Something and Nothing

I find it difficult these days to come to terms with how banality has taken over my life. Personal circumstances can change so quickly and we have to follow a path through life sometimes not of our own making. I wont go into the detail of what happened a year ago but family matters took over and now as a carer the days are different as my world condenses into a semi medical/domestic routine. A trip to the supermarket for an hour being taken as a rest and the chance to see the world. This lifestyle has had an impact on my photography. No longer can I come and go as I please to places I view as interesting or inspirational. Initially I saw these restrictions as the end of my photography and for a while there was a low point with no activity and when I did force myself to make some images (Assignment One) they were not perhaps my best and I reverted to type and made work reminiscent of the past and inside my comfort zone.

Life has now settled down, I dont find the daily chores so daunting and unattainable anymore and photography is once again making its way back into my life. Assignment Two has been sent off to my tutor and between us we have agreed upon a way forward for Three which is very encouraging.

Something or Nothing is the title of chapter 4 in Charlotte Cotton's book "the photograph as contemporary art" and is one of my favourite long term reads. In this chapter she looks at and explains how non human things that are often seen as being ordinary can be made extraordinary when being photographed. There is nothing extraordinary about our house or the garden so by definition everything is ordinary and is my world photographically for the foreseeable future. As Cotton reminds us we pass by the ordinary or keep them at the periphery of our vision and automatically give them no credence within visual art.

For Assignment Three I intend to make a set of images of the generally non photographed items from my close everyday life captured simply with little post production. The brief will be to capture the banal and foster a curiosity in the item by leaving out some of the visual clues and inducing contemplation with the simple.

Maybe on these lines

Or this.