Context & Narrative

Just finished reading 'Context & Narrative by Maria Short. I must say that after I read the first two chapters I was really taken with this book and found it a quick read. I t has also given me some ideas for the assignment by looking at the work of Jurgen Perthold who strapped cameras to a cat's collar taking pictures of where they went every second at a fixed exposure reveals some interesting spaces. I am looking at our own cat flap and what it must be like for our cats to come in everyday.

At the end of each section Short gives a case story explaining the chapter in terms of real project experience from professional photographers. This is invaluable material in seeing how the pros prepare and view an assignment. In the first Richard Rowland, a photographer working in a housing association, heard of plans to refurbish a building used by homeless men. He drew up plans to record the building with its occupants and all stages of the refurbishments. In his words this was by ' recording the historical and cultural aspects of the layers of the property that had been hidden for many decades. Layers that didn't simple expose the structural elements , but also revealed something about the social  history present - the lives gone before and the cultural references left as markers on the very fabric of the building.'

His images are very contrasting....he certainly captures the starkness of the building beforehand and the loneliness of its occupants, with 55 visits to the building I am surprised I cannot find more of his images on-line, a shame I would have liked to have seen some of the later ones.

The Regency Project - Richard Rowland

The second chapter revealed a very interesting project by Charley Murrell - Constructed Childhoods. In this project she explores how images that surround us in advertising, television and other media can form opinions in young teenagers. These images are then translated into how the teenagers perceives and project themselves in society perhaps even adhering to the status quo. The images also reveal a sadness in this suggesting that what the media moguls display is not necessarily the road to happiness for many as the reality of their lives does not live up to the dream causing a lack of self confidence.

Constructed Childhoods.

Ref: http://www.charleymurrell.com/constructed-childhoods-2/