of Giya, which I set out to do in the first place. I don't think that it reflects Michael Northrup's work, but because his work deals with often over the top colourful subjects, I steered more away from it because I felt that I wanted this to feel more natural and every-day rather than otherworldly. The environmental shots I took without any people in worked quite well too, especially where I used the empty chair to connote absence in the family, as this really has been the first time in several years that we have all seen each other. In this shoot, there are even some kids that I have never met before, but the when I saw the mother last she was 13. My mum was even saying that it was an odd experience for her because the last time she saw some of the aunts she was only a child, but now she can share a drink with them. I think this shoot reflected this narrative of absence really well. I tried to capture some of the family drama and dynamics as well, but because I don't really know everything that happened between these people (and didn't want to bring it up in this little family reunion) I decided to keep it ambiguous to myself and take an outsider's view on it, knowing that there is some stuff between these people, but that stuff isn't for me to know. I also think that a lot of these shots are composed very well, despite my prejudice against shooting people. Although if I were to do this a again I think I would take more photos, even though we weren't there for too long.

Contact Sheet:

The portrait shots of people all manage to tell a story, as they all show a connection between these family members, whether they have known each other all their lives, seen them kind of recently or not for several years. I think that the images that reflect this the best is IMG_8133, IMG_8142, IMG_8174, and IMG_8207. 8133 shows the mother that I mentioned before where I last saw her when she was 13, and her fixing her kid's hair. I had never met this child prior to this event, so it was a little bizarre seeing this take place. There is an obvious connection between these two but, much like the audience, the person behind the lens of this project doesn't have much of a relationship with these two. 8142 is a wider image than I usually take, and I did this to create more of an impact in the image. It depicts the pinnacle of the event, the four aunts meeting again for the first time in 21 years. I must admit, that the nature of this image was set up so that the other family members can get their own photographs for facebook, but I thought I would jump in and grab a photo as well. I think that the nature of the image plays into the family dynamic narrative fairly well, because it is often something that families do, take photos of each other on their phones and upload them to facebook. I think that stealing the shot from other people's timelines gives the photograph that context of every day family activity that otherwise it wouldn't have. 8174 shows my mother laughing at an old photograph of herself and of other people from the reunion. I think that this image brings entire idea together visually. The shift between the old printed photo and the high quality DSLR shot shows the shift in time and how long we have all been apart and really throws it in your face. The smile on my mother's face also shows that the memory she is holding is a good one, so even though this side of the family might have drama, there are still good things to look back on. 8207 is one of the last images I took, and it depicts three of the four aunts raising a toast of champagne to their togetherness. First of all, throughout the whole series so far there have only been instances of photo opportunities of the four aunts all together, but this is the first without one in. This goes into the narrative of absence even deeper as even in the presence of each other they still seem to operate without one another, even posing for photographs without everyone there.

I also feel that the environmental shots tell story well because I attempted to show the audience what I remembered from that garden from when I was a child. I remember all of the garden ornaments, the shed in the garden, the trampoline, and even the interior of the kitchen. It was quite surreal for me to be back there, and I think that I successfully showed my nostalgia by shooting close up images of the ornaments and the surrounding area. I think that the images that show this the best is IMG_8111, IMG_8127, and IMG_8144. 8111 shows the front of the house, and a handmade plaque stating the house name and number. This was what I first saw when I pulled up to the house, and it all looks exactly the same as when I was there as a child. This was when the memories started to flood back, so this image would be ideal for the first spot on a series. 8127 is a photograph of a frog ornament amongst some foliage. Like the first image mentioned, it was familiar to me on a nostalgic level, as I remember the garden being full of ornaments similar to that one, and a pleasant feeling came over me as I started to think of me as a kid wondering about this garden, thinking it was a lot bigger than it was (because I was smaller then), and looking for all the frogs dotted about in the garden. I think that these environmental images work as a counter narrative to the absence narrative, because it shows that even though you might not have seen these people and set foot in that garden for several years, there are small, happy things that stick with you, despite all of the familial drama going on. 8144 was a little different, because it shows an overview of the garden, and something that they added during that absence, the weathervane. This image to me shows that even with all of the memories and time spent with each other, people move on, and get on with their lives. I also think that these environmental shots are very similar to Giya Makondo-Wills's, because they provide insight into their family member's living space, which is very personal to them and can show a lot of that person's personality.

I had a lot of thought of what I wanted to title this project, and I think that 'Reunion' is perfect. It's short and sweet, and it conveys exactly what the situation is. I also think that it provides enough context to the series because family reunions are something that families go to once they haven't seen each other for a while, which is exactly what happened. The title also serves to relate the situation to the audience, because every family has reunions, and they can project how they felt in their family reunions, and how perhaps they don't see some family members and how that makes them feel onto the project.

Because I was away in Dorset for this project and had to use a laptop, I didn;t have access to any of the programs that I had used in workshops. For that matter, I didn't even have microsoft word. I had to use Google Slides as a way to put these images together. Rudimentary, but it worked in the end to have smaller images to present on the blog.

I found the exercise of presenting these images in series of five quite fun, as I got to group the photos together and create narratives through that fashion. I chose five because I think that that is a nice succinct number that you can tell a story through. I tried this with three, but it didn't work as well.

For the first series, I wanted to show images with no one in them. I feel like this really highlights the absence narrative and the family drama narrative very well, especially with the empty chairs. This really solidifies these narratives along the series title 'Reunion', because the visuals directly contrast the title. Another thing that pushes these narratives is the centerpiece, the child's toy on an empty floor. To me, this represents the kids that were at the reunion that I had never met before. These children had no idea who I was or my relation to them, The block being alone on the floor to me represents what I am to them in the family. I also chose the two shots including windows to bookend this group, because I realise that the project is literally a window into my family and its dramas. Also, the reflections on the window could represent the audience reflecting on how their own family dynamics as well. By having these shots be on either end, it creates a nice beginning and end. Window number one allows you to see in to my family, but the last one provides you with opportunity to look back at yours.

With this next group, I wanted to highlight images where people are not talking to each other. I started it with one of my favourite shots of the whole shoot, Where one of the children are looking at the camera with people in front and behind. His holding gaze with the lens and the blank expression to me conveys the lack of connection. And with everyone else ignoring the camera it really pushes the narrative that no one really knows me in my mother's side of the family. I also included the shot in the center of one of the family members walking away. In reality, she was looking after someone in the cabin, but without this context I think it represents what will happen after this all blows over we will all walk away and go back to how things were before. I decided to put this in the middle of the group rather than just the end because no one was thinking about that at the time, everyone was just enjoying each others company. The thought came to me around halfway through the event, so I placed it halfway through the group, in timeline fashion. The last two show two people on their phones, the last of which is my mother, who like me and my brother, don't see this side of the family much. This photo being used at the end was intentional, because showing someone bored and on their phone amongst their immediate family that they haven't seen in a while (some of which she hasn't seen since she was 16) highlights the awkwardness of seeing these people that you haven't had in your life in a long time and having to be nice and make conversation with them as if you have.

I wanted to focus on the kids in this series. I think (and I have mentioned this before) that the mother knowing me when she we were younger, her falling off of my radar, and then us crossing paths with two new people that probably didn't even know I existed is the strongest way of conveying this message that sometimes families can be distant. I started with the image on the left because this was the first interaction I had with them. Henry (the one in the red shirt) was doing a magic show later on (which comprised of him hiding the orange lego block under his shirt and asking people if they had seen it), and was giving out small lego DC themed tickets out to the show. The next image in the group was the mother I mentioned fixing Spencer's hair. Spencer being the one in the grey shirt. This was an interesting moment for me as I had never seen Hannah in this motherly role before, I had just known her as an early teenager. I used the image of Spencer staring at me again here because it highlights the interaction I had with him specifically. I didn't really talk to him at all, and him looking at me from a distance with his blank face represents that to me. Next was a photo I took while Henry invited me to play with him on the trampoline. This was the most interaction I had with either kid all day, so I decided to take a photograph. However, at the age that Henry is, he won't remember this interaction, so it's like we're going back to not knowing each other. I chose a photograph where Henry is blurry and has his face mostly obscured to represent this. The last one was just before we were leaving, and like the end of the previous group, it ends off with someone on their phone, disinterested in what's happening around them. I used this to end off the group because I wanted to show that my relationship (or lack thereof) with these children doesn't only exist with me, but it also extends to other family members as well. I think that this series is one of the best I made, because it reinforces the narrative of us as a family drifting apart, growing as people, making new relationships with people, and crossing paths again later on in life,

The next group acts as a timeline, as they are all placed chronologically. You can tell this visually as the beginning image is brighter than the last, signifying the amount of time that has passed between each snapshot. The first image is of two of the family members that I haven't seen in a while, one being Aunty Iva-Anne who hasn't changed much since I last saw her, and Hannah, who has changed immensely since I last saw her. I think that this image is perfect to begin with because it shows the growth in people once you leave their lives, and how they can change, or how they could be comfortable in their living situation and not change at all. Also, Hannah's face is obscured by a pole, which signifies how much she has changed, and how I barely recognise her anymore. The next image is an environmental shot, showing how the garden that we were situated in hasn't changed much at all either. The garden is Aunty Iva-Anne's, and as I explained before, she hadn't changed much, and clearly neither did her ornament placement. It's also interesting because these ornaments are soaked with memories of me as a child playing around in this garden and these ornaments. I feel that showing these in this group represents how even though we may have drifted apart, there are still these memories that I have. The centerpiece in this group is the empty chairs. I put these next to the ornament photo because it is a stark contrast. The ornament photo represents all the memories that I had, and the chair photo represents the absence in each other's lives and the potential memories we could have made. The next image I chose was of my mother laughing and pointing at an old photograph of her and some of the reunion attendees. I think that there is something to be said about rephotographing images to show the jump in time, and I am using that here to highlight the jump in time where we didn't exist in each other's lives. The last image is of three of the four aunts that haven't seen each other in a group in 21 years. They are posing for a photo while they wait for the fourth one to make it there. As I said earlier in this post, The narrative of absence is represented here because even though they are all together, they all still go about things without one another. I also think that this is the perfect image to end on because it was one of the last images I took of the event, and so it marks the end of the reunion. Alongside the context I just gave the image, I think it represents how we will all leave this reunion and go on with our lives as before, not keeping each other close in our lives like we were at the reunion.

Even though I think that the group with the children relays the narrative of absence in the family more succinctly and exactly, it would be difficult for people to glean the meaning of the photographs from just looking at the images paired with the title. I think this because there isn't anywhere were I bring it up, it just looks like five photographs of the same children at first glance. I think that the last group that I talked about works better with the title of the series, and pushes the narrative further in conjuncture with the title than the group with the children did. Plus, the nature of the group being in a timeline is a more conventional method of storytelling, and I can show this family reunion and all of the narratives that I am showing into it's own narrative of the goings on inside the reunion and how that itself shows the narrative of family drama and absence. Therefore I am choosing that timeline of images as my final piece. I also prefer this final piece over the experiment I did with the smaller camcorder, because that experiment is more obvious, whereas the timeline is less so, and makes the audience think deeper into the narrative. Also, the reason why I wanted to use the camcorder was the aesthetics of it and how the images looked like snapshots, but now I've cut all of that away and just shown small parts of it, removing the whole Snapshot Aesthetic entirely.

I definitely think that the artists I researched influenced my shooting methods and presentation methods as well. I think that if I didn't look into Michael's and Giya's work and how it shows their family dynamic. Especially Giya's work, where it highlights how she doesn't know her grandmothers that well. I also looked at how Giya presented her work on her website, with all of the images next to each other for you to scroll through each image. I think that this way of presenting images relating to family is perfect, as it reflects how families keep in touch with each other usually, online on facebook, in timeline fashion.

The weekly projects helped me out with the grouping of the images, especially with week four where it got the cogs running on how I should think about relationships between images not only visually (which I struggled with in the first run of this project) but contextually as well.

Below you can click on the final piece to view it fully.