Photographing the Unseen – 3 Case Studies

This exercise asks us to look at three Level 3 students work who explored themes that were not necessarily visible. The students were Peter Mansell with his series on Paralysis, Dewald Botha’s Ring Road and Jodie Taylor’s Memories of Childhood. I struggled to find Mansell’s work online.

All three of these projects are examples of personally driven work but they become universal when we can relate to the feelings they present by visiting our own personal histories.

Which of these projects resonates most with you, and why?

How do you feel about the loss of authorial control that comes when the viewer projects their own experiences and emotions onto the images you’ve created?

Which of these project resonates most with me is an interesting question. I have always found myself a little socially awkward and shy. I will keep myself to myself and hate to push myself onto others. This makes Botha’s work intriguing as he has used his camera to explore his strange new country. However, much of my own personal work is about pushing myself outside of my [social] comfort zone. Whereas Botha has shot images of places without people; my own personal work was to shot the life of people in Hong Kong (where I lived as an expat) and in one particular project to step up and approach strangers. And because of how I have handled a similar situation I can’t feel a connection with Botha’s work –it just shows a concrete jungle to me, unfortunately.

Mansell’s work shot from the perspective one some with a physical handicap again resonates to me because of my shyness. I often feel trapped in my surrounding and unlike Mansell, I have not been as successful of accepting what I have been dealt and overcoming it.

Finally, Taylors Memories of Childhood has touched perhaps the biggest nerve. I have lived away from my hometown in the Isle of Man, Hong Kong and now Thailand for 20 years now and with the events the of the past 2 years my Mums death, Dad not getting younger, unstable employment and having to live apart from my Fiancée, I am feeling the pull of home – this is a strange feeling as if asked 18 months ago I would have said I no longer feel at home in Leeds (my hometown).

I have tried wherever I have settled to make it home even though I am as I have said socially awkward, but this last move to Thailand has been stressful. I am separated from the small group of friends I did have in Hong Kong. I am doing a job which I love but I feel I’m not as at good at as my colleagues are which compounds my social awkwardness in building social bonds. My closest friends and loved one are only available at the end of a telephone line or thankfully FaceTime.

Taylors shots of remind me of childhood but more remind me of the month I spent in England with my Fiancée (who is Indonesian) last August, to show her around allowing her to absorb the culture and memories of Leeds.

How do I feel about the loss of authorial control when a viewer reads my work? Well, I should be objective and let everyone have their own opinion because I really don’t understand Dewald Botha’s work or not in the way he intends it. But of course it doesn’t happen like that I think it is only natural to defend our ideas – anyone who has been a member of a camera club knows that feeling on competition night when the image you “know” is a winner scores under 5 points…

Art is subjective and every viewer has their own opinion loss of authorial control because a viewer apricates a piece because it reminds him of something closer to his own heart should be and is a complement.