In these current circumstances, our relationship to our home have changed significantly. Once somewhere we would return to relax, seek comfort and care for are daily needs as humans now has become much more. Now it has become our safe space, we have been told that the outside world is dangerous. Before coming home after work or a day trip was comforting but now we long to be out of it. Working from home has made our place to relax become stressful environments. I read a geographical review by Yi-Fu Tuan about our experience with place, paying particular attention when he talked about ‘home’.

Places have meaning to people. This is through our senses, memories and our interaction with a place. Especially the home which means most to people. The home is somewhere we cater for our needs as human, so washing, eating and sleeping. We normally have a routine. We wake up, wash, go to work, return, eat then sleep and the home becomes part of that routine. Wether its a trip to the shop or a week holiday, we always return to home. Although are experience of home has changed, what remain similar is that ‘privacy and nurturing shelter persist as the central qualities’. But the emotions for it have changed. For many, routines no longer exist and having to be at home feels like imprisonment. For others they seek comfort in the fact that at home they are safe from the risks of being outside.

Representing place in art can be hard. As a photographer shooting in someone else’s space you can’t begin to get the full sense of place. Seeing is an important sense and why photography is one of the best ways to portray a place. This is because the other senses you use to experience somewhere (touch, smell and taste) can’t be publicly displayed. Through photos you have to try portray these other senses which the viewer can’t experience. ‘Artists can, to a degree, objectivity intimate feelings into a picture’.

In my work I want to, the best that I can, represent the feeling of a place. The window is the main way I will do this. It suggest the feeling of safety and privacy that have always been emotions related to home.

Inspired by Jay Stone’s photos of Plymouth and as the shoots I have done at home, have not been successful, I decided to go out and document the impact Coronavirus has had on the town I’m living in. These pictures include the last day I was at university before I moved home, the rest are of a long walk I went on around my town.

These first photos are from university. It was meant to been Varsity week but it was cancelled and now the uni was pretty much empty. I tried to capture the eeriness of the library corridors and empty SU. But these photos don’t fit with the rest and as I am not in Plymouth anymore, it would be hard to carry on.

These photos below are from around the town I live in. It was a few days after I got home and already it was so different to how it was before. I documented places that were normally busy and roads that were usually full. It was a sunny day so I used an aperture of around f.9 and fast shutter speed to get more of the image in focus. What could be improved is that the blue sky does not reflect the mood I wanted to portray in these images. I could look at reshooting on a cloudier day to capture a more moody photo. The composition was quite simple, I stood straight on to the subject. If I was to carry on documenting the affects of Coronavirus on the town, I will look into other angles to make it more interesting. But from feedback, I don’t think this idea is that effective at showing what I wanted to. From someone who doesn’t know the area, it could just be that the places that were closed on a certain day and the roads were normally like that. I understand this comment, to improve this I could look at things that people will recognise wherever they live. Such as long queues for shops and how different super markets are now.

I have not completely ruled out this idea, but it would need a lot of improvement. After that walk, a new idea came to mind. I photographed my family through the window while they ate tea. There was a bit of reflection which added a new layer to the photograph. The idea of shooting through a window fits with the situation I am trying to document. Isolation and separated from family is represented by the window. Although these images are technically not good (too dark and unsuccessful composition), I am going to experiment more with this idea.

An idea I am going to experiment with is documenting my life in lockdown. To do this, I am going to look at items in the house. These will be everyday items that show how mine and my families lives have changed in lockdown. Nigel Shafran’s work has been a big influence on this shoot. It allowed me to look at the things I see often in a different way. I thought about how in Shafron’s photos I began really looking at what was in the frame and what it said about him. This helped me when I was going around my house deciding what to photograph. In some rooms it was a bit dark, but using the light from windows like in Shafron’s work was more effective than if I had used any artificial light.

This was an interesting shoot for me to do. I was documenting things I see everyday and so I had the mindset that I was someone else, to be able to shoot from a different perspective. The shoot was successful, I focused on a few objects in each image and I realised now the significance of each one.

The first photos were of my items I had bought back from university. University for me, was the first thing that was affected by Coronavirus. I had to come back from university quite unexpected and so I had loads of belongings that just got dumped in my house with no where for it to go.

The next images look at other things my household have had to adapt to. The first two images just looks like a messy room but for me it shows more. My boyfriend has moved in with little notice and so we have squeezed so much stuff in a small room. The next two photos show something we have been doing a lot of recently, gardening. There is ‘with sympathy’ cards in the last image. Unfortunately this is a part of Coronavirus that too many people will experience.

I have never photographed ‘the everyday’ before but I realise it can make you think more imaginatively when photographing. Technically, this shoot wasn’t too difficult. Some rooms were a lot brighter than other but I kept a wide aperture and increased the shutter speed. I used a shallow depth of field to isolate certain objects from the background. The soft focus in the background is more aesthetically pleasing.

The photographs are successful but I realise they mean so much more to me than anyone else viewing them. To someone else these are just random objects in a house. For this reason, I am not going to carry on with this idea. Also as I’m stuck in one house so it would start to get repetitive.

I have always found home and ‘the everyday’ interesting photography work. It is things that are normally overlooked, especially in your own home. Nigel Shafran documents around his home making everyday objects look so much more aesthetic.

His sink and the washing up around it features quite a few times in his work. His photos allow you to see things differently, most will see piles of washing as ugly but somehow Shafran has made it look pleasant. In the second photo in particular, the use of light has been effective. The warm light has created soft shadows on the wall. The low light has also created soft tones which is more pleasing to look at.

To Shafran, these are objects he sees most of the time and might not think much about them. But to us as the viewer, they give small insights into his life. This is what I want to portray in my work, to document items that show more about how we are currently living. When looking at his work I am intrigued by all the objects and automatically start assuming about who he is.

Shafran has managed to capture beauty in the mundane. The use of light creates soft shadows and tones which make the images aesthetically pleasing. This is done through natural light, probably from a window. I am going to make sure in my own work to only use the light available to create the same affects. His work is really inspiring as normally people take photos of family, events or special occasions. How many people focus on the mess within their homes? I can imagine he would look back at these photos in a few years and they bring back other memories. Even after this pandemic, I would like to document more of the things in my house that make it my home.

For this shoot I photographed the two people I live with throughout the day. In my theoretical research I understood that distancing myself from the subject can change my perspective on the subject. I have spent a lot of time with these people and so seeing them almost from a strangers point of view will make it more interesting. It was an overcast day so I was using quite dull lighting with little shadow. I used a shallow depth of field to make the subject stand out from the background. This allowed me to use a faster shutter speed as I was taking photos as they were moving.

I went for a candid approach as I liked this documentary style that Leonie Hampton did. By not staging my work it shows them naturally, showing an accurate representation of their lives. To add to this candid effect I shot with other things in the foreground. The object out of focus in the foreground adds depth to the image (something I learned in the last module). I also shot from different angles to create more interesting composition.

These images are successful as everyday portraits but I will not carry on with this idea as I am not inspired enough by it. I enjoyed capturing my family in the style that Leonie Hampton did but there is not enough meaning behind them for me to be inspired to carry on. Being in lockdown with the same people in the same house is going to be difficult and so I need a project I am going to be excited about. This shoot has been good at allowing me to pretend to change my relationship with the subject to document from a different point of view. This is something I will remember in future shoots.