William Henry Fox Talbot

Project 1 - the instrument - exercise 1

Alec Soth

assignment 1

To do the assignment of the square mile I have chosen my parents neighbourhood. I moved into this area of Madrid when I was eleven years old. I was coming from an area of Madrid, which is the one I consider as the place I grew up, in the outskirts of the city. In this new neighbourhood I went to school one year, and to high school four more years. It is in this area also where the swimming pool in which I have spent most of my adolescence (I was a synchronise swimmer and practised for three hours every day) is located, so I chose this as the place to re-explore and photograph in this assignment.

I moved from my parents’ home in 2005, and then I moved from Madrid to Cardiff in 2011. It was only a couple of months ago then I came back, so found the opportunity to photograph some of my memories really enthralling.

The photographers I have looked for inspiration were Stephen Shore and Eggleston. Their images of the conventional daily life and the colour of their film photographs is engrossing. Also influenced by them I have researched Alec Soth. I particularly like the façades in his Niagara series.

I also enjoyed Keith Arnett's series of his neighbours, and how captivating are Tom Hunter and Venetia Darden's portraits. However, I found difficult to approach people and asking them for a picture. Also there were not many people in the city as it was a bank holiday this weekend.

While taking the images for the Square Mile I had the photographers mentioned above in mind. In some aspects a couple of the photos taken would have a reminiscence of their work.

I'm not completely sure if the project works as a whole. For me it does, as I recognise the buildings and the area. The images are also edited with a film filter in Lightroom software (VSCO cam package) so the feel and colour is similar to Eggleston's colour images. This gives them some consistency and continuity. But if I look at the images from the perspective of an outsider, it could be that they don't belong together.

 

With regards to assessment criteria, I have taken a first stab at an analysis below:

Demonstration of technical and visual skills – The images have in general a good composition. Location of subjects in relation with each other makes sense and is balanced. Style is somewhat mixed (angled and simplistic images with more vernacular photos).

Quality of outcome – as mentioned above, the project perhaps does not work as a whole.

Demonstration of creativity – Honestly here I would have liked to get closer to people. I find this terribly difficult.

Context – I have done a couple of days of research before taking the photos. I am satisfied with the result in this sense, though I had probably a predetermined idea of what I wanted to show and have stick to that, keeping the influence from the research (hopefully) in control.