july 2019
52° 27' 11.052'' N 1° 55' 30.972'' W
what was it which drew me to start doing this in the first place? all i know is that my father lent me his canon 5d (yes, the mk. i, otherwise known as the “classic”) with a 50/1.4 usm when i was about 17. bold move to trust a teenager with a very expensive camera, but it has certainly changed me permanently. i’d had little contact with “serious” cameras up to that point. granted, i’d experimented with a nikon d40 (the operating system of which i preferred over canon’s), but playing around with a digital full frame sensor, albeit a primitive one, felt a lot like photographing dreams. holding the 5d’s chunky body stimulated my imagination in ways new to me - i wanted to go out and shoot; i wished to make use of this tool (the potential of which i was far from understanding) to seize the unusual, the beautiful or perhaps the important. anyway, what i’m getting at is that my family has played a pivotal role in getting me started down this path. i am grateful and perhaps this is why i have elected to add the photos below to my gallery of journeys.
i never gave a toss about my own graduation. to be frank, i’ve been fairly disappointed with institutionalised education - whether this was my native country’s schooling system or the uk’s spectacular academic industry. my sister, on the other hand, appears to have thrived in that environment, sparking our collective admiration and hopefully, contributing to her own happiness. to myself and our parents, spectators to her otherwise independent development, the world of academia remains arcane.
seeing my sister’s academic bubble burst, with the entirety of its microcosm spilling over, felt genuinely spiritual. what was much more fascinating would have been seeing our parents acting within an environment which appeared entirely foreign to them, in spite of their vast travelling experience. watching them witness the ceremony (or by means of empathy, partake in it) still felt unusual: they had always revealed themselves to me purely as tourists during our family trips - always observing, always learning, yet rarely with significant emotional charge.
for the sake of privacy, i have chosen to leave out my sister’s graduation photographs. they turned out well - she shone with pride. she would have certainly been the focus of the entire exercise. this leaves me with a set of photos i took in one of Birmingham's common attractions: the Winterbourne House. i thought the subject matter lent itself well to a faux film look, but it’s not just aesthetics which have driven my decision to tamper with the colours and force digital grain upon a set of photos which would have perhaps turned out fine with far less intervention. it goes back to what i had claimed about manufacturing memories - i wished for the time i had spent alongside my family (and chiefly my sister) to be remembered in a specific way. in appreciation of my parents and the (unwittingly) pivotal role they have played in me taking an interest in this trade, i wished for the images to draw a reference to the grain the old 5d produced, bestowing timelessness upon them in the context of my family’s collective life experience. i also wished for their time in Albion to be reduced to the spatial boundaries of the Winterbourne House - curated, sanitised, and reminiscent of an episode of our lives which we could have chosen to imagine, but instead collectively experienced.
july 2019
52° 27' 11.052'' N 1° 55' 30.972'' W
what was it which drew me to start doing this in the first place? all i know is that my father lent me his canon 5d (yes, the mk. i, otherwise known as the “classic”) with a 50/1.4 usm when i was about 17. bold move to trust a teenager with a very expensive camera, but it has certainly changed me permanently. i’d had little contact with “serious” cameras up to that point. granted, i’d experimented with a nikon d40 (the operating system of which i preferred over canon’s), but playing around with a digital full frame sensor, albeit a primitive one, felt a lot like photographing dreams. holding the 5d’s chunky body stimulated my imagination in ways new to me - i wanted to go out and shoot; i wished to make use of this tool (the potential of which i was far from understanding) to seize the unusual, the beautiful or perhaps the important. anyway, what i’m getting at is that my family has played a pivotal role in getting me started down this path. i am grateful and perhaps this is why i have elected to add the photos below to my gallery of journeys.
i never gave a toss about my own graduation. to be frank, i’ve been fairly disappointed with institutionalised education - whether this was my native country’s schooling system or the uk’s spectacular academic industry. my sister, on the other hand, appears to have thrived in that environment, sparking our collective admiration and hopefully, contributing to her own happiness. to myself and our parents, spectators to her otherwise independent development, the world of academia remains arcane.
seeing my sister’s academic bubble burst, with the entirety of its microcosm spilling over, felt genuinely spiritual. what was much more fascinating would have been seeing our parents acting within an environment which appeared entirely foreign to them, in spite of their vast travelling experience. watching them witness the ceremony (or by means of empathy, partake in it) still felt unusual: they had always revealed themselves to me purely as tourists during our family trips - always observing, always learning, yet rarely with significant emotional charge.
for the sake of privacy, i have chosen to leave out my sister’s graduation photographs. they turned out well - she shone with pride. she would have certainly been the focus of the entire exercise. this leaves me with a set of photos i took in one of Birmingham's common attractions: the Winterbourne House. i thought the subject matter lent itself well to a faux film look, but it’s not just aesthetics which have driven my decision to tamper with the colours and force digital grain upon a set of photos which would have perhaps turned out fine with far less intervention. it goes back to what i had claimed about manufacturing memories - i wished for the time i had spent alongside my family (and chiefly my sister) to be remembered in a specific way. in appreciation of my parents and the (unwittingly) pivotal role they have played in me taking an interest in this trade, i wished for the images to draw a reference to the grain the old 5d produced, bestowing timelessness upon them in the context of my family’s collective life experience. i also wished for their time in Albion to be reduced to the spatial boundaries of the Winterbourne House - curated, sanitised, and reminiscent of an episode of our lives which we could have chosen to imagine, but instead collectively experienced.
