Family Projects (1)

My photographic project revolves around my relationship with my mother during the last few years of her life. As part of my research I have been studying photographic projects involving the relationships of other photographers with members of their own families, looking at how they deal with the subject matter and whether I can learn from their work. Here are a few examples.

Matthew Finn: “Mother” (www.mattfinn.com)

Matthew Finn has been photographing his mother since 1988, when he was a teenager. All the photographs have been taken using black and white film, at his mother’s home in Leeds, and developed by Finn in a darkroom. They appear to be a mixture of posed and un-posed images, which give the viewer an insight into the life and personality of one person. A couple of representative examples are shown below. Finn won one of the inaugural national Jerwood/Photoworks awards for this project. There is an underlying tension in this work which, Finn believes, defines his relationship with his mother. The use of black and white adds atmosphere to the images and reduces the distractions that bright colours can sometimes bring. Given that all the photographs were taken at the same home, with the same subject matter, there is impressive variety, both in terms of composition and the use of light, in the portfolio.

Matthew Finn: "Mother"

Matthew Finn: "Mother"

Perhaps Finn’s work is the closest that I have so far (January 2016) found to my own current work in that it concentrates on his relationship with his mother over a prolonged period of time. It is also clear, both from the photographs and from his accounts, that the (ongoing) relationship is not entirely straightforward or easy. Nevertheless, Finn does have a significant advantage over me in that he has a living subject to photograph, whereas my photographs of my mother were almost invariably posed and produced purely as a record of a moment or an event, long before I had any plans to incorporate them into a project. Clearly there is no attempt to manipulate his photographs (something that I will need to do), which tell their story in a straightforward, yet subtle manner.

Anna Fox: “My Mother’s Cupboards and my Father’s Words” (www.annafox.co.uk)

My tutor brought this work to my attention. Fox describes her project as: “colour photographs of my mother’s tidy cupboards together with excerpts from my father’s rantings….. an unexpectedly wicked narrative exploring a claustrophobic relationship.” The project, which does pretty much “what it says on the tin” (see images below), was published as a small photo book in 2000. Taken singly, the images of the tidy cupboards are hardly inspirational, but the clever combination of one feature of each of her parents’ characters into each image gives the project a unique and distinctive flavour. Somehow we can get a hint of their relationship without actually seeing them.

Anna Fox: "My Mother's Cupboards and My Father's Words"

Anna Fox: "My Mother's Cupboards and My Father's Words"

I can see two learning points for my own project work. Firstly, here is an original combination of text and image, both of which are essential for the project to work. Secondly, this is an example of a simple but original concept that is relatively easy to realize and yet has an impact. If I could develop a similarly creative approach to my own work and, in particular, project development, the production of project portfolios would become much easier.

Sian Davey: “Looking for Alice”

Whereas the previous projects concentrate on the photographers’ parents, Sian Davey’s project features Alice, her youngest daughter, who has Downs Syndrome (see images below).

Sian Davey: "Looking for Alice"

Sian Davey: "Looking for Alice"

Sian Davey is a psychotherapist and the project deals with how she overcame the initial shock of having an “imperfect” child, as well as deep-rooted prejudices, to reach the point where Alice was treated as an equal and much loved family member. Davey’s series of photographs of Alice, alone and with other family members, can be taken as just another “family album” of snapshots. Indeed, there appears to be nothing special about the images, although the quality of the work has been sufficient for it to have won a number of awards and feature among the “Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize” winners. Davey makes the point that not so long ago children born with Downs Syndrome would have been marginalised and ultimately institutionalised. Nowadays 92% of Downs Syndrome babies are terminated at the pre-natal screening stage. Whatever one’s views on this statistic, the project does raise some important issues within a relatively conventional but high quality framework.

 There are some links between this project and my own work. Both deal with what, in many respects, might be considered an inherited illness in the family (although the balance between hereditary and situational factors in clinical depression is complex). Both deal with the stresses that are placed on families when one member has an illness or disability. Both deal with feelings of guilt by the photographer, caused by their relationship with this family member. However, Sian Davey has the advantage of working in real time, repairing any damage that may have been caused in the relationship and choosing how to represent this relationship in single, unaltered photographs.

Conclusions

All the family relationships represented in this post are portrayed using straightforward, “real time” images. The family is dealt with respectfully or, in the case of Anna Fox’s parents, with a degree of wit. This research leads me to the conclusion that, even though I have the added difficulty of portraying my mother’s final few years, her illness and my relationship with her several years after her death I should reconsider my approach to the project. Am I trying to do too much? Is the idea of blending current and archival images too complex? How can I produce a portfolio of images that is original and consistent? Can I introduce text into or by my images in a novel way, in order to link them? How can I develop the project in a way that is respectful to my mother? I still have a long way to go!