THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT

After my first year studying photography at Huddersfield University with my end of year project the 'The Birthday present' I had my first exhibition and a solo exhibition at that at Northern tea house.

The exhibition consisted of 9 A1 prints and a small photo book from a trip to Amsterdam with my partner for his birthday. The project was inspired by Sophie Calle the French photographer project 'suit venitienne'. Calle stalked a man she only met once to another country and photographed him without his knowledge I used this idea of distance to represent a distance in my relationship.

I have used Psychogeography which was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as“the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals”. As a place on earth makes different effects within the behaviour and emotional state of a human who lives there. I have used this to wonder an urban location and document its effect on a male who isn’t identified within my images. This emphasis on playful drifting leads me to take images in the style of Sophie Calle who also derived (random drifting) through a place having awareness of how different spaces draw you or repel you. To accompany my images, I have written a diary on the weekend away and my feeling and questions of us as a couple. This diary allows the viewer to see into more personal information and lets the viewer see more of a personal side to the images. I wanted to make a project out of this work using the diary and the images together making it a stronger piece of work.

“Wednesday 30th November 

My suitcase is packed… butterflies flutter around my stomach as I think about the weekend ahead…

I go through the list again: Makeup, clothes, coat, toiletries, money, passport, tickets, all ready for the morning…

On the sofa, cigarette in hand, I look toward him and smile; he smiles back, and I just hope that this weekend will make everything okay. It will be okay.”

The theory mirrors and window is from John Szarkowski and The Washington Post (1978) says "In metaphorical terms, recent photography's vision of two ways: either as 'mirror' - a romantic expression of the photographer's sensibility as it projects itself on the things and sights of this world; or as 'window' - through which the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality."

There is no real way of telling whether documentary photographers are just documenting using their camera to create a window or lying and creating a mirror of their feeling. This body of work was more about a window of my own emotions rather than documenting our relationship.

To conclude I am glad that I was able to put on my own exhibition on. As I never knew how much exhibitions could be and the different option of handing the work from cheap to extremely expensive, however, the way your work is presented in an exhibition also comments on your work as a whole, so it must be right.  as my first exhibition and a little naive, it perhaps wasn't the best aesthetically but I have learnt. So my advice would be to price up how much an exhibition will cost and different methods of hanging the exhibition and experiment before the launch.