Before looking through my album I would like you to take a moment anf think about pictures from your childhood. Remember the special occasions on which you parents would take out a camera, tell you where to stand and shout out ‘Cheese!’. Remember the formality rather than the novelty of having your image taken, it was an occasion. Everyone smiling, the camera was immortalising a happy moment such as a birthday, a holiday or maybe a christening either way you were always aware the camera was there.
Remember picking up the images from the developers, the excitement of ripping open the envelope and the disappointment of those which did not come through. I remember my mother’s eyes on me like a hawk making sure I held the pictures by the sides and didn’t get any finger prints on the images. I remember every so often as a child I would walk into the living room and open the bottom cupboard of our big white wall unit, which was filled with family photo albums, I would pull one out and look through the pictures, bringing back to life memories and occasions of the past, many of which I was too young to remember.
As we all know, with time comes change, and the family album has not avoided such. That cupboard at the bottom of the wall unit in my parent’s living room has not welcomed any new albums for a long time. The abundance of photographs we are now able to take has perhaps reduced the excitement and anticipation of the moment. The change is not necessarily bad as we are now able to record to many moments of our lives and more ‘real’ moments rather than posed as people carelessly snap away. Not to mention that social networking seems to be taking the place of the actual family album.
Through this album I hope to take the viewer on a nostalgic trip to the past. To remember the aesthetics of our photographs and the procedures of slowly looking through the family album. The pictures are of my older brother which i have not taken in the traditional method. Instead i added a contemporary thoush by suing a disposable camera as if it were a digital one. I did this with the hope of achieving a more personal account of a person who I have known my entire life.
I hope through these images you will recognise our relationship and our bond, while developing an understanding and interest for the person being photographed and a sentiment for the project as a whole.
