Last week was quite entertaining. I had spent the week prior to starting this module (PHO703) photographing the ever changing and ageing gravestones at a cemetery near to my home. I compiled a small book (digital version) for the Ed Ruscha project. We were then asked to rephotograph some of the places from our project. I tried to visit the same graveyard at 4 am, it was too dark and I was unable to see any way in, the gates were locked so that failed. I thought with my first visit being at 9 am it would be a great idea to have been there for sunrise, midday and sunset with the aim of creating a triptych which I thought would make quite a statement arranged together. I've managed to make friends with the workers at the graveyard and hopefully next week they will be able to show me a way in to finalise this little project! You can see the difference they've made in just 7 days! This is quite a large graveyard, i can only imagine how much time it must take to keep these gardens somewhat under control. The ivy had been removed which left the area looking awfully bare.
A different angle, a different time.
We've been a little restricted in terms of what we can and cant do, and with my initial project focussed on parents and bereavement I've had to take quite a turn. With lockdown still ongoing and news that as a business I will be unable to visit families in their homes for quite some time I made the decision to change direction. Throughout module one I became increasingly unwell. Unable to even leave the house with the exception of hospital visits. I decided that whilst locked at home I could try something new, push myself outside of my comfort zone and look further into still life photography. I spend many hours researching different contemporary photographers from around the world who's particular interests lie in both still life and food photography. I received my copy of "FEAST FOR THE EYES" by the super talented Susan Bright, coincidently I spent many weeks during the first module photographing food and objects in the kitchen and this book has been a joy to look through and read. I've also been reading "THE WORK OF MOURNING' by Jacques Derrida. Gathered in this book are Letters of condolence, memorial essays, eulogies and funeral orations written by the world's most famous philosopher after the deaths of some of his best-known colleagues and contemporaries. This book fascinates me and is of particular interest when linking my ideas of photography and death and how photography has always played such an important role within the proccess of bereavement.
Going back to where I started .... re-photography. We are a very fortunate family in that both sets of grandparents had a love of photography. We have family photos dating back to the early 1900s. This photograph is of my dearly loved mother as a child. This is her front garden wall which still stands today, nothing has changed with it to my knowledge. The house of my grandparents still remains within our family and hopefully at some point after lockdown I will be able to visit the house and re-photograph this wall, sadly we will be missing my Mother but I will certainly make use of the wall in my new image. This image gives an idea as to how I'd like it to work.
