Before taking any images I will begin with looking at the photography of practitioners who have also photographed immediate members of their own family. In effect this will hopefully influence my work and give me more ideas on how to tackle my subject.
The photographer I am first looking into is Larry Sultan who photographed his parents over a ten year period, for his work entitled ‘Pictures from Home’, which was published in 1992. Sultan was living in America during the Reagan period and a lot of mention was being made of family life and emphasis being put on a good family home. Sultan was intrigued by this and which lead to the development of his project.
Additionally Larry Sultan took family photographs into consideration and how family albums essentially represent families. The general tendencies with family album’s is to capture specific moments in time, for the most part happy occasions, such as birthdays and holidays. We each pose with our family look at the camera and all together smile just before the shutter button is pressed. So much so on several occasions and to my utter despair that six letter word is merrily shouted to the subjects of the photograph; ‘CHEESE!!’, fundamentally the photo taker instructing you to smile in a friendly and ‘fun’ manner. Nevertheless, in interviews I read Sultan seems to scrutinize this form of image taking, as families seem to be delivering a fictitious representation of what their family really is. In so many words, no matter how stable, strong and happy a family may be, being a part of a family is not all smiles, laughs, parties and holidays.
What I initially find striking about Sultan’s photography is the colours. There is such richness in the tones which I absolutely love. His images have been constructed, he instructed his mother and father’s involvement in the images. I intend on trying something like this with my brother, by means of ‘construction’, however it was not what I intended on doing. However perhaps some experimentation and photographs could be taken in this manner just to witness the results and see what I think of them. As absorbing as the colours of Sultan’s images are, the most impressive part of his imagery is without doubt in every photograph the lighting. The last picture I posted of his father reading a financial paper is possibly my favourite photograph because of the lighting. The sunlight seeps through the big cheap paper which is spread open to read and hiding his face with a shadow to one side which somewhat defines the profile of his face. There is also something interesting in the fact that you cannot see him however get a tiny glimpse of his arm through the reflection of the sliding doors behind him. I really enjoy looking at Sultan’s image and I appreciate the manner in which they were taken. His subjects do not smile which allows a certain dreariness to the images further reflecting the reality of a household on a daily basis. My intention is not to capture my brother in the same way that he has captured his parents in respect to the fact that there seems to be a lack of personality within his images to some extent. Furthermore he does represent them as a husband and wife, with traditional roles however I hope on focusing more on what my brother is like and about. His use of lighting however I find most interesting and would like to apply some of the methods in my own work. Particularly the idea of using natural light penetrating through windows and playing around with it. In addition to that the boldness and richness of the colours is so striking perhaps a play on that would be interesting.
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