Although I would describe myself as an Artist, I find photography an amazing medium to experiment with, in particular, to play around with ideas connected to place and time. Inform by many ideas presented in Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, and also film theorist Laura Mulvey, film enables us to freeze time and create a physical or virtual object, with a highly subjective value. Digital cameras in our phones have changed our relationship with still images. Many of our images are not even owned by us, and access to them can seem a detached experience. Below are some personal projects I have created using still photography.
Portraits using vintage 35mm film and digital manipulation, 2022
These images were created using vintage film that was discovered in a unit of storage 20 years out of date. I also discovered a vintage camera at the same time with manual settings. I have memories of physical film from my own adolescence, from a similar time period to the date of the equipment. I was interested in how the image would develop given the effects of time on the chemical and physical materials. I also thought this process might echo the passing of time as my daughter, here, 11 years old, grows up under my influence. Life observed through my eyes, as her mother, is 'out of date', like the film, as my generation is inevitably different to hers, and so she will see and experience the world differently. I also played around with creating a double exposure of some of the images using digital processes after development; cross-contaminating the two processes, and two time periods.
Beach dwellers, 2020
These images were taken during Lockdown on a Scottish beach. I used a digital camera through a telescope to create a frame around the subjects. The subjects are deliberately anonymous; we cannot make out their faces. This was to protect their identities, but also to emphasise the distance we experienced during this time, which the circular frame of the scope also creates. Public spaces often felt both a place of connection, but also a place of physical danger from others.
Billboard textures, April 2021
In this series, I was interested in the changing landscape of Billboads. I had noticed in my neighbourhood that poster boards were being upgraded to LCD displays in several places. There was a sadness in the last few remaining poster boards locally, which often looked neglected and shabby, despite advertising products for sale. I found getting extremely close to these boards revealed a very interesting world. Glue drips, individual printing dots and curled, peeling or rusted edges gave a fascinating texture unobserved from afar.
Birmingham Beermats, June 2021.
As part of a project with BCU and Selfridges, this series of photographs was designed to go alongside beermats of Birmingham of city 'upshots'. The project's idea was to promote Birmingham's rich and beautiful architecture, which often goes unobserved from a street level. The beermats could be placed around the city at bars and venues, and then customers could be encouraged through social media to align the shots with the landmarks on a visual 'treasure hunt'. This would encourage engagement and appreciation for the local environment, as well as promoting mental health, as 'looking up' is a proven method to improve mood.
Birmingham; new and old.
Our beautiful city, captured in the Summer of 2021 on digital film.