This post is going to be an exert from my supporting sketchbook work of last semesters (and this semesters also, as I am continuing the project on) as yet untitled project.
My project began as wanting to pursue two passions at once, film photography and outdoors activities such as camping and hiking. I spoke with one of my tutors about how to go about this, whether it would be simply awesome landscapes like Ansel Adams or something more diaristic, similar to the gypsie community photos of the early 1900s. Whilst I liked the idea of both of these directions, there felt like something was missing. When I brought these concerns to my tutor, he asked me to tell him what it was about these landscapes and activities that I loved and why that was the case; all I could think about was my father. After a lengthy monologue of how my father had inspired me from a young age I said, "If I was closer to home I would be doing this project on my dad, no questions asked." and as I began to tear up, my tutor asked why I didn't do that anyway, and so I did. It was with this that the whole concept for my project began to lock into place and I finally felt that warming passion in my chest that I had previously been lacking.
Ever since I was little I have always had a very strong and close relationship with my dad, a relationship that was only strengthened when my mother became abusive and neglective in my early teen years, when my dad was always unconditionally there for both me and my younger brother, despite being homeless himself at the time. Due to my mother being this way, I have not spoken to her since 2015 and consider my father my only parent. My painting project last year dealt with my relationship with my mother, so this project has lead on nicely and provided some contrast and comparison from that.
When I was only 2 years old my dad was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. This diagnosis meant he could no longer do the majority of his hobbies and passions which were mostly active and outdoors. However, he still made the effort when he could to instill these passions in us as children. As I grew up and shared these passions my dad could no longer take part in, I could see how proud he was, but also how much it hurt him emotionally to sit out on the sidelines, and physically to join in as little as he could.
This is where my intention behind this project came into its own. I am trying to put my father back into the landscapes he hasn't been able to physically be in for decades, the landscape he longs to interact with again.
I wanted to emphasize the impossibility of my father being able to do this by means of distorting the double exposures I produced. To make the images surreal and almost dream-like, highlighting the absurdity of my father being back in these landscapes. This is also why I chose film over digital as I feel the imperfections and surprises you can get with film add to this. Film also allows me to feel more physically connected with the images, in turn strengthening the emotional connection I have with the concept.
My project also has a second meaning to me, due to my fathers illness he has a lower life expectancy than most, and the last years of his life can be expected to be very difficult with little to no mobility. On his bad days even now he cannot walk or sit up. This is why my project, through the distortions and photo-manipulations is dealing with my anxieties over soon losing my only parent. The only person I can fully depend on being there and loving me no matter what, someone I have such a strong and incomparable bond with.
This project has been an emotional one for me, however the reasons I have chosen this as my concept have only been solidified by my dads reaction to the landscape photos I have taken, "Do you think I would be able to get up there?", this all before I told him my true intentions for this project, of putting him back into the landscapes he cannot physically be in. A lot of this project has and will continue to be emotionally draining as I am putting so much of myself into it, but it is a concept I am invested in and proud to be working on.
SYMBOLISM:
- The consistency of pairings of images I have chosen. The same landscapes of the same size with the same portraits of the same size represents the consistency of my father and our relationship unchanging until his death; and the consistency of the landscape, with hundreds of years old paths and dry stone walls, and thousands of years of untouched and unchanged elements also.
- The distortions and photo-manipulations such as solarisation represent the disconnect between these two constants due to my fathers illness and disability, as well as my anxieties over my fathers eventual degeneration and death, and the upheaval this will cause.
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