Nigel Shafran - Dad's Office

As the project focuses on my brother who has experienced a serious loss and at times alienation, it seemed important to examine how artist's have conveyed these type of events. Val Williams comments on Nigel Shafran's 'Dad's Office' project; "Nigel Shafran in the Dad's Office series...began to create a particularly anarchic form of still life, which explored loss and alienation. Less interested in the objects themselves than in the lives they describe." (William, 2003: 6)

Images from Nigel Shafran's work as discussed above;

More Nan Goldin

These images, although absent of people seem to have a residual human feel. The spaces imply that they have been recently inhabited and although the subjects tell a story, there is a sense that the images as a whole tell a story too. Very useful for the final project.

Peter Fraser's work - updated

This is the image that yesterday's post referred to. I like the idea of inanimate objects taking on a narrative and meaning once an audience is given some more information. It would appear to help to assist the image itself in telling a story.

Peter Fraser's work

I think i've found a decent anchor point for the final project. I plan to let the audience view the final images with generic captions which literally inform them of the objects or settings within the scenes. Once they have examined all the images there will be a facility allowing them to slide open the original caption which will inform them of the human aspect of the depictions.

The way I came to this was through examining Peter Fraser's 'Two Blue Buckets' book. I cant find the image that inspired me the most online, but there is one that is perfect to underpin the project. I'll scan it in and update this post tomorrow. The quote that has progressed the idea is long but is worth reading as it summarises what I want to achieve;

“…the eyes of a young boy gaze out from a black and white photograph through a kind of lens formed by the rim of the wine glass. The effect is disturbing even before we know that the boy, the photographers nephew, was killed in a road accident. With that knowledge the photograph takes on a different meaning, as if the boy in the black and white photograph belonged both symbolically and literally to another world.” (Martin, 1988 in Fraser, 1998: 5)

Further text relating to Peter Fraser's image defines what would work for this project;

"“In that tragic perspective the objects in the room, the patterned wall-paper, the electric fire on which the framed photograph and the empty wine glass rest, the enamelled ashtray and the notebook with two pages torn out, take an unreal intensity, a sense of familiarity and otherness.” (Martin, 1988 in Fraser, 1988: 5)

Further thoughts.

I've decided the project involving my brother has enough scope to be undertaken as the 'final project.' The reason for this decision is that it is a project I am happy to work on throughout the summer and feel I can engage extensively with.

I've attempted to look at audience interaction and the way in which they respond to documentary photography. I'm wary of simply depicting objects that have emotional resonance to me and my brother, I want to create an actual image that has a meaning too. This caution was ushered in by a quote from Aaron Siskind;

“I found that I wasn’t saying anything special. The meaning was not in the pictures but in the subject. There was no new reality.” (Siskand, 1947 in Bunnell, 2006: 92)

I will attempt to convey a new reality, a story that develops from the picture itself. Difficult to get my head around at the moment. More works from Nan Goldin sort of get at what I mean;

I've started looking at the way photographers create a sense of what a space is about, and how it speaks to the audience. Nan Goldin's 'Wedding Bed' is relevant. The way in which the red lights and gaudy wallpaper play on stereotypes of a personal environment work well and is something that I really like. It will be interesting to try and convey my brother's space through images that maybe contain very little but say a lot about the type of person he is.