John Darwell

John Darwell is a photographer that my tutor introduced to me.  His work reflects his interest in social and industrial change, concern for the environment and issues relating to the depiction of mental health.  I find these very different areas to work on but at times it is possible for their paths to converge.  For example mental health problems can stem from unemployment as a result of industrial change.

His work Legacy: Inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is an interesting body of work.  He captures the sense of place well and I found that I felt very familiar with the place after viewing the images.  I think he works the narrative in an interesting way introducing us to the place and the few people that work there.  You feel the sense of loneliness and emptiness but also the sense of urgency of the people who evacuated the area.  They were given only 24 hours to leave and Darwell gives us an inside into the frenzy of departure that must have ensued.

It also very clear that this area was a place that people called home.  I can feel the dreadfulness in the images of having to leave your home and belongings never to return.

It is interesting in this series how informative the images without people are.  We learn so much about a person or people by their environment and their personal belongings.  I don't think I truly appreciated that until I started looking at Darwell's work.

In his work focusing on industrial Britain or should I say the end of certain aspects of industrial Britain we see that same hopelessness and despondency in his photographs.  The people like in Chernobyl are helpless to the fate that awaits them.

I would go to say that his pictures are not pretty but they inform, they tell us about the people that are in.  I have identified this as an area for me to focus on - making my pictures more informative - making them speak.

His images are often bleak and bordering on being dark this is especially true of his black and white images.  However even in his colour images the colours are slightly saturated.

I found Darwell's work interesting in relation to my preparation for assignment 4.  However, his work focuses on a small area or a specific area whereas mine was on a larger scale and therefore harder to maintain the kind of consistency that are in his images.  This is something I would like to work on in the future.  This would work well for a project on something like Ridley Road market.

His images can be viewed on his website.