A Family Album…

Something Different

Today’s blog is of my family holiday. Don’t worry, pagespics is not about to depart from it’s roots in Street, Travel and Documentary photography. However, these photos are a response to a challenge given to me by Birka Wiedmaier ,and is therefor the second challenge undertaken as part of the StepOut Collective.

Family

There remains one group of people who consistently manage to duck my camera lens. My family. This holiday I was set a challenge. The challenge was to photograph the beach and what it means to me, and to do this in B&W. While family photography is not ‘Street’, it relates to documentary photography. Two books I have recently purchased focus exclusively on friends and family: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, by Nan Golding and Immediate Family, by Sally Mann. Firstly, let me clarify, my family photos are not as explicit as Goldings and a far cry from the superb work of Mann (whose photos often leave me feeling a little unsettled, although they are simply awesome).

The holiday was taken North of Phuket, an area devastated by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The beach still bears witness to the terrible tragedy and is another element I felt should be included in this project.

The Challenge

I do not generally take photographs when I am relaxing on the beach. My style is more of a binger, I will head out and photograph intensely for 2-3 days, then unwind while I edit each image. This challenge made the holiday a little more interesting. Shooting for B+W was also different for me and I found myself analysing for shape and form to a greater extent. The number of photos I took of my family remained minuscule in comparison to the ones I took in Bangkok and Patong, possibly to a ratio of 500-1!

Many thanks to Birka, I have come away with a much stronger holiday portfolio than I would have done without this challenge.

Lastly, I did warn you this was different and I have included 2 selfies.

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Please feel free to comment, or share your experiences on what happens when you turn your camera towards your loved ones. Secondly, do have a look at the work of Golding and Sally Mann, they are sources of inspiration. I’m not giving you links (I’m still on holiday), go google…

Take Care and Keep Clicking, Chris