There are many photographers who have document people,
society, and the human condition. There are quite a few who have produced work
which leaves an indelible impression, and some portraits can be described as
‘iconic’. Dorothea Lange’s portrait of a poor mother with her children during
the Great Depression. Brassai’s photo of two women in a lesbian bar in Paris in
1932. So many of Henri Cartier Bresson’s photos taken all around the world.
My interest is in producing portraits of people, couples,
families, of various ages, in their own home. The pictures I have in mind are
quite structured:
The people will stand
or sit in front of a window, with London in the distance.
The people will be posing for their photograph, aware that
their portrait is intended to be part of a series.
The photos will take place at different times of day:
morning, dusk, night.
They are all intended to show how the people are from all
walks of life, different ages, with the only common factor being that none are
very rich.
The most obvious difference between my series and photos
taken by documentary photographers is that mine are entirely staged. I am
setting up a premise which is fictional, but not unlike science fiction, is
intended to bring home a message or warning of the future.
There are two series of my own work which I have produced in
the past which I refer to when working through ideas for my current project.
One is an exhibition ‘Inside, Dreaming of Outside’, which was composed of
twelve large-scale photographs, each prominently featuring a window, usually
with one person in front of it. For this series, which was based around my
childhood memories, I constructed a fake set for each photograph, thereby
making the spaces only exist for the photograph. I enjoyed the activity of
physically creating imaginary spaces. I was careful to make them believable,
but with certain elements which would make the photographs unusual. Even the
scenery seen through the window was constructed in situ.
The other series was a commission for The Guardian Weekend
magazine, where I was asked to take individual portraits of around six people,
each having an amazing and heart-warming story about them (it was a Christmas
issue). For this job I had to visit each of the people in their homes or places
of work which happened to be in different parts of the country. I am happy to
meet new people, but I have always been more comfortable photographing people I
already know. My working method involves quite a lot of control over the
subject, so this commission would challenge my usual methods. I enjoyed it
immensely as I was forced to condense all the equipment and tools I needed into
one portable bag, and to an extent improvise with each new person and their
environment.
What both working methods (on set, and in situ) have done to
me over the years is strip down to the bare essentials I need, in order to get
the result I want. Admittedly this is to make my life easier, but also I feel
it brings me closer to the essence of what photography is, and its role in what
I wish to say.
August Sander: 60 Fotos Deutscher Menschen (Face of Our
Time) 1929
Initially planned as a collection of 500 – 600 photographs,
Face of Our Time was published featuring 60 portraits of a cross section of
German society. The book is divided into
sections: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, The Woman, Classes and
Professions, The Artists, The City. The final chapter, ‘The Last People’ featured
the sick, disabled, insane, gypsies and beggars. It would invoke the wrath of
the Nazis who in 1936 destroyed the books and the its printing blocks.
Sander, A. (2015) Face of our time. 2nd edition. Germany: Schirmer/Mosel Verlag GmbH.
