Note: (Having just finished part one and then having given part two (Narrative) a quick look I wonder if this assignment fits better with this section!)

My first thoughts after completing this assignment were that I don’t yet have the skills or the knowledge to do the subject justice. But, I do believe I have taken a huge step in my ability to move into a more conceptual way of thinking.

With hindsight I am not sure that my response to this assignment precisely fits the brief, but once I had come up with the idea I wasn’t able to come back from it. The two sides of this story are both true, but the observer could take something completely different from without the context.

Some of the things I learned:

• I was surprised that visualising the images mounted on a wall before I had actually picked up my camera, helped to inform and visualise what I felt the images should contain and look like.
• I hadn’t attempted any type of hanging plan or style pf presentation thus far in the course and this is  a new and welcome addition to my image making.
• Knowing when to stop! I had so many different ideas in the end that trying to apply them all would have really started to disrupt the concept. I wanted it to be “deep” but “simple”
• Focus stacking in Photoshop to get a sharp image whilst using a wide aperture.
• What I had learnt in a previous exercise (Street Photography) when considering the benefits to the series of colour or black and white. In the past, I would have made the decision between black and white and colour, purely on aesthetics
• The value of research in providing inspiration and nudging curiosity.
• To take more organised notes during the planning process and make sure I jot down ideas rather than thinking I will remember them.
• To keep scribbles and sketches to include in my blog.
• Having the diary really helped fire my imagination and I found it so useful to have something to use as inspiration.

This was a challenging project, but one that I feel has shown that I can come out of my comfort zone. I do have concerns that I have strayed too far from the brief and have overlapped into part two, but I will wait for Tutor feedback to answer that one!

Tutor Feedback

Overall Comments

• Despite your worries about fitting the brief, this is an interesting, albeit difficult subject to work with. Personal experiences are what helps to make individual and meaningful work but also can create problems of objectivity.
• Some pertinent research that sets up your visual strategy well 

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

• I am not concerned about how much or little this fits the brief, this is fine.
• Although the act of creating a tableau is, of course, a construct, there is something about these sets of images that feels very cold and detached, is this deliberate?
• Is it sensible to use the same objects in each set? If you don’t have her actual things any more, could you search out similar items to use for her set? This could be interesting in terms of the relationship between documentary photography and truth, in that the viewer would be asked to decide if it is ok to use ‘props’ instead of actual object. Could you also have chosen a different table cloth? Background?
• Without actually seeing the colour versions, I don’t necessarily agree with you about the brutal removal of colour. You said, ‘Objects stood out better in black and white? – really, what does this mean? And this may be true in terms of a formal account of the pictures but what you also do is remove the potentially different characters depicted by the differing sets of images.
• It would be good to see some examples of entries form your mother’s diary – if that is ok with you emotionally. I was interested to read about the way that your life gradually began to feature more heavily as time went on – is this something that you could explore through these images?
• You did some good research around the history of still life, as well as a more contemporary look at the genre but please be careful that you do not try to transplant meaning from one era to another. You said, ‘symbolise feelings and other abstract concepts’ – be careful particularly given the different way that images are read in different times – an extreme example perhaps but the swastika or a more contemporary symbol, the facemask? Different cultural epochs render different meanings to different objects – is this something that you could utilize in your work? Could you choose different objects from your’s and your mum’s own eras that have slightly different meanings in different times? Beware, specifically of using clichés like clocks – unless this is part of your visual thesis. For example, I could look at those objects and they would have very different associations,–
  • Watch – fitness, I use my apple watch to stay fit during lockdown
  • Small bunch of keys – the problems that my son has with anxiety
  • Whiskey glass – American movies

Coursework

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

This looks fine, good to see you persevering with experiments that you don’t particularly enjoy!

Research

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

• Some good stuff here and it is clear you understand the use of symbolic object.
• Now you need to think about extending this research to a more analytical phase to bridge the gap between this and your own visual experiments.
• Remember also that your own experimentation is part of your research process.

Learning Log

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

• Could you start a completely different word press blog?
• We’ll have a proper look at this when you have new blog in place.

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

Ted Talk – Robert Bloom in relation to the value we ascribe to objects.

https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_the_origins_of_pleasure?language=en

Pointers for the next assignment / assessment 

• Work on your analysis and reflection, think further about the images you are making as well as those that you are researching.

Still life photographers

I had decided that I didn’t want the images to be in the style of the “Old Masters”. I find them quite dark, depressing and the religious connotations don’t fit with the meanings, and feelings I was attempting to convey.

I looked at the work of several photographers, creating pin boards of images that struck a chord with me. I decided to have a closer look at the work of a few of them and selected: Irving Penn, Martin Parr, Marian Drew and Laura Letinsky, all of whom have produced work that I felt might be inspirational for my images.

Irving Penn:

Born 1917 Penn, an American photographer is well known for is still life and fashion photography, working for many famous brands such as Vogue and Clinique. His images have echos  of the symbolism used by the old masters,  but not often in the same style. (Fig. 1-3)

“He made still life for use as editorial photographs for Vogue, as advertising photographs for various companies, and for himself…… Penn produced a number of still-life photographs celebrated for their elegance and clarity. He switched between black and white and color as called for by the objects at hand, and his diverse subject matter included food-stuffs, human skulls, animal bones, flowers makeup, luxury goods, and detritus found in the gutter” (Martineau, 2010)

Several aspects of Penn’s images seemed pertinent  to my “story”.  I had started to consider composition at this point, and found the style of Fig. 2 the most appealing, which I have no doubt has something to do with the composition and the tone. The lack of colour gives its calm, even, feeling without any single aspect grabbing too much attention.

Martin Parr:

A British photographer born in 1952, and known for his photojournalism around the subject of everyday life in England, although he also travelled extensively and took photographs around the world. His still life’s often feature food and everyday objects which again echo back, at times,  to the symbolism of past paintings. His use of images to portray something that may look like a snap shot of someones “dinner”, but is in fact expressing a serious and far more meaningful concept, is one of the reasons I chose to take a closer look at his work.

‘I make the pictures acceptable in order to find the audience but deep down there is actually a lot going on that’s not sharply written in your face’, Parr has said of his practice. ‘If you want to read it you can read it” (Parr, N.D)

“What the wily photographer is in fact doing is transforming his viewer into a kind of subjective judge; as we try to unravel the image, guessing the location, the occasion and the class of its subject, we are simultaneously creating a narrative about the characters in it, based on their snack of choice” (Seymour, 2016)

Although many of the images I examined were centred around food, he also included a wide variety of people, places and other seemingly everyday subjects in his work. I did notice the tablecloths in some of his shots which provided and indication of the location of the shot and therefore the nationality of the food itself, particularly in Fig.1 (British) and 2 (Mexican).

Marian Drew:

Australian photographer Marian Drew’s work has a strong suggestion of the tradition of painting symbolism as suggested by Dr Marcus Bunyan in 2011

“Drew’s tabletop still life compositions feature fruits, vegetables, and dead animals and birds presented as game. While the unusual angles and lustrous colours bring to mind paintings by Paul Cézanne, the richness of the fabrics and dramatic lighting look back to 17th-century examples. Road kill gives Drew’s photographs a dynamic twist that calls into question mankind’s stewardship of the earth and it’s creatures.” (Bunyan 2011)

Drew says of her work

“With this work I aim to bring actual and specific deaths to our attention and to acknowledge their close links to the sustainment of our lives. Through a process that aims to honour the specific through the verisimilitude of photography and the general through formal, ritualistic frameworks of kitchen and the historical genre of still life painting, I hope to promote a sense of gratitude, respect and responsible awareness to  ‘other’ animals as well as to ourselves.” (Drew N.D)

There is also an element of surprise in Drew’s work. We would not normally expect to see a dead bird in a kitchen today, on a table or in a bowl. It was not clear if her use of fruit, such as lemons and game are included as symbols in their historic traditional sense or if they are being used as symbols personal to Drew.

“The lemon has come to symbolise many opposing ideas – while it’s considered a symbol of luxury, love and longevity, it’s also emblematic of sourness and disappointment. The lemon is bittersweet: its beauty at odds with the sharpness within. Of all the icons in the still life scene, the lemon is the most favoured. Its appeal was both to the artist, as a chance to display their skill – and to the patron as an opportunity to demonstrate their sophisticated tastes” (Marks, 2020)

“Like all representations of meat, game and shellfish, the lobster is most commonly thought to symbolise wealth, gluttony and temptation” (Marks, 2020)

I noted again the use of tablecloths, and napkins, which in this case add to the incongruity of the dead animal or bird placed on them.

Laura Letinsky:

Canadian born still life photographer Laura Letinsky moved from photographing people to photographing objects in the late 1990s. Her work resonated with me more than any of the other images I had researched so far. Her placement of objects seemed to be saying something about the passing of time and items about to fall off the table about endings. The idea of objects moving further away as they become less important to my mother and closer as they become more important was an interesting idea to consider for my sets. Tablecloths featured heavily too!

“Letinskys photographs appear to be about loss, reminding the viewer of the ephemeral nature of life in a different, and perhaps more subtle way than has been done previously” (Martineau 2010)

There were two images in particular that I felt were likely to influence the style and composition of my sets; Irving Penn’s still life (Fig. 2 New York Still Life New York 1947 Platinum) and Laura Letinsky’s still life (Fig. 19 Laura Letinsky, from the series Hardly More Than Ever, 1998).

Bibliography

Martineau, P., 2010. Still Life In Photography. Los Angeles, Calif.: J. Paul Getty Museum, p.13.

Figures 1-6
Penn, I., n.d.
[online] The Irving Penn Foundation.
Available at: <https://irvingpenn.org/still-life&gt;
[Accessed 28 October 2020]

Seymour, H., 2016. Martin Parr’s Unusual Take On International Cuisine. [online] AnOther. Available at: <https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8534/martin-parrs-unusual-take-on-international-cuisine&gt;
[Accessed 28 October 2020].

Art Fund. 2015. Martin Parr: Museum Of The Year Finalists In Pictures. [online] Available at: <https://www.artfund.org/blog/2015/06/30/martin-parr-museum-of-the-year-finalists-in-pictures&gt;
[Accessed 28 October 2020]

Figures 7-12
Parr, M., n.d.
[online] Magnum Photos.
Available at: <https://www.magnumphotos.com/&gt;
[Accessed 28 October 2020]

Bunyan, M., 2011. Marian Drew Lorikeet With Green Cloth – Art Blart. [online] Art Blart.
Available at: <https://artblart.com/tag/marian-drew-lorikeet-with-green-cloth/&gt;
[Accessed 28 October 2020]

Figures 13 – 18
Drew, M., n.d.
[online] Slate Magazine.
Available at: <https://slate.com/culture/2013/02/marian-drew-photographing-still-lifes-of-dead-animals-in-australia-photos.html&gt;
[Accessed 28 October 2020].

Martineau, P., 2010. Still Life In Photography. Los Angeles, Calif.: J. Paul Getty Museum, p.14.

Figures 19-24
Letinsky, L., 1998-2014
[online] Yanceyrichardson.com.
Available at: <https://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/laura-letinsky/featured-workds?view=slider#17&gt; [Accessed 28 October 2020].

I decided to produce two sets of five images. One set to represent my mum’s year;  going from her being unaware of her future diagnosis, the moment immediately after diagnosis, the period where she was coming to terms with it, living with it and then the time just before her death. The other set to represent my own version of  the same year going from living my own life with a mum who lived 2 hours away, was independent and who I saw fairly regularly but who’s life was very different to mine. I wanted the images to represent the way our respective lives changed as the year progressed and the way in which we became closer.

I could visualise the images on a wall and I could see them coming very subtly closer together as time went on. (Fig. 1) (Exaggerated offsetting to remind me.)

Fig. 1

Visualising the images helped me to inform the style and the composition. I could see my mums set getting gradually getting darker from the first to the last with objects changing their position to reflect their relative importance in her life. And some objects moving from her set to mine to express the increasing closeness and closure.

Fig. 2

The objects and their symbology

Set One – My Mum’s

1. Watch – Time – limited time.
2. Small bunch of 2 keys – symbolising independence.
3. Glasses – active, independent.
4. Whiskey glass – A glass seems to symbolise different things but there is a reference to them. symbolising  “the overthrow of worldly achievements by death” Slowly emptying
5. Flower – Symbolising life.
6. Petals (leaves) falling – Her health declining as she moved towards death.
7. Tea Pot and cup/saucer – The move away from precious possessions.
8. Diary-  Only in the first 4 images – then it moves to my set, (final image).
9. Books – Knowledge – still a need to learn
10. Christmas tea light  (moves to my set in chapter 5) the passing on of traditions after death.

Set Two – Mine

1. Books: – Work and study – there are less books in the later images due to less time being available.
2. Grater and Lemon:  domesticity – caring for my son
3. Large bunch of keys: Busy and independent
4. Flower: symbol of life
5. Watch and Clock: Busy
6. Mums Diary in image 5: Keeper of her possessions
7. Christmas Tea Light: Creating own tradition
8. Additional Tea Light in final image: Continuing tradition and joining of traditions.
9. Phone – communication
10. Cup and saucer – moves from Set 1 to Set 2 final image – her possessions now move to me.

Reviewing the images that I looked at for inspiration, I picked out three to focus on whilst creating my sets;

I initially used a glass table with a slightly scrunched up crochet tablecloth and a light underneath, to give a bright, almost ethereal look, with the background wall kept dark with a shadow pattern being thrown on it through the tablecloth from the light. But I found the  pattern too distracting . I used a smaller light coming from the left to reduce the shadows on the objects. At this point I hadn’t come to a decision about composition, preferring to allow this to evolve with the test shots.

I wanted all the objects to be in sharp focus, and took 4 test shots (Fig. 6 – 9) with different areas in focus. This allowed me to keep the aperture wide. I used photoshop to stack and blend all the shots into one (Fig. 10). This worked well and was another Photoshop first for me.

Fig. 10 Blended image, with all required area in focus

After some deliberation I changed the tablecloth as I was finding it too distracting and I felt it really wasn’t adding anything to the images.
I took a whole series of test shots, playing with different objects and positions, and a different table covering. As this was very much experimental, I chose to do this without a memory card, reviewing the images quality on screen. I only started to capture the images once I felt things were worth deeper review.

The next set of test shots worked quite well, but I needed to fix a “falling forward’  issue that was noticeable on the coffee pot glass and cup, by rotating and cropping the images. The result wasn’t ideal as the flower was then too close to the top and caused tension.  (Fig. 11,12). I was basically happy with the composition and the objects themselves, but the changing light needed to be more subtle. The main light source was still natural light and so I decided to try taking the shots at 15 minute intervals, starting at 16:00, to capture the fading winter light. In the end i found adjusting the exposures in Photoshop gave me more effective control.

Final test Set

In a previous exercise we were asked to take colour and black and white shots and then review them. Looking at my test shots, I asked myself what the colour was doing for the images in relation to what I was trying to represent. The orange of the flower certainly caught the eye but this didn’t  add to the meaning. Turning them black and white gave the images texture and depth and although I can’t pin down exactly why, seemed to express more of what I’m trying to say.

Symbolism in Still life photography

I didn’t know very much about this subject but I suspected it would fit well with my idea. I needed a way of representing the last 12 months of my mothers life, using her diary as the guide to what those days were like and how they changed over the subsequent months. At the same time I would symbolise my own life over the same time period as it drew closer to hers. After some thought I decided that a selection of objects might be a good way of expressing this and so started looking at Still Life Photography

Symbolism in still life photography appears to have its roots firmly grounded in the old masters of the 16th and 17th century.

“Burnt candles, human skulls, dying flowers, fruits and vegetables, broken chalices, jewellery, crowns, watches, mirrors, bottles, glasses, vases… Today, we can see them in the works of still life photographers, but more notably, these were the typical, prominent feature of the paintings created by the Dutch and Flemish Old Masters of the 17th century” (Kordic, 2016)

A symbol did not always symbolise the same thing, as it often depended on the painter or indeed the religion and education of the viewer. For example;

“Devout Catholics meanwhile would recognise in the careful spacing of Zurbarán’s quietly meditative Lemons, Orange and a Rose a reference to the Holy Trinity” (Pound, 2018).

 Osias Beert, a Flemish painter used fruits such as strawberries and cherries to depict the souls of men (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Osias Beert (c.1580-1623) – Still Life with Cherries and Strawberries in Chinese porcelain bowls

The use of symbols, it seems,  was not just for fun!

“……when the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church made it illegal to depict any religious icons in art. That meant that if an artist wanted to talk about anything to do with religion (which was pretty much the hot topic back in the day) they had to get clever. And so, everyday objects became codes for things you weren’t supposed to be talking about with a paintbrush…” (Knapp, 2019)

The word Vanitas kept popping up in my research and having never come across it before. I looked it up in the Tate glossary where it is described as,

“A still life artwork which includes various symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures” (Vanitas – Art Term. Tate, n.d.)

Figure 2 Pieter Claesz – 1628

Another artist using symbolism at around the same time, was the Dutch painter Georg Flegel. His still life below (Fig. 3) is an absolute cacophony of symbolism; in fact there isn’t anything in it that doesn’t appear to have a symbolic meaning. The cross is represented by the walnut, Holy Communion by wine and grapes, Jesus by a white flower, Judas (betrayal) by the coins. The nuts were being guarded by a bird rather than the mouse who, being on the ground, is seen as closer to satan. In the words of the author;

“It was basically a Bible School cheat sheet” (Knapp 2019)

Fig. 3  Georg Fegel Dessert Still Life (first half of 17th century)

It had already occurred to me that I would have to be very careful in selecting the style of images. On looking at the Old Masters, I became very aware of  light and shadow and the challenges this might bring to the technical side of the shots. Looking further at contemporary still life photography, it was clear that this very challenge was often the inspiration itself;

“One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of this genre of painting and the reason why many still life photographers are attracted to it is the chance to explore the composition and lighting, probably much more than the topic of vanity itself. Because the medium of photography relies on light so heavily, still life of this kind provides a vast field of technical experimentation – in the manner of the Old Masters, still life photographers create the perfect contrast between deep shadows and penetrating light which highlights only certain objects” (Kordic, 2016)

Many of the images seen in contemporary still life photography bear a strong resemblance to the style of the old masters, in the subjects or visual countenance. In Figure 4 Krista Van der niet, a Dutch still life photographer has chosen items of food and butterfly’s, often found in the old masters but has; apart from the black background, given the image a very different look by her choice of lighting.

Fig. 4 Krista van der niet (N.D)

In Mat Collishaw’s series Last Meal on Death Row (2011) , (Fig. 5) he has incorporated food, and the style of lighting and composition used in the 16th and 17th century. There was quite a dark theme behind the series and this is reflected in the overall look of the images. Collishaw recreated the last meals eaten by prisoners on death row and states,

“I remade the meals in a manner usually used for reflecting on the accumulation of worldly goods, vanity and mortality,” Collishaw (N.D)

Fig. 5 Mat Collishaw. last Meal on Death Row (2011) – Paul Nuncio

Having discovered a whole wealth of information relating to the symbolism used in painting and often incorporated in still life photography, I needed to look closely at how I am going to express this in my own mages.

I moved on to look at some still life photographers and their work in order to get further inspiration. (Link)

Bibliography

Pound, C., 2018. Secret Symbols In Still-Life Painting. [online] Bbc.com.
Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180318-secret-symbols-in-still-life-painting&gt;
[Accessed 26 October 2020]

Figure 1
Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180318-secret-symbols-in-still-life-painting&gt;
[Accessed 26 October 2020]

Kordic, A., 2016. Still Life Photographers Who Give A Fresh Meaning To Vanitas | Widewalls. [online] Widewalls.ch.
Available at: <https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/still-life-photographers&gt; [Accessed 26 October 2020]

Knapp, F., 2019. The Secret Language Of Still Lifes. [online] Messy Nessy Chic.
Available at: <https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/04/05/the-secret-language-of-still-lifes/&gt;
[Accessed 26 October 2020]

Figure 3
Flegel, G., (first half of 17^th century). The Secret Language Of Still Lifes. [online] Messy Nessy Chic. Available at: <https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/04/05/the-secret-language-of-still-lifes/&gt; [Accessed 27 October 2020]. 

Figure 2
Claesz, P., 1628. [online] Metmuseum.org.
Available at: <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435904&gt;
[Accessed 27 October 2020].

Tate. n.d. Vanitas – Art Term | Tate. [online]
Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/v/vanitas&gt;
[Accessed 27 October 2020]

Figure 4
Van der niet, K.,
Available at: http://www.kristavanderniet.nl/portfolio/arts-holland-magazine/#1
[Accessed 27 October 2020]

Figure 5
Collishaw, M., Last Meal on Death Row (2011) Paul Nuncio
Available at: https://matcollishaw.com/works/last-meal-on-death-row-texas/
[Accessed 27 October 2020]

Collishaw, M.,
Available at: http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2095889_2316164,00.html
[Accessed 27 October 2020]

Brief

Create ​at least two sets of photographs telling different versions of the same story. The aim of the assignment is to help you explore the convincing nature of documentary, even though what the viewer thinks they see may not in fact be true. Try to make both sets equally convincing so that it’s impossible to tell which version of the images is ‘true’.

It might be interesting to consider the project as evidence for a court case. What conflicting stories can you make your images convincingly tell? Would it stand up in court?

Choose a theme and aim for 5–7 images for each set, depending on your idea. Discuss this with your tutor.
Here are a few ideas:

• You could interpret this brief by showing the same scenario from two different angles. Does this alter how we read the situation?
• You may wish to create an alter ego by using snapshots of yourself or a friend. This could involve photographing them in two very different and potentially conflicting personas.
• You could make a parody of a dating website profile picture. Create different versions of the same person looking completely different in each one. Which one represents them best and how can we know?

Or you may prefer to use your own take on the theme. However you choose to interpret the brief, ensure the images are candid and ‘taken from real life’. Be experimental and take some risks. Perhaps you could make a list of ideas and choose the most challenging or absurd option to stretch yourself.
Send your sets of images to your tutor by the method you’ve agreed. Include an introduction of 300 words​ outlining what you set out to do and how you went about it.

Introduction

For this assignment I set out to create 2 sets of images that express the same year, 1998, taking inspiration from my mothers diary. With one set representing my mums point of view and the other, mine. 1998 was the last year of her life. From her point of view there were changing priorities and a gradual reduction in her physical, social and general well being. For me there were also changing priorities, difficult decisions and a balancing of the present and the future. I wanted to show these changes in ten images in two parallel series, both containing five chapters.

I began by researching still life paintings, photographs and photographers. I collected together objects that would represent the changing months, using the diary as my guide to our lives during the year. I began to visualise the images very early which helped to inform the composition and style. I selected objects in order to symbolise feelings and other abstract concepts, and changed the positions of some of them to reflect their changing importance. My research into Still Life photography took me into the realms of the Old Masters and symbolism  (LINK) which fitted well with my ideas. Further research into  photographers such as Irving Penn and Laura Letinsky introduced more contemporary styles and techniques. (LINK). In addition to the symbolism, I decided to reflect the move towards the end of her life with subtle shifts in the brightness of the images, reducing the exposure slightly for each one.  I reviewed the shots in both colour and black and white and concluded that the objects stood out better in black and white, and this also exposed some nice texture on the wall and from the table covering, which adds depth. It also avoided the strongly coloured flower becoming the focal point, which did not really add anything to the meaning of the series.

With hindsight I’m not sure that the project fits the brief entirely. The images are candid in the non photographic sense of being open and honest, but not in the photographic sense of not having been staged. They tell two different versions of the same story, both of which are “true”. But im not sure they explore the convincing nature of documentary.

Set one, shows my mother’s side of the story, set two my own. The latter were naturally busier as my life was more complex at the time, and I maintained this complexity by keeping the number of objects constant, but rearranging them or swapping them in and out. I also added a couple of objects from my mums set to my final image to show family traditions passing on and  the move from being the child of a mother, to truly being an “adult” and no longer having the generation above.

Information detailing the planing and creation the images can be found here (LINK) and further information relating to my mums diary here (LINK)

The story: 1998; The sides; Mum – Me

I see the images being viewed in vertical pairs, from left to right, so that the viewer can compare the two sides of the story as the year progressed. I had been visualising the presentation of the images from very early in this process and as part of this I wanted the two sets to move very slightly nearer to each other, to express the way in which we became closer over the this time period.

Hanging Plan:

 

Set 1: Chapter 1

Set 1: Chapter 2

Set 1: Chapter 3

Set 1: Chapter 4

Set 1: Chapter 5

Set 2: Chapter 1

Set 2: Chapter 2

Set 2: Chapter 3

Set 2: Chapter 4

Set 2: Chapter 5

 

Set 1: Chapter 1

Set 1: Chapter 2

Set 1: Chapter 3

Set 1: Chapter 4

Set 1: Chapter 5

Set 2: Chapter 1

Set 2: Chapter 2

Set 2: Chapter 3

Set 2: Chapter 4

Set 2: Chapter 5