My final Family assignment image

This is my final family assignment image, i finally came to the decision to choose this image as my overall image because i thought it best captured the essence of what i was trying to convey in these family images. My initial idea was to photograph "Saturdays" in my family, at the start of the assignment i thought that i had to photograph people in my family, but after realizing that i could take photos of family possessions and things that are in my grandmas house etc. I then decided to go with this idea, i decided to photograph some other photographs at my grandmas house and some things that are on the tabletops in her house. I am pleased with this image as my final, i chose it because it captures the spirit of my grans house without her even being in the shot herself. However, she is in one of the photographs on the side. 

I did have this photograph in black and white, but i made a decision to leave it in colour as i thought more details were added with it being kept in colour, for example.. the colour's in the lamp and the wallpaper and collective dolls etc. 

Overall this image looks fairly plain but when you look closely there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. :) 

Some of my photographs i have taken for this assignment

These are some of the images that i have taken for the family assignment, i went along with the theme of photographing things in my grandma's house that evoked the meaning of "Family" to me. All the things i have photographed are quiet personal, ranging from photographs and possesions in the living room and my "grandma's chair" that only she sits on, from inside her bedroom and dolls that she has collected which i used to love when i was a child. i am very pleased with the kind of images that i have taken and i am now just finding it hard to chose a final one for this assignment, so i am going to wait until i go to college and ask friends and tutors there opinions and then decided myself which is the best image.

My Decision

I decided that i was still going to go to my grandma's on saturdays but that i was not going to photograph any people within my images, purely because i did not want anything to look staged or false, so i decided to photograph things within my grandma's house that evoke memories for me of "Family".

Research - Sally Mann Images

Sally Mann

I have decided to research Sally Mann for this family assignment, i have researched her for many other assignments before as i really love her work.

Sally Mann is an American photographer who is probably best known for her large black and white photographs of her young children. The series is called "Immediate Family". This book contains 65 black and white images of her three children all under the age of ten. Many photographs were taken at the familys remote summer cabin by the river where the kids would play and swim in the river and have a great time.
The set of photographs explores typical childhood "Family" themes and moments, for example.. dressing up, having a nap, playing different games, reading and general funny moments that take place when you are a child. Also through these images though darker issues are also explores such as.. insecurity, lonliness, injuries, sexuality and even death is explored to some degree.
The controversy of these images was very intense because some people did not agree with certain message that the photographs were displaying through the young children. However, i think that she simply recorded spontaneous and carefree moments within childhood.

I really love Sally Mann's work i research her a lot of times for assignments and i never get bored of looking at and talking about her work, theres something about the photographs that are really moving and capture the essence of the place and time so well, i think they will stand the test of time and people will still be talking about them in years to come because they are simply beautiful images.

Initial Ideas

I have decided that for this assignment im going to stay close to home and photograph my family in my family home and going about there normal day to day business. I am also going to include my dog in the images as he is apart of my family just as much as everyone else is.

An idea i have had is photographing my family on a "saturday", every saturday my family all gathers together at my grandma's house and just chats and has some tea and watches television, all very normal, but this happens everyday and i just want to capture what goes on and take a back seat and look from afar at what goes on during "saturdays".

Another idea i have is just to photograph my mum and dad around the house and with the dog, just general family shots really. I will develop these ideas more after doing some research.

Introduction

For this assigment we have been asked to take photographs of our close family and explore what goes on in day to day life etc. We are asked to investigate the world of our family and by doing so have been given these words which we can respond to:

- INTRUDE
-AGE
-REVEALING
-VOYEURISM
-CHILD
-PRIVACY
-SOCIAL
-CLASS
-CULTURE

We have been asked to research and analyse the work of one photographer of our choice and experiment and evaluate our own images.