This week I was set a brief by another student on the course:
Answer the questions
Who are you?
What are you?
Where are you?
When are you?
Why are you?
Discuss the answer to these questions once you have decided what the answer is to each of the questions I would like you to go out and answer the questions with photographs that explain ‘Who, What, Where, When and Why’ you can interpret this however you want (so where could be your location, journey, mood etc.)
Combine the images with the answers to each of the questions
Who are you?
What are you?
Where are you?
When are you?
Why are you?
I found this brief very challenging, I would struggle to answer some of these questions in words never mind photographs. My initial idea was to take a set of close up self portraits that would answer the questions, however I ended up changing it up as I wasn’t inspired by the potential repetition of just taking self portraits. I also realised that the brief asked me to go out into the world so that’s precisely what I did.
Below is one of the images I decided not to use; whilst it works in terms of answering the “what am I” part of the brief I think having a set of images similar to this would have ultimately been limiting despite the personal nature.
Walking to and around Queen Elizabeth Park between Leyton and Stratford I sought out objects, buildings and shapes that seemed interesting to me that I felt might fit the brief. I found myself asking why I was taking the photograph and what they meant in terms of myself and the brief.
Some of the images were more straight forward than others; the image below is one that I have thought about since the global image week at the start of the course. It makes me think of the iconic Hollywood sign and I wonder if that was part of the inspiration for it. I love it because it is essentially the exact opposite in terms of what it actually represents, practically hidden between a main road and
a 24 hour Asda it’s a far cry from the Hollywood Hills on which the Hollywood sign is proudly placed.
As I continued on my walk I found myself being more cynical in the urban areas surrounding the park and seemingly more whimsical in greener areas. The image below was on the return part of the trip; whether I intended it to be representative of who I am is still unclear.
Garbage on the street…
And then in the park:
A solitary tree with external support…
In some ways the project split me, and I realise that is either down to my indecisiveness or maybe it’s more about me struggling to define something as clear cut.
Thanks to Richard for the brief.
CRJ 