ABSENCE AND PRESENCE- RICHARD MULHURN 1-2-1

Shortly after the Christmas break, I had my 1-2-1 with photographer and lecture Richard Mullhurn. Showing him some experimental work of self-portraits within the garden, without realising I picked out the term absence and presence When describing them. It was my self actually who was explaining my difficulty photographing my own memories and personal story for my project, when I expresses when I was younger, I know I had a dad, but he wasn't around.

This led me into thoughts around absence and presence which, most people can relate to expanding my photographic contents audience engagement.

I have wanted to photograph nature since the beginning of the creative process within this project however, I wanted to photograph my grandfather’s land and garden. Nevertheless, I set out this weekend on a drive to photograph nature trees in particular when I felt the need. moving my studio to the outdoor I experimented with landscapes, empty buildings and loan trees.

EQUIPMENT

• DIGITAL CAMERA (Sony a7)

• FILM CAMERA 35mm (canon T70)

• TRIPOD

Sticking to using natural and available light within the landscape for this shoot.

Figure 1. Figure 2 Figure 3

Figure 1

while out in the landscape I began experimenting with some motion blur image of collected trees my thought process for this was to express my feeling of being smothered with negative opinions on my dad and the mass of trees symbolising my family and the blur being me trying to avoid them. To create this I placed my digital camera on the tripod with a slow shutter speed of 1/15 to use the tripods panhandle to move from left to right to create the blur.

Figure 2.

A farmer’s field with an abandoned half-demolished outbuilding, the building collapsed walls are evidence that they once held reason. The presence of someone is evident but questions of who? what? where? why? are raised leaving us with the absent detail. Using common things such as abandoned building in fields to create a metaphor around this absence and presence I felt not going up with my dad. This common visual representation allows me to communicate cause common themes within my practice without making the content to personal. However, upon analysing the image and the reason for using my personal experience in my documentary practice isn’t to communicate my emotions through conventional imagery. I want to explore the mine and my dad relationship through us, our home and life together now.

Figure 3

Winter struck trees with one just a little distance from the rest, the bundle of trees all growing around each other’s branches to grow as tall as they can. This scene spoke to me to photograph because of the distanced tree representing me in my family members I grew up around a little distance and knowing I had another part of me somewhere. This scene caught my eye and so does the photograph the lack of leaves and life within the frame speaks volumes of negative emotion to viewers.

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Reference

Figure 1 Boothroyd, H. (2021). Absence_micro_project. [Photograph]. _micro_project, Huddersfield .

Figure 2 Boothroyd, H. (2021). Absence_micro_project. [Photograph]. _micro_project, Huddersfield .

Figure 3 Boothroyd, H. (2021). Absence_micro_project. [Photograph]. _micro_project, Huddersfield .