Nigel Shafran

Nigel Shafran’s website is a hive of domesticity, mainly featuring household chores and shopping. His series, ‘Washing Up’ documents, as you might expect, his washing up from each day, stacked up on the draining board. Images were paired with accompanying text, stating what he ate that day. Shafran was interested in photographing something that constantly changed in structure and enjoyed the ever-changing light coming through the kitchen window.

Did it surprise you that this was taken by a man? Why?

This question amused me; I grew up in a very female household until I was nine years old. As a result of this, I had never experienced gender based family roles; my mum did everything. When she remarried, her very busy General Practitioner husband had much more defined opinions on gender roles, which sometimes caused tension.

He did enjoy cooking, although you wouldn’t want to eat it but didn’t feel that other housework was his domain. On the odd occasion that he felt like being a progressive husband, he would announce to everyone quite loudly, and usually when we had company, ‘I’ll do the washing up!’ Women would coo about what a good husband he was and when they left… he’d sit in front of the television and let us do the pots. With this experience, it is easy to see why I was quite amused by a man photographing his achievements in doing such a simple task. 

Having said that, I don’t think this was the purpose of Shafran’s project, it doesn’t even state who did the pots. He seems to have mainly been drawn to the ever-changing aesthetics.

In your opinion, does gender contribute to the creation of an image?

I think gender can contribute to the creation of an image but I don’t think it necessarily does. Our life experiences all combine to contribute to what we see and choose to photograph; our gender, race, culture, sexuality, disability among many other things can all be contributory factors… or they can be irrelevant. For some people, gender is a large part of who they are, for others it is unimportant.

What does this series achieve by not including people?

I feel that the lack of people in the series depersonalises it. The addition of people would make it feel like we were taking a peek at someone else’s life; their omission creates a setting that could easily belong to us, or someone we know. This could possibly make the viewer relate to it more readily. It also leaves the question unanswered, ‘Who did the washing up?’

Do you regard them as interesting still life compositions?

As a stand-alone image, I feel that any one of the photographs could possibly be thought of as a still life composition, however the pile of pots has not been created with aesthetics in mind, more that they were appreciated afterwards; the subject emerged as a result of living. I feel that the series as a whole removes even further from still life as more and more evidence of living occurs. The ever-evolving pile, the changing light and growing plants represent movement through life, far from still.

Having viewed other sets on Shafran’s website, I get the impression that his entire library is a self-portrait. This then leads to the question, ‘is this the same for us all?’

References:

Jobey L (2008), Photographer Nigel Shafran: domestic harmony [online] http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/oct/23/nigel-shafran (accessed 1/9/15)

Shafran N (2000), Nigel Shafran [online]. At http://nigelshafran.com/category/washing-up-2000-2000/(accessed 1/9/15)