Images of Cultural Convention: The Family (April 2011 - May 2011)

Media: Digital photography (DSLR)

What is family? It’s not what it used to be. It's changed drastically since Victorian times. Family is constantly being portrayed through the media these days, but mostly images of “happy families” are shown to us. But how truthful are these images?

“The family is an image we seek so desperately.” - E. Ethelbert Miller. Family Frames; Photography, Narrative and Postmemory, Chapter 2, P.41, Marianna Hirsch, Harvard University Press, 1997.

Having a single mother bring my sister and I up has interested me in single parenthood quite a lot. I find it interesting that single parents whilst looking after their children have to take on the role of both parents. This is what influenced me with my initial idea. I tried to portray single parenthood through photographs of both my parents doing jobs that society has taught us to believe that men do and jobs that women do. I suppose I was playing around with gender roles.

Here are some examples:

I was also intrigued with Tierney Gearon’s series called Daddy Where Are You? Some of the images didn’t appeal to me in a way that the title of the work did. I portrayed some situations where my Dad would have been in the pictures but wasn’t.

After shooting and printing a few of my photos I had a look at them and realised that they lacked lighting. So I decided to go back home to re-shoot some new ideas and to develop others further with the use of lighting. About half way through re-shooting I realised that I had been constructing a lot of my images. I came across Beth Yarnelle Edward’s work, Suburban Dreams which is what my work had started to look like. I decided then, that I would construct all of my images.

I chose these final images because they represent this feeling of a broken family, but also have that sense of a missing Father. When presenting them I matched the images up and placed them next to each other, which emphasizes that theme of a missing Father. Each match shows a different family situation, but not so much a normal family.

Here are my final photographs:

EATING (1)

EATING (2)

IRONING (1)

IRONING (2)

LOUNGE (1)

LOUNGE (2)

WASHING UP (1)

WASHING UP (2)

During the project development I had another idea spring to mind. I thought that it might work with my final photos, but it didn't really fit concept wise. I never presented it at the time, but I wanted to upload it here anyway. It could stand on it's own as another project in my opinion. But it still has that 'Daddy Where Are You?' feel to it. (Image below)