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‘Photos taken of us by other people give us a chance to see the many ways that others may perceive us. They allow us to examine what it is about us that matters to others in our life and compare this with what we think is, or should be, most important about us to them. If we have posed for the photo, it shows our posing behaviour (to the person gazing at us through the lens). If it is spontaneous – a candid shot – then often a different self is captured’.1
‘Re-enactment photography offers a methodology that can make visible and open up aspects of the self to scrutiny. It uses the languages of the body: gesture, facial expression and movement, in an embodied eloquence, which is photographically recorded’.2
Working in pairs for this project we would photograph each other in the form of a photo story. After discussing ideas we determined that we had a shared interest in the idea of the re-enactment photography of Jo Spence and Rosy Martin. However, as we both come from more of a Fine Art rather than a Therapeutic background we wanted to use the idea in an alternative way. The project is not so much re-enactment photography but more a reflection, documenting turning points in our ‘career’ aspirations, from a very young age to the present. Similarly to Spence and Martin it would allow us to think back and reflect on younger ages and allow for a potential re-enactment of emotion from that age. However, whereas Spence and Martin used re-enactment photography ‘by going to the source of an issue or an old trauma, re-enacting it and making a new ending’3, we would use it more as reflective nostalgia by interacting with an object from our past to potentially reveal facial expressions or emotions. These turning points would range from the very ambitious/ambiguous to the present with relation to career aspirations. Mine were selected as follows:
- Age 4-5 – Astronaut
- Age 7-8 – Spiderman
- Age 14 – 15 – Footballer
- Age 17 – 18 – Artist
- Present – Artist/Cinemaphotographer/Photographer
We made a conscious decision not to go overboard on the props; instead we would use signifiers in the setup of the images. As well as the practical implications of cost etc this would also enable us to focus more on the emotions we were trying to capture in facial expressions and the general feel of the photograph. We would interact with the object as the other would take photographs in the hope that an emotion or even punctum would be captured.
Photographer Irina Werning has used re-enactment photography in her ‘back to the future’ project where she literally stages re-enactments of youthful or old pictures using participants. She says ‘to me, its imagining how people would feel and look like if they re-enact them today’4. To some extent we used this idea but instead of literally re-enacting an old photograph we made a new imagined one, re-enacting an age in our historical timeline, a photograph that never existed but an emotion or aspiration that did.
The process of handing the camera over to another person was a new experience for me. Whilst I was in control of the whole photographic setup (the staging of the image, where I would sit/stand and the objects I would interact with) I wasn’t in control of the moment the shutter would be depressed. Therefore, I asked Kerry (my partner for this exercise) to put the camera in continuous shooting mode, this way Kerry would, on instruction be able to simply depress the shutter and hold it there until I said stop. This meant that the camera would take a series of images at less than one second intervals and I would be able to choose the images which best captured ‘me’ from the numerous quantity at the end of the shoot. Whilst initially apprehensive about handing over my camera to someone else I am pleased with the results of the photo shoot. I intentionally utilised and considered many of the previous techniques to culminate and use in this final task such as the use of the gaze and the interaction with objects.
I think the photographs speak for themselves in terms of what the content or object of the image is designed to be. Once again, however, I think that either subconscious or unknown things appeared in me that I was unaware of at the time, or maybe things that I ‘project’ into the image now. This could be a thousandth of a second emotion but nevertheless it was there and has been captured by the camera. The image that I feel best reflects me or captures the age/re-enactment best is image number (3). For this photograph I instructed Kerry to adjust the camera to a shutter speed that would be quick enough to capture a footballs aerial flight being thrown in the air and returning to my hands. What I hadn’t accounted for was dropping the ball and this photograph captures the exact moment when it slips out of my hands. There is a concentration on my face and the tendons of my hands protrude as I desperately attempt to cling to the football. I chose to use a deflated football as I thought it would reflect that the dream has died or never really existed in the first place. The accidental dropping of the ball allows this photograph to become a metaphor for this image, showing that the dream of becoming a footballer has slipped through my fingers or was just out of reach.
Another image that surprises me is number (4), in that I appear to be confronting the photographer. This image was designed to reflect my ambition to be an artist or what I considered an artist to be at the time. Therefore, I decided that I would draw Kerry, the photographer, whilst she took photographs of me. There are occasions when I am looking down focussed on the sketch pad but this moment where I look up to view my subject was one that stood out. It is obvious that an engagement is taking place; whilst she is taking quite a high quality image I am drawing her in a quite quick and abstract way. I’ve exerted some authority over the situation and it is now unclear who is in control. Typically it will be photographer instructing model on a photo shoot but in the case of this assignment the roles could be reversed as we both capture each other with disparate techniques.
This final task has been particularly interesting and has allowed me to experiment with the various techniques and knowledge gleaned from this module. I initially considered these images not to be therapeutic but now assess them differently. The process of making them was a new and fun experience and one that I would repeat again. It allowed us to look back on these supposedly important turning points in our life in terms of career aspirations and ponder their significance. What if I had been an astronaut? Or a footballer? What has become apparent through this task is not what could have been but what is happening now, what the future holds is in my hands and what I need to deal with is the day to day of my present situation.
1. Weiser, J. Phototherapy Techniques: Exploring the Secrets of Personal Snapshots and Family Albums. USA
2. Martin, R. Inhabiting the image: photography, therapy and re-enactment photography. London
3. Martin, R. Inhabiting the image: photography, therapy and re-enactment photography. London
4. Werning, I. Irina Werning: Back to the Future. (Online resource accessed April 2011) http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/
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