First impressions

Terence and Marion lives in London and has been married for over 60 years. "You can not suddenly be old and regret not taking that particular moment".

Svitlana and Argentina are daughter and mother, both born in Ukraine. Svitlana lives in Swansea now and her mother is visiting her, they both love it here.

This was my first project; the brief was to complete a set of at least four photographs that reflected, in whatever way, the title "first impressions".
I chose to emphasize on my impression of people in Swansea, people I didn't know, because I find people here so friendly - compared to the reserved Norwegians. So I literally walked around in the city, asking strangers if I could take their portrait. These four persons were really cool and I talked to them each for about 20 min before I took the pictures. This was because I wanted to capture something more than just a stranger; I wanted to listen in on their story a bit before I took the pictures - so that they would feel more relaxed about the camera and automatically look less like strangers.
This leads on to another aspect I wanted to show; how people really become real persons when you just stop and see them - really see them as individuals - rather than ignoring people like strangers. There's no such thing as strangers; it's just people you don't get to know.

Hoppè was a big inspiration for this project; in one of his photoseries ("types") he took portraits of people; persons he saw as representatives for social groups vanishing in society. Yup.

Sudden love

..for texture. The first two were taken at the mountains literally at the beach in Caswell Bay (where I also went surfing right afterwards, way fun) and the last one was taken in Brecon on a field trip with my class. 

I'm trying to reflect over the pictures for the moment, but a lack of sleep last night due to project has turned me into a zombie, so I'm just going to leave it there. Nevertheless; I love it when pictures manages to document something so simple like trees and crats, and that is to find on our everyday surroundings - in order to turn it into something abstract and symbolic (not bragging about mine, though, but the idea of it). I deserve some sleep now.

Michael Ackerman

I was looking for a random photographer in the library to have someone to do research on (for my project), and I came across this photographer - and all of a sudden he's one of my favourite photographers! I really love the chaotic and blurred style in his work; you really get drawn into the dark photographs. There's one picture I saw in one of his books that really got to me, it is so strong you wouldn't believe it! Can't seem to find it on the internet though, I'll scan it and post it, it is soo amazing!

My project is going rather slow (of course), but at least I took some portraits today - just need four more. I'm thinking of turning the perspective to the people of Swansea rather than my own experience of the city (the project is, by the way, called 'first impressions'), also it's more of a journalistic approach - so I'm hoping the teachers will looove it!

At the beach

I love this city! It's so beautiful here.

At the moment I'm making a poor attempt to start my visual diary for my project; first impressions of Swansea. Never done anything like that before, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed until tuesday!

Wish you were here

My class went to Cardiff to visit some galleries. It was quite interesting, especially when we went to Ffotogallery to see David Barnes' exhibition "King Tide"; in this project he photographed people over five years or so, and he was involved with them all that time to really get underneath the surface. The photographs themselves shows a sense of all the things that matters to everyone; community, family and identity and they don't really give away too much - so it's open for many different interpretations, and I think it is a part of what Barnes wants as well. I find projects that takes place over such a long period, where obviously alot has to change during the time, extremely interesting, and Barnes told me that it is a challenge to complete something like that, profesionally and personally. The narrative will of course change, and it must be hard to keep focus and try not to get overthrown by new perceptions and perspectives. That is what I want to try out in the future!

The above pictures is an exhibiton in Third Floor Gallery (freakin great gallery!) where the focus was set on war and the consequences that has for the human psyche. It was interesting use of the medium; all of the three sets contained of simple snapshots taken by soldiers in their everyday-life (that we others can't ever imagine). I was especially drawn to Stuart Griffiths' set; he had several large-scale photographs and beside them there were these standard-sized photographs. It shows the difference between the life as a soldier and the life as an ex-soldier, both are trying their best to cope with their situation - but the ex-soldiers struggle harder to fit in as the "normal" society rush pass them and forgets about the wars when they're not in front of a tv-screen. I found this particual set the most dramatic because of that.

All in all, a good day (except for the hangover, tired and hungry state I was in, oh, and the damaged knee)!! We were in Cardiff all day and went to the National Museum as well - didn't pay too much attention there as it was the last thing we went to. Didn't really saw anything of Cardiff though, so I'll have to take another trip in the future!