Photographic Development

Within the period of the course, there have been many poignant step changes that I can reflect upon. The point where my practice ventured into new territory was primarily a reaction to the logistical constraints of photographing during a pandemic. Not only had I stopped working at St Mungo’s recovery college, ( where my photographic subjects had agreed to be portrayed to display the damaging affects of homelessness), but the streets were relatively empty and visual normality had shifted. After lockdown, my own health dictated that I could no longer put myself at risk and therefore continued with the OCA ‘Keeping the momentum’ gathering of artistic minds. I was struck by how creative the group were and realised that my own creativity was always attached to reality and the literal view.

Puppet Constructions

The elevation of a tableau style approach, using puppets during lockdown produced some telling visual examples of how I could elevate and transfer meaning. The contextual elements of my photography had always been too complex and multi layered, The manipulation of artificial subjects, released a new found desire to throw up previous attempts to photograph relatively straight and go beyond the comfort and security of representing a one dimensional visual that was trying to do too much. I also became interested in the power of the media and descriptions of ‘how things are’ and ‘how they should be’ filtering down to be accepted as objective truth. My subjective thought could be projected by adding elements that don’t belong, throwing the culture of hegemony to one side and opening avenues of thought through visual constructions

By adding physical elements that appear out of place, I found a method of symbolising the overarching power I had been trying to visually represent.

By transferring the element of power (in this case financial power) I also found a method that removed the identity of the subject. This had been an area I had looked into from the research of Stuart Hall and Martha Rosler. I could Identify a presence of homelessness and relate to the causation of power, as seen through the early workings of the concept.