I have recently embarked on a personal journey which will hopefully reward me with a Degree in Documentary and Fine Art Photography in 3 years. Although I already have over 20 years experience in Photography it has become my wish over more recent times to one day lecture in the subject I love.
Having been out of education for so long now I am adapting to the University work flow of essays, presentations and briefs to fulfil, which brings me neatly to my first brief set Still life.
Still life is a subject I have never had much time for, the photographing of flowers in a jar etc. never really doing it for me as a lover of photographing people and telling stories through my work. Never less I set out to think of a subject that would interest me and decided to choose a mundane object which is a universal symbol instantly recognisable but which may not be around for much longer and decided that Postboxes would tick these boxes.
Upon photographing the second box I came across (which were randomly chosen simply by each one I passed on my way home)I saw a phone box to the side which I decided would also fit my self imposed criteria, and like post boxes under threat due to Royal Mails loose grip on the market, phone boxes appear increasingly redundant due to the 3 mobile phones we now each posses on average as a nation.
Instead of simply photographing the exterior of the phone box, the thought of myself being the first person to enter the box since the last person had left intrigued me. What clues if any had that person left as to who they were? Maybe a telephone number,an address or a can of Special Brew. This led me to investigate what would be the best way of revealing a persons character without their being in the image. After some thought I chose to document peoples bedside tables, after all it is the personal space people reach to first in the morning and last thing at night, what would the contents or the state of somebodies table give away about their personality?
Even taking people out of the shot, somehow I have found myself still documenting people and telling their stories!
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