Will Michell

Photography Blog

[willmichell]

Jim Mortram - Small Town Inertia

Small town inertia is an extremely interesting project and runs along similar lines as my current work. His use of blog format and presenting mini documentaries on the residents of a small town is a very effective method of documenting a place and the identity of that place. 

This is also a great example of using limitations to your advantage, as he is the main carer to a family member his flexibility in location, and time is compromised. Giving light to the current Covid-19 situation and having to remain in social isolation this work is an inspiration into the lengths you can go to in order to produce work. It has taught me to not see restrictions, but opportunities. 

These images are a social commentary on the issues faced by those who live in the same region as Mortram. They are an insight into the struggles that these people face and the realities of having mental illnesses. The collection of these stories builds an identity of a place, an identity that one wouldn’t typically think of. It highlights the worrying amount of pain both physically and emotionally that a lot of people are going through. 

This work is also a documentation of the current time we are living in. Although we have the NHS, there are areas in which funding lacks and cuts have to be made which leads to certain people being forgotten about and their conditions worsening.  Small Town Inertia is an extremely poignant body of photography in documenting the UK’s struggle with health and social care. 

[willmichell]

Cornwall: Landscape, Economy, and Gentrification

There are a multitude of issues that Cornwall and its residents have to face, especially in the areas in which my project is focused on. During the tin mining era of the 1800′s these areas were very economically stable and there were plenty of jobs. However after the market crashed and all the jobs moved elsewhere these areas were left abandoned and economically suffocated. 

The surrounding landscape is beautiful yet it isn’t a tourist hotspot due to the lack of local supermarkets, hotels, beaches, and attractions. So unlike many areas of Cornwall, the tourist trade has little to no impact on these areas. This means that many of the residents are struggling financially and the community has little to no local businesses other than the odd mechanic shop, or dingy cafe. Not to say that this is a bad thing, I find it extremely charming and wouldn’t have it any other way; however it is just not a sustainable way of living.

With areas of Cornwall having so much land for farming or empty fields it is only natural that companies want to build properties on them. Unfortunately a lot of the residents who own these fields live paycheck to paycheck so an offer of a few thousand pounds is extremely tempting. This has led to the gentrification of many of these areas. Places that were once open landscapes with small villages and a close community are now filled with modern designed houses filling the horizon. The small local shops are being pushed out by the new residents of the areas due to online shopping or ease of travel into the city to do their shopping, and any sense of community is essentially non-existent. I felt that it was important to document these areas and the people that I grew up around while it is still like this. Although walking the area more in-depth it is already apparent that the change to mass housing is imminent with new builds popping up in the corners of the villages where playgrounds, pub gardens, and cow fields once were. I feel that this social commentary is important and needs to be recognised, if we continue at this rate there will be no such thing as the countryside, or vast open areas in the UK.

[willmichell]

How can photography capture a sense of place?

Within this project I have questioned myself a lot surrounding the challenge of representing the place in which I am photographing. Questions like:

 “Should I photograph people candidly?” 

“Is this going to be ‘straight photography’?” 

“How can I decide which bits to photograph that will represent the place?” 

I started this project with the intention to document the struggle of post mining recession within this area of Cornwall. I found that I was making boring images that were almost replicating archival imagery of the place from the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. As much as I think that is a great idea for a photography project I would really have to dive into the mining community and for me the images just weren’t exciting me. I found myself being drawn back to the places I grew up around and the people that lived within those areas. 

I had the realisation that I can either approach this topic as a photographer, or as myself. I felt much more attached to the idea of photographing it from my point of view and not just an attempt to tell a story that I really didn’t know too much about. 

When it came to taking portraits of the residents I had a couple of ideas in mind, I didn’t want to photograph so candidly that it just seemed like observational street photography. I wanted the portraits to have a sense of realness while still being intimate and personal. I found that the best way to do this was have a conversation with the subject and allow them to relax. At first I would pull the camera out and photograph their automatic pose and facial expression, then I would start to direct them into how I wanted them to stand. But it was the moments in between these two periods in which I was really interested in. 

The moment they thought that I wasn’t photographing. These images showed them at a relaxed point, maybe even mid conversation with me and I found them perfect. They displayed true character of these people and didn’t look forced. I thought of them as a sort of ‘candid - posed - portrait’. 

[willmichell]

Identity (Joan Fontcuberta Fugitive Identities)

I am approaching this project as me, not as a photographer. Although the image quality is extremely important I am navigating the narrative by feeling and its importance to me.

The sense of identity runs deep within this work. Having grown up in Cornwall and experiencing many of my formative years there I have developed a relationship with the place that is truly unique to me. I will not be able to grow up anywhere else, my one chance at adolescence was spent there. The way I am, my philosophy, everything about me is due to this place and its people.

Although the subjects I have photographed are mainly strangers we still share something. We both live in the same area, we will have mutual acquaintances, gone to the same shops, walked the same paths, driven on the same roads, breathed the same air, maybe even been in the same room.  

In Joan Fontcuberta’s ‘Fugitive Identities’ he writes on graffiti as identity. I interpreted this as graffiti being an artists attempt at expressing their-self. This is the same premise as my project, although I am not defacing public property or painting large scale colourful pieces, I am choosing to express myself through place. The places in which I photograph mean something to me, they are all important and significant in my upbringing. So by photographing them and presenting them to others is my form of expressing myself. Although it is a documentation of a place, it is a documentation of a place that I feel is part of me. 

There are many notions discussed by Fontcuberta in this piece of writing but I found that there was a continuous theme of ‘situated self’. An attempt to resolve questions such as “who am I?” It is extremely important to ask these questions when carrying out a photographic project such as this one I am currently undertaking, but also important to resolve this visually also. 

[willmichell]

Corona virus and my current project

The sudden pandemic of Corona virus has had serious detrimental effects on the world. Amid all of this my project has been hugely impacted. Being based on exploring a region and community, mainly made up of elderly people, the rise of the virus has impeded me in carrying this out. It would be extremely irresponsible and selfish of me to come into close contact with the elderly and those who may have serious underlying illnesses. This eliminates my ability to make portraits of the residents. Not only this but the government advised everyone to self isolate and quarantine for a few weeks, this means no venturing outside unless essential and keep social interactions to a minimum. The last thing people will want is a stranger photographing them in their personal space and risk getting the virus. 

Luckily I have been able to shoot a body of work in which I can stitch something together for the deadline. Although this will not be what I had once hoped, I understand that there is very little I can do and that this project will ideally take a few years to finish as I want it documented in great depth. As soon as the opportunity to shoot arises I will leap at it but I feel that this will be after the deadline. I have considered how I will resolve this issue and have contemplated finding an alternative story, drifting maybe from documentary to a more ambiguous sense of feeling type of work. This has really given my brain a chance to play with sequencing and finding other projects within these images. This has been a really intriguing time and challenge to push myself creatively to find new narratives within a set of images that I cannot add to. 

[willmichell]

Research into location studio shoots and Richard Avedon’s typologies.

For the next part of my project I am going to enquire about setting up a small photo studio in a village hall. I feel that this will improve a sense of connection to the place and people within the images. I will reach out and contact some locals and also put posters around inviting them to come along and I will photograph them. My thought process behind this is that it will create a buzz around my project but also give me chance to shoot a variety of subjects and improve my portraiture skills. Hopefully a dialogue will be made between myself and some of the subjects and this may give me an opportunity to continue extended portraits on them and allow me to get more access to them and their home life. This act would be extremely valuable to my work. 

I am going to contact Blackwater village hall to organise setting up a studio, I am also going to ask if I can photograph the events such as the spring show. This will give me a deeper look into the community and allow for a broader context to my work.

Another I have is to attend the meetings and watch local villages ‘whats on’ pages and get in contact with the event organisers to see if I am able to photograph there. 

Richard Avedon’s series ‘In the American West’ is a great example of typology and documentation of the characters around that area. His use of consistent lighting throughout and similar framing adds a feeling of scientific research. The images feel clean and allow the viewer to make assumptions about the characters and place purely from a visual point of view. Although this doesn’t seem fair it is very interesting to see that that is how many people judge others. These pictures emulate walking past these people in the street. They are not styled, and they are not photographed in their home. 

I want to adopt this form of character assessment within my own project, the portraiture in these images is so strong, they radiate a true sense of character and really intrigue the viewer. It is such an interesting way of photographing and I absolutely love it. These images give a glimpse into worlds that many have not visited nor will ever visit. It is a way of connecting the world through photography and it is extremely powerful. 

[willmichell]

Progression of Project

Recently I have had a love hate relationship with this project. My initial ideas aren’t working how I want them to and it is much harder to find willing subjects to photograph. 

I was focusing on the landscape and surrounding environments of Cornwall whilst ignoring the people within the landscape. I was struggling to find subjects to photograph and then I came across Nick. He was walking around the country lanes of Chacewater and his image was so striking that I had to take his picture. I approached him and told him what my project was about and that i’d love to take his portrait. His interest and willingness to be photographed was amazing, it made the whole process extremely easy and relaxing. After I was finished photographing him I asked him if I could return on a later date and photograph both him and his wife. They live in an old cottage surrounded by farmland and filled with animals. He obliged and I have made an amazing contact. 

I have also started to plan new ways in which I can build my portrait portfolio for this project. I want to rent out a village hall and set up a mini studio in it and contact local residents and workers to come in and be photographed. This will allow me to create a name for myself within the community and potentially open more doors for me to photograph certain subjects more in depth. 

I am starting to understand that it is essential to build a rapport within the community in order to get the intimate photographs that I want. This is a process and I need to be patient but it will be worth it. 

[willmichell]

‘In Conversation with Nicholas White’ an interview by Negative Feedback *Link at the end*

Nicholas White is a photographer who based a lot of his early work around Dartmoor National Park. He wanted to make work about “the land and the ways in which we interact with our natural spaces.” This statement resonated with me. Although this thought process seems very obvious and straight forward, I often find that it is easy to forget this when photographing and I lose sight of the roots of the project. It is a very simplistic definition of the intentions behind his work, but if you actually break it down, there is much more to consider. For example you have to take into account personal interpretation and how the viewers are going to interpret the images. There are also a variety of discourses to consider when photographing landscape or natural places. Does he mean “we” as humans or “we” as creatives. There is lots to consider when contemplating this statement and for me personally I will have to sit with it in order for it to be as useful and clear as it can be for my current work.

White also comments on breaking out of the ‘traditions’ of landscape photography. Questioning himself and exploring the different themes within a landscape makes the work meaningful and more coherent as opposed to “look how pretty this is.” Which, is a genuine consideration to bear in mind when photographing landscape. This goes back to the notion of wanting images to be more than just aesthetic.

When discussing his body of work surrounding Dartmoor and the presence of the armed forces there he says: “How an area so beautiful deemed a natural park can have this second life as an area that facilitates training for war.” This is an extremely interesting and thought provoking approach to a place. The contrast between ‘peace’ and ‘tranquility’ often labelled to natural spaces of beauty and the ‘dirty’ or ‘evil’ connotations that are had towards war and violence make Dartmoor an interesting place to be home to both of these things.

An interesting insight into the reality of photographers and photography students is getting your foot in the door regarding industry. It would be ideal to leave university and move straight into an artist residency or get your work displayed in a gallery or published as a book but that isn’t a reality. White left university and became an image retoucher for a women’s clothing brand and a football boot company. Eventually he became the product photographer for the football boot company, and is a commercial and editorial photographer for the company. Despite not having an interest in these areas he understood it was necessary to work for these companies in order to get his foot in the door of photographic industry. 

This is useful to understand as it is a way of making your way into the industry, still being creative but also providing income to allow you to pursue personal photography projects. This has really made me consider ways in which I can get into the industry, whilst simultaneously financing my personal projects. 

[willmichell]

A body of work should be a conversation between artist and viewer

I have been reading and listening to a lot of interviews surrounding Hans Ulrich-Obrist. He is a world renowned curator and innovative thinker. His work ethic and view on art and exhibitions is inspiring and fresh. 

After listening to many interviews I began focusing on his views that art should be a conversation, exhibitions should be a conversation and essentially everything within the arts should be a conversation.

This got me thinking, I had the realisation that my work should be a conversation between the viewer and I. This makes the thought of narrative and sequencing much simpler. It makes the images that I compose much more considered and purposeful. I could go around and photograph a place literally, resembling photojournalism; or I could photograph meaningful and essential scenes and people and sequence them in a way in which a story is told. I want my work to break the barrier of location and access. I want my work to be available and easy to access, I want it to be an experience, an intimate look into a lifestyle and landscape. 

I have conversations with the subjects I photograph so that they understand my project and they know what I am trying to achieve, so why don’t I consider the viewer in the same way? This seems like an idea that will change my work, how it is presented, how it will flow and how I will distribute it. 

Without this conversation there is no connection between viewer and artist. The images should be the common-ground on which both artist and viewer relate to one another, a mutual appreciation of form. An image without meaning or consideration is simply a snapshot, but an image with narrative, consideration, and displayed with these things in mind is a photograph.

[willmichell]

Finding my feet within the project - Reflections on location shoot 5

My fifth and final shoot during this location visit was for me my most successful. The weather had cleared up and all of my pent up creative energy was flowing. I set out around my local village and searched within myself for scenes which meant a lot to me and really struck me visually. I was really drawn to the destructive elements that the recent storms had had on the area.

The more I photographed, the more I became ambitious and excited. I found beauty in so many things and a narrative was building within the images. I experimented with a multitude of apertures to manipulate the image as much as possible. I also played with longer exposure times and tried to create some ambiguous images that were representative of my feelings in the current location. 

These images are very emotive to me. Before I photographed I was researching a photographer called Minor White, I was drawn to his landscape shots because they seemed unique and alternative. He shot using infrared film. The more I researched Minor White’s philosophy and reasoning for shooting with infrared film, the more I felt poetically and spiritually connected to Cornwall.

Infrared is something that is invisible to the human eye but able to be felt. This is exactly how I feel about the areas I am photographing. It is hard to explain why I am so attached to them visually, but there is a feeling about the place which resonates through me. 

These images portray a feeling of serenity and calm. The images were contemplated, set up on a tripod, the aperture was carefully considered and each scene means something to me. They are an extension of the area to me. The tones are not highly contrasted, they are not aggressive, they are reflective. The images surrounding water are the most striking to me, I feel calm around water and streams. 

This was a great practice of reflective photography and taking a much slower approach to image making and carefully considering every little detail. I loved doing this a lot, I will photograph like this a lot more. To slow down in a very fast paced world. 

[willmichell]

A brief exploration into St Day - Reflections on location shoot 4

The fourth day in which I photographed in Cornwall, the bad weather was still present but I needed to explore the region more and photograph. I decided it would be sensible to drive to my next location, St Day, and wait in the car until the weather cleared up and I could get out and about to photograph. This was very short lived. 

After being out in St Day for 2 hours I was only able to photograph in approximately 10 minutes of dry weather. None of these images really resonate with me and I am almost certain they won’t make the final edit. However I am including them here to log my activity and to have an opportunity to reflect on them.

St Day is a challenging place to photograph at the best of times. The streets are narrow and cramped, there is hardly any parking, and the pavement is somewhat non-existent. Due to the poor weather conditions, it became even harder to photograph. St Day is full of characters and I was extremely excited to photograph the people there. However when I visited the place was desolate and empty, and the lighting was poor. 

What i did gain from this shoot is some more ideas and locations to shoot around this region. I noticed some very interesting looking buildings and fields in which views of the surrounding village fill the horizon. Battling the weather is continuing to teach me the value of patience. 

[willmichell]

Gap in the storm and an environmental portrait - Reflections on location shoot 3

On my second day shooting in Cornwall the storm was still in full effect, however there were moments in between the thrashing rain in which I could venture out shortly to photograph. 

Before coming to Cornwall I had organised to photograph a friend of mine who has lived in the same house his entire life and grown up around the area in which I am focusing this project on. I thought of him as an important subject to photograph due to him being a close friend of mine and having meaning to me, but also the fact that he has lived in the same house his entire life and that he works within three miles of his house. To many the concept of only living in one house is alien, and also the idea of working within three miles of that house. However this is all he has known.

Tom is 20 and a teaching assistant at the local college, he lives in an old converted farmhouse with his mum, her partner,  his two sisters, and his younger adopted brother. Growing up around these people I have extremely fond memories of them. Their house is filled with so much character and they are extremely family oriented. During the summer they have swingsets, play houses, bikes, and all sorts that are expected of a family with young children. However during winter the natural elements encroach upon the swingsets and toys that have been left out. This creates an extremely eerie and rundown feel to the place. It is truly representative of how these desolate areas of Cornwall can seem like a paradise during summer, but in the winter it turns into a run down, dark, wet depressive place.

I started photographing around his house and the garden, trying to capture the feeling of true surrender to the elements and the unique lighting of harsh sunlight against the dark corners of the rooms. 

I started by photographing outside, I used a tripod and a small aperture, typically between f/11 and f/16 this was to capture as much detail as possible when taking landscape-esque photographs. I noticed when I was photographing how run down certain elements of the place looked, this was due to the moody lighting created by the heavy, rain filled clouds and also the effects of high winds and extreme weather conditions battering everything. I contemplated how some would find this very disturbing and uncomfortable, but to me it was home and everything I have grown up around. I had a moment of appreciation for the place and everything it stood for. 

I then went inside to take Tom’s portrait, I didn’t engage in the conversation of photography or what the project was about. I was simply there as a friend, this was to get him to forget about the camera and just be his natural self so I could capture his authentic self. Eventually after a couple of hours he started to look at the newspaper on his kitchen table, the strong light bleeding through the window creating a silhouette really stood out to me. My camera was already set up on a tripod in the corner of the room. I quietly went over to it and started shooting. I wasn’t too sure if these images would fit in with the aesthetic and feel I had in mind. I then realised that actually it did. I was photographing a place and its people and this was it. It wasn’t posed or forced, it was natural. 

Overall I feel like the narrative of the project is starting to form itself slowly but surely, I am shooting somewhat openly and accepting what comes of it. 

[willmichell]

Dead Rabbits and rain - Reflections on location shoot 2

I travelled back to Cornwall for my second location shoot surrounding my project. Unfortunately this was during a large storm. This really tested my creativity and mindset towards this project. It felt really easy to just sit and watch TV because I couldn't go out and shoot. I felt very disheartened and fed up with the project as a whole. 

Although this was a tough experience for me, looking back it taught me a lot. I have a better understanding for how things can go wrong and how I can deal with them. I also have to come to terms with the fact that the weather is going to do whatever it wants and I need to be fast and prepared for when it is suitable for me to photograph.

Whilst it was raining outside, I stayed in to edit my images from previous shoots. When I went downstairs I saw that my cat had bought in a rabbit, this doesn’t shock me as she constantly does this. However, I thought it would be a great opportunity to photograph. Not only did it allow me to use my camera and feel more creative but it was also a great subject to photograph. The lighting conditions were dim and the scene was lit from a small glass panel in the backdoor. This gave me an opportunity to test my skills in low lighting and also give me a chance to shoot with a completely wide open aperture.

As I was photographing I realised that this would work really well within my project. The area is filled with people who hunt rabbits for food, but also pet owners whose cats and dogs roam freely and kill the local wildlife. This provided a really great bit of contextual photography as it is a subject that i’ve grown up around but it is also symbolic of the ruthlessness of the area. What may be upsetting to some is a reality to a select few who live around these areas. 

I feel that the images really work well in black and white, and the subject is jarring and eye catching. I wouldn’t have been able to have this opportunity if the weather was not limiting my shooting to indoors. So I have learnt to accept the hurdles that I will face and use them to my strength and find opportunities within them. 

[willmichell]

Introspective ideas to explore - Reflection from a discussion with Colin Robins and Rob Darch

During a scheduled seminar with lecturers Colin Robins and Rob Darch I got a chance to discuss my project so far with them. 

When describing how I wanted my project to look and feel I was describing the areas I was going to photograph and why. Rob then pressed me to find a personal link within the project, I felt that despite growing up there I wasn’t really considering myself within the work. I then began questioning my motives behind the project and why I am shooting it like this. 

After contemplating this for a week these are the notes which I have written surrounding it:

- I want to photograph the place because I have such an emotional attachment to it. The fact that it is in the middle of nowhere, isn’t filled with tourists, and has a somewhat overgrown feel and sense of nature makes it so unique and special to me. I am proud to be Cornish and I feel a strong connection to the place in which I grew up, and its vast history and culture. 

- The people within the landscape in which I am photographing are familiar to me. Although I have never met them there is a feeling of kinship and belonging. Everyone of these people know what it is like to live in these places and knows what it takes to thrive there. I feel like I belong in the countryside and being away from big cities and dense populations squeezed into a concrete jungle. When home, I am in a constant state of reflection, relaxation and I have a huge respect for the untouched nature that surrounds me. 

- Personally this project is not just a documentation of a place and the people within it, but a metaphor for the Cornish spirit, the soul of the place and nature. I am photographing a community that has surrounded me, nurtured me and shaped who I am as a person. Without this I would not be who I am today. 

[willmichell]

Colour or Black and White?

After my first shoot on location in Cornwall I was really eager to look at the images I had captured in detail. When I had transferred them onto my computer I had mixed feelings.

I really liked some of the compositions of the images and felt that they were quite strong and a really good starting point for this project. Yet when it came to editing them I struggled to find consistency. Something felt off and I couldn’t put my finger on it. After obsessing over them for 48 hours and still not able to put my finger on what was missing I decided to take them to one of my lecturers Colin Robins.

When I explained the difficulty I was having with the images and the sense of inconsistency or something being wrong he looked at the images and simply said “have you tried them in black and white?”. That sentence completely transformed this project for me.

I immediately converted my favourite images into black and white and immediately I saw the difference. The inconsistency was due to the colours, there was such an array of greens, blues, greys, reds and oranges within these images that it was extremely distracting and detracted from the actual images themselves. 

It was difficult to come to terms with that my project seemed like it would now be shot in black and white. Since I have been thinking about this project, for over a year now, I have always pictured it in colour and I developed an attachment to this idea. 

Eventually I accepted that the images worked so much better in black and white and it was for the benefit of the project that this had to happen. This taught me a couple of important lessons. One is that I should always seek help or guidance from others when i’m struggling with something or can’t see whats wrong. The other is that it is so important to detach myself from an idea that i’ve had stuck in my head if it simply won’t work or be worth it. It’s so easy for me to become attached to images and keep them in a series because I am attached to them even if they are extremely out of place. I will work on this in the future and learn to be more brutal when it comes to narrowing down which images I will include. 

[willmichell]

Dave Anderson - Artist Research

The series ‘Rough Beauty’ by Dave Anderson is an attempt to expose the hard lives lived by those of Vidor, Texas. Anderson does not want to make the work appear ‘beautiful’ or ‘clean’ by removing the nitty gritty and rough edges of the place. It is a true representation of a place and its people. 

The town of Vidor, Texas is shadowed by its history of racist culture, being the home of many Ku Klux Klan, one of the most notorious hateful and discriminatory groups in the world. This photoseries explores the town’s community and documents its struggle trying to shake off the branding of racism and hate. These hate crimes are no longer present in this town and Anderson aims to highlight that amongst other points. Another is the harsh reality that the residents are faced with and that is the soul crushing poverty that is compared to that of the ‘great depression’. 

This work stood out to me as it bears striking resemblance to certain aspects faced in the areas in which I am going to photograph. Both ‘Rough Beauty’ and my own project have a narrative of a small community trying to survive in the brutality of rural life and overcoming past events. 

Anderson’s work is full of emotion and a sense of environment. This is done visually by taking portraits of the community in their places of work, homes or bars. The subjects and locations are carefully considered to enhance the narrative of financial struggle and the demons that come along with it such as alcoholism, drug dealing, and fly tipping. 

Anderson is careful to show the town for the run down and rough place it is with great taste and care. The residents are not shown in a negative light or defamed in any way. However their social situation and dependancies they may have are subtly hinted at. This is something that I will have to consider when photographing the community for my own project. 

[willmichell]

Matthew Genitempo - Artist Research

The body of work entitled ‘Jasper’ by Matthew Genitempo is inspired by the life and work of the poet and land surveyor, Frank Stanford. Set in the the Ozark mountains of Arkansas in Missouri these black and white images are a depiction of the beauty that lays within an area shrouded by a negative past. 

‘Jasper’ explores a fascination with running away from the everyday. The images bounce between fact and fiction, exhibiting the harsh reality of what it truly means to distanced from society. 

Genitempo’s images resonate within me deeply and are extremely inspirational and influential to my current project. The way Genitempo approaches the subject of society and landscape visually is effortless. His documentation and sequencing is so strong that it needs not a written explanation to understand what the series is about. 

Ozark and Cornwall have similarities which links this work to my own. Both places are hidden away amongst disused mines, hilly landscapes and are separated away from society. Although Cornwall is not nearly as separated from society as Ozark, the area of Cornwall in which I am photographing is far from the bustling tourist-y areas advertised in brochures. What strikes me about this work is the juxtaposition between the beautiful scenery and the hardship of gaining economic stability in these places. 

Genitempo’s images feel very slow and contemplative, it is clear that he has taken his time when photographing these places and people. Not just because his selected medium of photography, large format, is a time consuming process; but also because the images work so well together and tell such a story that it would be impossible to do this in a rush. 

The portraits within this work are so intimate and the subjects seem so vulnerable within them. They are also a great example of how impactful environmental portraiture can be, and gives context to the people and places within the work. 

The flat lighting and black and white tones of the work bring a sense of neutrality to the work. There is a sense of uniformity and traditionalist photography yet it is not trying to force a feeling upon you, it allows you to view the images for their contents not distract you with colour. For me this is why the work is so emotive. 

The images provide a sense of environment and emotion to the viewer. The intimate interior photographs are a reference point to the conditions in which these people live. I personally believe this adds such a layer of depth and context to the work that is missing in so many bodies of work.