series: the challenge & the words

I wasn't very certain as to what the starting point for my portrait series was going to be until I saw Martha Rosler's Make-up Hands Up. I had never really thought about how close I was to the subject in my images - only how far. In this image one can only see a part of the woman's face, filled with wonderful, warm colour.

This made me think about how for most of my images I only use an aspect ratio of 4x5 or 5x7, only occasionally wandering further and using 1x1. I like the length of the image, and I also love the fact that the whole of the person's face cannot be seen.

The square image on the lady's eye is also something that I find quite fascinating. It's black and white, it's larger than her eye, it's the main focus of this photomontage. And yet it is the fact that it doesn't belong within the image that makes it so important.

To me series means a narrative. It doesn't have to be a flow, it could be parts of a thought - but there has to be a connection. I've always adored things that are, for lack of a better word, aesthetic. I like my images to be similar in theme and colours, same in size, otherwise I feel like there is a disruption within what I'm trying to convey, and I feel uncomfortable with the outcome. I realise that perhaps this is something I could challenge with this series of portraits. 

In the previous project I was particularly inspired by Yokomizo's series Dear Stranger, but one of my favourite photographers is actually someone who keeps a photo diary.

Jari Silomäki (born 1975) is a photographer based in Helsinki, Finland. His work captures scenes of nature and street, and intertwines them with news of the world. This is what spoke to me the most the first time I saw the images - the idea of simplicity and beauty merged with something that is so out of the artist's control.

I have always been interested in adding meaning to something seemingly unusual. I've always felt like photography allows me to capture what's going on in my head. I've always taken pleasure in imagining what soundtrack the drive through my hometown's forest would have, or what the voice doing the voiceover for my melancholic beach visits would sound like. What connected those was my need to show people how I felt - to create something so expressive that people would know and understand exactly how I felt. Everything around us has exactly as much meaning as we add to it.

'I woke up to Brexit. A moment after I took this picture the petrol can in my friend's hand exploded.' 

'Warm July evening at the lake Kuivasjärvi. A moment ago a Malaysian airline flight MH17 was shot down in the east Ukraine.'

About two years ago I emailed Jari whilst he was travelling around Eastern Europe. I wanted to know what My Weather Diary meant to him. He replied by saying he wasn't ever looking for a 'good' image, instead staying true to himself by taking a single photo per day, one that he felt did justice to what he felt and also captured his thoughts. For him taking a photo has become a mechanical movement, a part of his life and that's what his series represent.

There are series that require more accuracy but in My Weather Diary it doesn't matter if there are flaws or mistakes on the surface of the image because that's what it is - a diary - and it doesn't need to be perfect. It's there to capture moments worth remembering.

Another photograph that really spoke to me was This Photograph is my Proof by Duane Michals. Similarly to Jari's photographs, the image itself doesn't necessarily hold as much meaning the first time you see it as it does when you look at it after reading the text underneath.

'This photograph is my proof. There was that afternoon, when things were still good between us, and she embraced me, and we were so happy. It did happen, she did love me. Look see for yourself!'

So with these in mind, I've currently come up with a bunch of ideas that don't quite link together just yet. I know I want to focus on doing more close-ups, and I want to experiment with the aspect racio of my images. I think I'm still interested in including text. Recently whilst in a shop I was looking at their prints of recipes (image on one side, recipe on the other) and this idea's been stuck in my head as well, refusing to leave.

On top of that, I made myself purchase a box of small, triangle-shaped mirrors and dried a bunch of flowers. The mirrors are in response to this video (at 00:21) by BØRNS and I can't really explain why but the shot of his reflection in this mirror - an object that everyone has in their homes - that is also uniquely shaped really spoke to me.

Similarly to this, I was also fascinated by this photo by Rupi Kaur. I feel like there's something really interesting about the idea of a poet being muted by something that they use as metaphors.

And lastly, a thing that's been echoing in my head since the lecture a few days ago -
'Imagination is stronger than reality.'

There's a lot going on in my head and I'm not quite sure where this one's going to take me.