Introduction
This assignment is produced during the COVID-19 isolation and lockdown measures of 2020. In one regard this meant that I was limited on what or who I could gain access to; during this time, one is not allowed out of the house except for work if not possible from home, shopping, or exercise.
From a different perspective though, these are unique times. Society as a whole is having to learn a new way of living until the measures are eased. This assignment aims to portray the impacts to two significant groups of people in my life at the moment: my family, and those I meet whilst shopping.
The contact sheets show that I took a lot of photographs over a month that depicted many of the things I saw. Some of the shots are those that can be seen on the news every day, for example empty shelves in supermarkets during the period of panic buying or a totally deserted town centre car park on a Saturday morning. Over time though, I realised that I wanted the assignment to portray people, not things. That is people in my life and how they are impacted.
I have presented what could be two completely different sets of images, but they are joined by one concept, the need to lockdown and socially distance.
One group is family and friends and so I see this group as a mirror, these are the people that influence me the most. It is also a window into their lives and how they face the COVID situation. To that end, the captions for these people, reflect their ‘status’ in terms of age and health condition in a way that the government and media uses to position them for risk and actions to take to protect themselves. I considered removing names all together and simply leaving their category to emphasise the way in which this categorisation dehumanises society at the moment but eventually decided to leave them in because this is a window to me, they are my personal family and friends and so names seem appropriate.
The other group are the shops and traders in and around Stroud who continue to go to amazing lengths in order to keep trading and supply us with food, I see these images as a window onto their efforts. I felt that I wanted to include this group of images because for me, they act as a counterbalance to the dehumanising nature of the categorisation I refer to earlier, they represent the irrepressible nature of mankind to keep on going in the face of anything thrown at it.
Below I have shown how I would present these two sets of images, united by the single image with depicts the lockdown of one shop and its poster that I think unifies everything presented ‘Spread the Love, Not the Virus’.
Any of these images could be an entire project in itself. For example, from a mirror perspective I could go a lot deeper into my parents and my mother’s fight with cancer, or into the hamlet that I live and all of its inhabitants. From a window perspective I could capture the work that goes on behind the market to make it happen even in these difficult times. This is not possible at the moment though, social distancing prevents it. I feel that this assignment does give a broad insight across some of my life and as such I don’t think that it is too shallow or suffering from lack of access.
Presentation
If I were exhibiting these images, I would present them on a wall as shown in the image below. I would have them frameless mounted on board as I would want the images to be seen as a whole rather than separate images.
I think the two groups would each stand by themselves but I do think that the image in the centre unites them into a single story. I have deliberately places the two portrait images at each end of the set to ‘bookend’ the collection as a whole, I think it emphasises that the set is about people, and I think the physical form stops the viewer’s eyes falling off the edge of the set.
Images
