Assignment 5: Making it up - draft

For my final assignment, I have chosen to create a set of images around the concept of gentrification, quite prevalent in Britain’s more trendy cities such as London, Brighton and Manchester. The links between gentrification, displacement and homelessness are devastating for many residents.

Inspired by some of the creative solutions to similar issues in Los Angeles, I chose to create a mock-up living space, using volunteers to produce a set of overexaggerated homelife situations. The city they have been forced to leave provides the backdrop to the scene.

Dan Hancox, having visited some of London’s victims of gentrification, compares the process to climate change:

“Contemporary gentrification is an often violent process by which a complex and diverse urban environment becomes more homogeneous and exclusionary. It does to neighborhoods and cities what climate change is doing to the earth: driving out fragile and deeply rooted species, and pushing the poor past the brink.” (Hancox D. 2016)

I felt it fitting to use a location that has recently suffered at the hands of climate change as the setting for this project.

Visual inspiration for the shoot came from Domenico Dolce’s  ITALIA IS LOVE! campaign  and wartime artwork such as the ‘We can do it!’ propaganda poster by J. Howard Miller.

Assignment 5: Making it up - planning

The Process

Spurn Point is a four mile long, thin strip of land separating the North Sea and the Humber Estuary. Due to recent flooding, part of this wild and varied nature reserve has collapsed, making parts of it only accessible at low tide. Tidal defences in the form of large chunks of concrete and stone, lean on each other to form tiny caves. I chose to use this location to represent the general decline to local neighbourhoods.

In order to set up this shoot, several things had to be considered. The most vital aspect was to study the tidal calendar as the location I had chosen is totally inaccessible at high tide, and pools of water remain for a few hours after. The weather was also important, as, although we were all happy to work in most weathers, a heavy rainfall would have made the caves too flooded to work in.

Having chosen two potential weekends, I put out a request through social media, getting a good response from some keen volunteers, quite excited about creating characters and providing props. The tide tables gave a window between 9am and 3pm for our shoot. Avoiding midday sun, I chose to shoot in the morning as the light would be shining into the caves; by mid afternoon, the sun would have moved behind the caves, creating too much shade for a successful shoot. The chosen day, being warm and cloudy provided filtered lighting for the shoot.

Inspiration for the scene set up came from Domenico Dolce’s ITALIA IS LOVE! Campaign for Dolce & Gabbana. Several small groups of people are brought together to create one combined scene; the different activities separate the characters while their proximity brings them together. I have aimed to emulate this idea in my setup.

Costumes and props were used to create a homely scene in and around the caves and a group of volunteers played the parts of my chosen characters. The matriarchal character far left has a look of the strong women featured in wartime art, particularly the “We Can Do It!" propaganda poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943. The low used perspective gives a sense of power and worth in the face of adversity.

The characters, on the surface appear happy with their lot but the difficulties can easily be seen; the rock hard bed, tiny tin bath and lack of electricity symbolise some of the discomfort experienced by the real victims of gentrification. Individual shots were taken of each character, however the combined image evokes that sense of camaraderie experienced in the face of shared difficulties.

Further Information

As some London residents are forced out to the cheaper surrounding counties, those most at risk are tenants in need of social housing, who risk being moved as far as Newcastle, under the threat of being declared intentionally homeless. Statistics on deprived areas of England shows the damaging impact of some of the poorest people in the country. Steve Folwell discusses the changing face of ‘generation rent’:

“While we can laugh off the advertisement for a cupboard under the stairs, the shortage of affordable housing means that our perception of what is normal has become worryingly skewed. It’s forcing people to reconsider their ideals of space and reevaluate what’s really important and necessary.” (Folwell S. 2015)

A Conversation

Nicky Bird

Nicky Bird’s ‘Question for Seller’ features photographs acquired through eBay that no one else has bid for. The seller is asked the question: “How did you come across the photos and what, if anything, do you know about them?” Their replies, she claimed are as important as the photographs they sell.

Does their presence on a gallery wall give these images an elevated status? 


The status of the images is elevated, although I feel that this elevation is quite temporary. Through an interest in their shared narrative, their status has changed from ‘unwanted’ to the very least, ‘worth viewing’. The images themselves have not become visually more interesting but it is their story that now holds interest. The word ‘unwanted’ can be quite a powerful word in warming the hearts of the general public. The need to make these inanimate objects loved again, although a bizarre concept could quite easily penetrate the human psyche.

I feel that sometime later, however these images will again become someone’s unwanted possessions, returning their status to its original form.

Where does their meaning come from?

The meaning for these images comes from their shared narrative. Without the sellers’ answers, the photographs would hold no meaning; the answers, no matter how small give them meaning. Those with no response still now hold meaning in that lack of response, alongside those that do. In fact, these may become the more notable, as they appear more ‘unwanted’.

When they are sold (again on eBay, via auction direct from the gallery) is their value increased by the fact that they are now ‘art’?

The monetary value of any item or service is exactly what people are willing to pay for it and the value of an item can depend largely on its story; for example, a guitar previously owned by a famous musician is worth far more than the same guitar brand new.

The buyers of the images, post exhibition are not merely buying the images but two stories, that which the seller gave to Bird and their new story of becoming a piece of ‘art’.

Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson’s images have been described as being ‘like incomplete sentences, with little reference to prior events or what may follow’. His images show photographic influences of Arbus, Eggleston and Evans, yet are amplified by a Spielberg like filmic quality.

Do you think there is more to his work than aesthetic beauty?

Crewdson’s work is definitely beautiful, however the aesthetic is dark and mysterious, not necessarily pleasing in a classic or superficial way. The filmic quality present is not only apparent in the style of lighting and set up but in the feeling that every image created represents a moment, a small part of something much bigger. Acute attention to detail is given to every inch of the set, with regards to colour, lighting, posture and facial expression; Crewdson uses specific actors, chosen for a distinct look and ability to evoke the feelings he has envisaged.

Do you think Crewdson succeeds in making his work psychological? What does this mean?

Every image that Crewdson creates is intended to evoke a feeling; often that either something has happened or that something is about to happen. The cinematic edge from the colour and lighting add to the air of mystery; often dark and brooding, giving the impression that the answer to our question may not be a good one; after all, in the world of film, anything can happen. At the end of a shoot, Crewdson often feels exhausted coming away from a shoot with an ‘aftertaste’ of the feelings he has aimed to portray in his images. His images have the potential to impact on the viewer psychologically; for me personally, many of Crewdson’s images evoke strong feelings of isolation, anxiety and loneliness.

What is your main goal when making pictures? Do you think there is anything wrong with making beauty your main goal? Why or why not?

I love to photograph life. As a viewer, I want an image to make me feel something; as a photographer, I have that same want for people viewing my work. When shooting on the street, I am looking for interaction, either between people or between person and space. On an arranged shoot, I am reluctant to pose people too much; a little guidance but it is the interactions I am hoping to portray.

I think that the main difficulty in trying to make beauty your main goal is that beauty is subjective; therefore what is beautiful to one person may be ugly or even distasteful to another. It is possible to aim for the current mainstream perception of beauty, although this in itself changes over time.

I personally feel, however that beauty is not quite so tangible; for me, in people it stems from personal qualities like innocence and kindness. I find beauty in the wildness of nature and years of living carved into an old building. For me, these things are beautiful because they are interesting, the result of a process, a story.

I was lucky enough to spend a week in Florence recently, a city well known for its beauty. After a day or so marveling over the mesmeric architecture, I was drawn to the myriad of people inhabiting the city, tourists from the world over, street beggars and of course, the locals. I took the opportunity to capture some of the interactions between people and also how people responded to the city itself. Although the viewer may interpret my images differently, I have given my personal reasons for taking each shot in order to back up the points I have made above.

I watched this lady begging on the Ponte Vecchio for a while and witnessed both positive and negative interactions between her and the public. In one image, a shopkeeper looks angrily at her for begging in front of her shop but I prefer the subtlety of the sideways glances from passers by in this image as they pretend not to notice her presence.

I was drawn to the visual humour of the man's dome like podge, reflecting that of the cathedral and also the green umbrella in the background.

This image is one of a set of five in which the man in the black coat eventually takes a sneaky shot of the lady on the bridge while pretending to take a selfie. There is a definite non-verbal dialogue going on between the lady, her friend and the stalker; and me, stalking the stalker.

I think that this image says a lot about generation; the older couple sitting together, interacting the old fashioned way while the lone, younger man communicates with the world via the selfie. I was also really pleased that they turned up in coordinating outfits.

My last image sums up the Piazza della Signoria for me as well as many of the other beauty spots of the city; trance-like tourists taking photos, selfies and videos while locals carry on with their day. The local left of the shot however looks quite confused by the situation, I wonder if it’s because my camera’s not pointing at the statues?

As I work towards assignment five, I am aware of a need to create a narrative in a much more detailed and  contrived way than I am used to. This will be quite a challenge for me, although one I am quite looking forward to.