Final write-up

Over time and as you get older you change.  This change is quite distinct through your dress sense, hobbies, everyday activities, surroundings, living styles, actions and of course looks.  Everybody goes through relatively the same change which makes people associate certain cliché dress senses, actions and hobbies with certain ages.  Through my photography I wanted to capture this cliche change in people, using three specific generations, teenagers, adults and grandparents.  But instead of capturing them in their normal situations I put a little twist on my series and captured them in their opposite situations, keeping only the persons natural looks the same.  I did this to show that if you didn’t change you would look out of place.

My development started with my original idea to just capture the three generations in their normal situations but I realised that by switching them around the change was a lot more drastic and showed my idea a lot more clearly.  I then thought about what setting and what activities I would place the people in.  I thought about choosing a specific time and day, a Saturday night, and thought about what each generation would be doing on that particular night as this is usually quite cliché.  A teenager is partying, an adult is watching the rugby or at the movies and a grandparent is at church or sitting at home.  I was going to bring this in in my second shoot and just use my first as a practice shoot around the home.  But after reviewing the shoot around the home I found this setting quite effective, as it was consistent and was the one setting that related to all three generations, therefore I continued using this setting. 

In my first shoot I discovered that it was hard to distinguish a difference between swapping the teenage girl and woman’s situations.  They didn’t look enough out of place.  But after my second shoot with my grandparents I found placing them in a teenagers position was the most drastic difference and really showed them out of place.  Therefore for my final series I placed my grandparents in a teenagers situation, teenager in an adults situation and the adults in a grandparents situation.  This combination definitely showed the most drastic change between the generations.

For precedents I looked at some Magnum photographers and how they photographed the three different generations.   I looked at how they captured people in the instant, not posing for the camera, doing certain activities and found they showed that distinct change between the three generations dress sense, colours, activities, surroundings and actions.

I noticed that a lot of the photos of the elderly were taken in black and white which gives that old-fashioned feeling to it.  After trying a few photos in black and white I felt they didn’t fit in the series as well and the natural colours of the settings gave that old fashioned feel anyway.   The photos I looked at from Paolo Pellegrin, Ferdinando Scianna and Erich Hartmann I origionally was going to get influence from but after deciding on my setting as the household, which meant I was going for a more casual look, these photos weren’t appropriate as they showed the elderly in business clothes and a war-time situation.  I instead mostly looked at one of Peter Marlow’s photos which was in colour and showed a grandfather in more casual clothes sitting on a couch.

For inspiration on photographing the adults I mostly looked at Bruce Gilden.  His style is to capture people in the instant.  He will walk along the streets, jumping infront of anyone and snapping a photo of them.  In my photos I couldn't quite do the same thing as the people in mine were acting, but I still captured all people in the moment, in the middle of their activities, with no posing.

For the teenagers photos I mainly looked at one of Jim Goldbergs of a girl putting make-up on in a mirror and Lise Sarfatis photo of a teenagers slouched on a couch as an influence and found they created quite effective photos.  Although I didn't use either of these for my final as I thought the one I had of my grandmother drinking was more of a drastic change.

I chose to have a final six photos as I wanted one of each generation and one of each gender.  The sequence shows the situation starting from a teenager and growing to the elderly.  I kept all the final photos in portrait as I found when doing my shoots, that this was the more effective way of capturing people.