Ancestry.com

As part of my research for assignment 5 I have been looking at census records of Irish migrants.  I have to say I never thought that I would become interested in genealogy websites but I am addicted to ancestry.com now.

I find it fascinating that we have so much information about these people from 1841 onwards.  It is interesting to see what they did for a living, where they lived and the families they had.  Many of their occupations are obsolete today.

Although the census data gives you a good insight into the lives of these people it just doesn't go far enough so you find yourself trying to fill in the pieces.  You find yourself wondering what the people were like, what they looked like, did they marry for love or convenience.  Most of this we will never know.

I have enjoyed the research I have done for this assignment.  It has proved to be an eye-opener and also a refresher course for my Irish history.  Who knows I may even find some of my relations??

Alex Boyd - In the Irish Wilderness

I recently came across the work of photographer Alex Boyd when I saw one of his images of Dun Briste on the BBC website.  Dun Briste is a sea stack near where I lived in Ireland.  When I was young I would look at the sea stack every day from the windows at the back of the house so it was interesting to see how he photographed it.

Last summer I spent a few evenings on the edge of the cliff shooting the sea stack and cliffs around there.  I'm not very good with heights so I was keen to get a shot and get out of there as soon as possible.

Dun Briste

My image from last summer

The west of Ireland is a wild wilderness.  The sea is rough and the fog and mist ever present.  This is something that Boyd has captured in his work.  I have found his image of Dun Briste pretty fierce.  It shows the strength of the sea - it is a force to be reckoned with.

Boyd uses a plate camera complete with darkroom equipment and chemicals which he carries up hills and through bog to produce this series of work.  Very different to my shooting conditions.  However, the effects he achieves are quite different - in a good way.

I have found his work on an area that I am familiar with very interesting probably more to do with the familiarity.  It is strange how I have never seen Dun Briste the way he chose to shoot it but yet I know instinctively where and what it is.  I feel that he has very much captured the mood of the place.

For assignment 5 People and Place I am looking to include an image of the Irish coastline as my opening shot.  Boyd's work has given me some food for thought particularly in relation to the way I view the place I lived and what it means to me.  It has also made me think about how I want to show it to other people.

Lewis Hine and his images of child labour

I have come across Lewis Hine before but I found it interesting to see his work at the Print Room at the V&A on a recent study visit.

Hine has been called the father of documentary photography for his work that he did on child labour in the US.  He shamed the American public into action with his hard hitting images of children, some as young as 7 or 8, working in the mines and factories across the country.  The most striking thing about these images is the  size of the children operating the big machines and in relation to mining the sheer number of children working in terrible conditions.

Hine set out to assemble evidence of child labour and present to the public at a time when they had shied about from the fact that it existed in the first place.  His images show the truth o the reality of child labour in America.

Hine however also celebrated the life of the labourer in his series of images of workers on the Empire State building.  These people were to be celebrated for what they were achieving, for the risks they took to their own safety to complete their work.

I found his work on the immigrants at Ellis Island very interesting especially in relation to the work I am doing for my final assignment of this course.  Hine put a human face on the problem of immigration.  He also had a connection with the immigrants which we can see in his images.

I think what we see in Hine's work is factual photographs with a human touch.  We see the emotional alongside the photograph as a document.

Although Hine's work is very different from what I want to achieve with my assignment I have found it interesting to look at the way in which he has tackled the immigration issue.  He is looking at the problem at the time it was happening I am looking back at it which gives two very different viewing perspectives.

Assignment 5: my brief

My client is the London Irish Centre (LIC).  The centre is based in the heart of Camden Town and looks after the welfare needs of new immigrants to London.  Over the years its work has grown and it has become a ‘home from home’ for all things Irish in the capital.  In 2014 LIC will be celebrating its 60^th birthday and as part of those celebrations they have commissioned me to provide images for an exhibition at the centre.  These images will also be published in a 60^th birthday celebration book. 

The purpose of the assignment is primarily educational.  The exhibition needs to explore the Irish people’s contribution to London looking at how and why they came to the city, the work they did and their daily lives.  Is there a lasting legacy from the first migrants to the city? It should also examine how the immigrants became part of their new society and the challenges they often faced – prejudice, poverty and discrimination. 

In keeping with the celebration of LIC’s birthday this piece of work needs to be a celebration of Irishness and the complex history of immigration to London.  The migrant’s story needs to be told – the positives and the negatives.   The story has to be accurate and informative so both Irish and non-Irish will get something from the images. 

It is essential that the images take on a hint of nostalgia and capture some of the essence of what it is like to leave your home and become foreign.  This project is not looking at the state of immigration today but at the history of Irish migration to London. 

Next steps

After reading the brief I started planning the project in more detail and produced a more specific outline for this work.  I made a decision to use text alongside the images to further enhance the concepts I want to communicate to the public. 

These are the themes I set out to explore:

·         The New Departure.  Leaving home, the home that was left behind. 

·         Tools of the trade – tailors and construction workers

·         Building the country’s infrastructure – canals, railways and roads

·         Famine and the potato

·         Drinking culture

·         Music and the craic

·         Prejudice

·         Religion

In addition to the images I decided that text would accompany the images to enhance the narrative.  The text would come from a variety of sources including song lyrics/poetry to political quotations.

 

I chose not to include people themselves as subjects in my images preferring to focus on the aspects of their lives and their belongings.  I felt that this would enable me to build a better picture from an historical perspective.  Without people, there is a sense of timelessness to the images.  They are harder to date.  I also felt that I could focus the viewer’s attention would be distracted by people and modern settings. 

In line with this, I chose to produce a series of black and white images.  I felt that the historical setting I wanted to create would be better achieved in monochrome.  Our history books are full of black and white images and I wanted to copy that effect. 

By avoiding the use of colour I feel that the viewers will be better able to focus on the subjects.  I want to create a dark mood in the images and I feel that black and white will better equip me to do this.  Colour can evoke moods and I wanted the images and the subjects to be able to stand alone and be more hard hitting. 

Another point is that colour fades with time like our memories and when we reflect and look back on our lives we rarely see events clearly with every colourful detail. These images are presented in a form of flashback to the past, the viewer is shown a series of memories from the past.  

Working on the theme of departure for assignment 5

I have recently come back from a visit to Ireland where I spent a day shooting for my last assignment of the course.  I am working on an image for departure - an immigrant leaving Ireland.

Here are some of the best images from the shoot.  I am trying to get a shot of the sea or coast without the sea actually being in the image.

I quite like these images but I'm not sure whether I will include any of them in the final series.  I will have to do some work on the coastline first.  

Vivian Maier

The latest book I have added to my collection is Vivian Maier: Street Photographer.  

I first came across Maier's work a couple of years ago at the London Street Photography Festival.  I attended an exhibition of her work that I hadn't planned to go to and I was glad that I did.

We all love a story about someone who achieves success.  Whether that is a rags to riches story or the story of an artist whose work is discovered after their death.  The latter is the case for Maier.  I think the fact that she didn't work as a commercial photographer or seek gratification before she died gave her a freedom to work unhampered.

Maier appears to make the most of her free time from working as a nanny to shooting the streets where she lived.  She captures the vibrancy of the city but also the harsh realities of life in her time.  This leads to a variety of exciting and interesting subjects.  You have children, businessmen, the rich and poor, beggars and busyness of city life.  If these are her subjects then young love, loneliness, drunkeness and childhood innocence are the traits of life she captures.

The book contains an interesting set of images from her work.  There is an element of humour in her work.  There is also a sadness.  The book gives a great insight into how Maier saw the world and what truly stirred her emotionally.

Building the railways

As part of my research for the final assignment of this course, I have been looking at the railways and in particular the people who built them.  Little is known about these men and their families who lived in terrible conditions and worked in dangerous situations.  We tend to read about them being hard workers, big drinkers and prone to violence.  They were feared by the townspeople where they showed up.  They were viewed with suspicion.  They lived on the edge of society.

Although we have few accounts from the navvies themselves about their life we do have the work of a young photographer SWA Newton.  Newton photographed the navvies in their workplace and their homes which were often huts or tents at the side of the road.

In his series of images which are published in Railways and Rural Lie, he provides us with an insight into these people's lives.  The images are dark and contrasty.  They have a raw and grimy feel to them.  You can feel the dirt and grit just looking at them.

Their homes are little more than shacks.  Their faces drawn.  The young men look like they have aged before their time.

What I would like to take from Newton's images is the starkness and the unsentimental feel they have.  They present the viewer with what is in front of the photographer no matter how hard those sights may be to look at.

I also like the darkness in the images.  There is a sense of foreboding; a sense of doom.You are left in little doubt about the toughness of the subjects and their strength of character.