EXPERIMENTING WITH PERSONAS (PPP)

Leading form lecture delivered by Lydia discussing in blog ‘ IMAGE ACTIVATED- LYDIA CZOLACZ’, I have experimented with illustration further developing different versions of my archive projecting different emotions towards my dad and the image as a child.

Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3

Using a digital manipulation and self taught illustration style, I have selected my dad from the archive and replaced him with a block of white. The archive held a significant value to me as a child as it was the only photograp of me and my dad and something I could study looking at him in detail. Although I could see the detail of his face clothes, build I couldn’t access unknown knowledge on him as a person. He has obviously ages since I was born.The block of blank within the manipulation of the archive represents the lack of knowledge I had as a child. Can photographs tell you about a person? Can you read a photograph well enough to extract information that isn’t their?

Or is the information their, the viewer just is not looking Annette Khun wrote “ the past is like a scenic if a crime:if the deed itself is irrecoverable , it’s traces may still remain“ (Khun,2004,p4).

Khun describes in her book Family Secrets , 2004 that all though the past is gone we not longer have the moments we remember, archival images can contain details in witch we did not know or remember. Annette goes on to demonstraite ‘reading photographs’ with a childhood portrait of herself taken by her father.

By blocking my bother (grey) Dad (white) I was removing the physical detail from them but the evidence of them is still apparent, they cannot be taken out of the image or the image does not exist. While these illustration visually show the audience that at the time I knew nothing more about this man than the viewer does. It was pointed out to me in a crit session with Yan Preston (photographer and lecture )that the image looked calm. When in fact This was not the emotion I felt at the time.

Experimenting with physical manipulation, using a sharp object to scratch the identity of my dad out of the photograph to emphasise the anger and hurt I felt( figure 4).The scratching of someone within a photograph is a very uncomfortable thing to see as a viewer and I believe it showcase my emotion to the viewer better than the illustration cut out. Figure 3 is a juxtaposition illustration giving a happy, fanatsy, idelic Idea of a family photograph.“The nuclear family might be a simple notion, something we are just in, but it truly remains a highly complex structure. Whether we feel happy with our families or not, when we look at family albums or a single-family photo, we are prone to enter a constructed visual family world where many inevitable questions appear: Does photography reshape the family and its memory? Or, simply, what is family? Every family seems to resemble each other when constructing their family images and family memories. Besides, every family also seems to be in conflict with this construction.”(Erkonan,2016, p2). Using the same family photography but manipulating and presenting it in two opposite visuals, questions this idea of a necular family that we see in the original.

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Reference

Erkonan, S. (2016). Photography and the construction of family and memory [Photography and the construction of family and memory, Ankara University]. http://www.researchingcommunication.eu/book11chapters/C17_ERKONAN201516.pdf

Kuhn, A. (2002). Family secrets: Acts of memory and imagination. London: Verso

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Figure list

Figure 1- Figure 18- Boothroyd , H. (2021). dad,oliver,Harley 97 . [photograp ]. Experiment Final Project , Huddersfield .

Figure 2- Boothroyd , H. (2021). Illustration . [photograph/illustration ]. Experiment Final Project , Huddersfield .

Figure 3- Boothroyd , H. (2021). Illustration02 . [photograph/illustration ]. Experiment Final Project , Huddersfield

Figure 4- Boothroyd , H. (2021). Illustration01 . [photograph/illustration ]. Experiment Final Project , Huddersfield .