Our topic for this brief is a sequence of 6 images that remind us of home or what home means to us. I was going to do something controversial and photography homeless people, but I thought that might be too invasive. I also thought the subject matter would be too dark and although I could argue how it fits the home brief, I thought I could be more creative in other aspects.

I don’t really want to photograph my room/house as I feel that’s too personal. I however, will probably take photos of my childhood memories, like visiting the beach, sitting in my nana and grandad’s kitchen, my home town of York and possibly my cutlery and plates I used when I was little (they said ‘SPOON’ on the spoons and  ‘BIG’ and ‘LITTLE’ for the plates). I feel like the hardest thing to convey in this brief is what home is in my own context.

Hans Eijkelboom was my first inspiration when approaching this task. He created a series of images intitled “With My Family”, which was fairly obviously him and his family. I like how he incorporated black and white into the portraits and I like how the child is the connection in each image. However, when researching this I found that Hans staged the whole thing and the portraits aren’t actually with his family at all, they were in fact strangers: “In the 1970s, Dutch conceptual prankster Hans Eijkelbooms made mischief with the amateur family portrait by knocking on the doors of strangers and asking if he could take the place of the father for a carefully composed photograph. Surprisingly, many agreed and the resulting series is both funny and a little disturbing, not least because he looks so at home in every picture.” (The Guardian, 2016) [1] Although this is pretty intiative as I myself wouldn’t actually like to post photos of myself with my family as I feel that’s a little invasive and too personal- I will not however take photos with strangers.

 

I do however like how he is positioned in the photo and how everything follows the rule of thirds which is something I would like to take into consideration when creating my own images.

I debated on what home really was to me because initially I thought of it in the traditional sense of family; but then I thought of it as my village which is where my friends live. So I went and photographed them, in the way that it could be conveyed that “home is where my friends are”.

 

I like these photos because they’re personal to me; which may be where the issue is. Photos that are personal to me aren’t necessarily reflective of people’s own perception of home. Home is typically family and child-orientated and trying to argue why my friends playing Monopoly is my version of home wouldn’t be understood by other people. Compared to if I did something slightly more personal and relate home to a place and not people.

I decided that home, to me, is the seaside town of Scarborough. This is because I spent most of my weekends and summers there when I was younger and it holds a place in my heart. Depending on the weather I would either take photos of things through my childhood eyes or a darker approach by outlining what I see now. Contextually this might be difficult, but I feel like explaining why a seaside town reminds me of home might be simpler than I am making it out to be.

I took this photo which captures what a seaside town is, however, I feel like the photo looks too cluttered and too busy to use within my brief as home to me is calm and relaxing. Although I do like how the yellow really stands out against the grey background, I feel like this photo isn’t suitable.

I also took this photo, but I’m not sure if I like the results or not. I was trying to achieve different angles in a vertical shot, but due to the sky being so cloudy and grey all the colour from the photo washes away giving it a sinister effect. Nevertheless, I feel like I have taken photographs that really reflect what home is to me.