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Representing Other

Taylor H
May 6, 2019
8 min read

The brief for this project calls for me to document an individual, group, or community which I have not previously known. This was quite difficult for me to come up with ideas for because I wasn't aware of anything that I didn't know about, obviously. I also wasn't aware on how to contact these people either. Any idea that I had became less and less possible as time went on, but luckily there were a few events going on that I could go to. The first is a vintage toy fair going on in my home town, and I thought it would be interesting to go down and ask people why they are so passionate about them. There was also a comedy night happening at a pub near my mum's house, so I would also like to go in and see if I can interview the comics and ask them why they do what they do or other such questions. These ideas are quite risky in that since I'm asking them if I can take their photograph and interview them, and there is a possibility that people might say no, but it's likely that at least one person won't mind.

With these events in my horizon, I started to do some artist research.

Gideon Mendel - Dzhangal (2016)

This project is quite interesting to me, because of the context. Gideon went to a refugee camp in Calais called "Jungle" in 2016 before it was demolished, He was tasked with teaching photography to some of the people that lived there, but soon realised that a lot of them were hostile towards the camera because they didn't see it as a tool that could help them, and many people thought that if these photographs were used to show that they were refugees then it would make life for them quite difficult in the future regarding their living situation. He then shifted his focus toward damaged and discarded objects that he found in the camp, and photographed them with a completely black background in his flat in London to see if he could see any patterns in what he found. The items that he photographed reflect the violence and squalor that these 10,000 people lived amongst every day, with the ash and dirt ingrained into the objects showing the struggle that they go through.

I think that the idea of removing the context of the background lends itself to the idea of showing their living conditions because it allows you to focus more closely on the details of each item, showing the awful condition that they're in. It also keeps things ambiguous, which is what I'm all about in photography. I think that this idea of removing the background and letting the viewer only focus on the item would be useful in conjecture with my idea for the vintage toy fair, because it removes any context of time and space and just lets the toy float in this meaningless, ambiguous void letting the subject speak for itself.

Julian Germain - For Every Minute you are Angry you Lose a Minute of Happiness (2005)

This photo series is about a man named Charles Snelling, whom the photographer was interested in. The series documents Charles's quiet, contemplative existence in a house in Portsmouth. It shows us an insight into his life, his possessions, photo albums, and him going about his life. I am particularly interested in the photographs of the odd items that were photographed, such as the photographs, the gnome, the kettle, and my favourite is the one of him at the dinner table. This creates a very personal visual representation of this guy which to me creates an odd unrequited personal connection to him, as if he were my grandfather but he didn't realise.

I think that this project could be beneficial to learn from with this project because each person behind each stall at the toy fair has a life and a story, and perhaps it would be interesting to represent that in the final pieces visually as well somehow.

Susan Meislas - A Room of Their Own (2015-17)

This series is fairly similar to the first one that I looked at, except it focuses on women in refuge escaping domestic violence. It shows the living spaces of individuals, which as I've stated before in my work, can tell a lot about a person and their personalities. Within this work as well, it shows original artwork and testimonies of the people whose spaces were photographed. Since the subject's faces were excluded or blurred for their safety, these provided that extra bump of personality and individuality which makes this series even more interpersonal which makes me a lot more invested in the work.

I think that the reason why I picked this photo series is fairly self-explanatory, because it shows people's living spaces and items within that area to show that the people actually live a life and have families and personalities. I also think that the testimonies could be a component that I could use in my work here as well. I could interview the stall-owners about their interest or something along those lines, and if a line piques my interest then I could involve it somewhere in the work to provide that connection to the person the toy belongs to.

Camilla Catrambone - Portraits of my Family - (2013)

This body of work is all about being able to depict someone through items that they own/are passionate about. Camilla shot the items of the people that she grew up with, such as her grandparents. The way that the items are photographed reminds me of a page in a catalogue, as if all of these items are displayed to entice someone into paying attention to it, like an advertisement. Having these concepts in a parallel is quite contradicting in my opinion, to have something so personal shot in such a way that it reminds me of something so impersonal seems quite jarring to me, but in such a way that is fairly intriguing. The fact that someone's life passion can be condensed from their whole life into one (or a few) objects is an idea that blows my mind a little.

I would like to take this concept with me into the work that I produce. I would imagine that the people that set up stalls at this vintage toy fair would have invested a fair amount of time in their passion, so to condense their entire life focused on this hobby down to just one item would be quite an interesting idea to move forward with.

After looking into these photographer's works, I think I have a fairly well constructed shoot idea to go on with. I would like to represent the life of an individual who has focused a quantity of their life towards their passion with one particular vintage toy that is their favourite/they identify with the most. I would like a somewhat clear background to focus the audience's attention to the minor details of the toy, and I would like to give some kind of tiny visual clue of the person behind the toy as well. I would also like to interview each person about why they are passionate about vintage toys, and why they chose a specific toy to be the one that they like the most to produce a quote that can go alongside the work as well.

With a strong concept in the bag, I'd like to hypothesize a way to present the work. Throughout this year I've presented my work in the same way with each project, so I wanted to do something different. I would like these images to be quite big, to play into the whole detail thing, but I also want to forgo the detail thing as well because I want to convey the idea of 'vintage' through the printing. I think that printing the images very big but with an old dot-matrix black and white printer will allow me to achieve both. I would also like to present them in a sort of 60s or 70s poster kind of look, where I would have the large image, and divide it into several A4 chunks. I would print each chunk out and tape the backs of them to create one large image. I would then write the quote with some sort of medium (I was thinking acrylic paint) over the image in the negative space. I think that I would like to have three of these mega-prints, because three is a magic number that works well in photography, and this will create a pattern which I think will overall be able to amplify the passion and conviction that the people that run the vintage toy fair have for these old, small objects.

Oh dear. That didn't work out to my liking at all. Basically, when I went to the toy fair, I went about 3 hours before they closed up shop, but everyone was packing up and leaving early, Must have not been very popular, because the stall owners were leaving three hours early. Even though this is a closed door that did indeed put a spanner in the works, this also opens up space for a few more ideas that I could come up with.

Another idea that I had was to go to a construction site and shoot the workers there. Even though it might not be as interesting to me, I think that it allows us to look deeper into the construction workers. People usually assume that they are simpler than most, perhaps because their work requires a lot of physical labour. I personally have never worked amongst them before, so it would be cool to see what they are really like on an interpersonal level rather than just observe them from afar. I could still incorporate the presentation of the work, by photographing the surroundings and the tools that they use in place of the vintage toys, and I can ask them how they got into that line of work and whether they enjoy it particularly for the quotes that will be painted on. I was also offered the opportunity to photograph my mothers line of work, but because my mother works from home I am quite familiar with it so it would not fit the brief.

With the new idea in the bag, I asked one of my father's friends if there was any work that I could do for him (since he owns a estate agents), and he said that there was. I went down with my father, and helped out taking concrete out of the floor using a hammer and chisel to make way for some copper pipes. I shot all of my photographs beforehand, and then went to work. The only downside was that the workers weren't very talkative, so I didn't get much for the quotes that was interesting.

The shoot went very well, however I didn't get many images because I had to help out with some construction work. I thought that was cool though, because since I was trying to get the point of view of the construction workers, it was fun to do what they do for a bit. I was looking for specific things on the shoot. Not specific items, rather I wanted quite a bit of negative space with some imagery of the surroundings as well, The negative space is for the quotes, by the way. I ended up with some photos that I'm very happy with, all I need to do now is to prepare them for printing.

What I did to edit these photographs was increased the contrast and the brightness. I did this because the way that the photographs were originally were quite dark. I wanted the effect to be quite harsh, and managed the effect to my liking. I wanted to blow out the whites for the text, and also I think that it will look a lot better once it prints with the old black and white dot matrix printer. I picked six of my favourite photographs and edited them in this way, but I'm thinking that I would like to choose three and print them quite large in the way that I discussed earlier.

Final pieces are below.

Overall, I think that this project went well, despite the large spanner that was thrown into the works in the middle of it. I think I picked myself back up again well and managed to finish to a standard that I am proud of. I managed to get my quotes online in the end, I asked my questions to Reddit, in the subreddit r/construction. I only got three replies, but they were enough. They were: "Dad forced me to work with him at a young age to teach me discipline and show me what it takes to be a hard worker", "Got in through union (electrical) apprenticeship. It's a good way to go. 0 cost and you get paid while you learn", and "I do enjoy my job, but it's definitely not for everyone. Of course there are bad days and bad tasks but we push through those".