Crit with Simon / Further Improvements

I decided I needed a different perspective on the project - someone with a more detached view on the family aspect too.

I booked a chat with Simon and we had a look at the project and came up with some ideas to keep it moving forward and branching outwards / into more interesting realms.

• Bring in the actual photos for the presentation. We agreed that the tangibility of 50 year old photos cannot be replaced by hi-res scans.
• We also decided that the family connection was the most significant aspect of the project and thus it should be emphasised, perhaps by contacting other family members to get their take on the collection / Peter's life with cars.

Selected Images from the Collection

I knew Peter had kept photos of some of his cars (I remember seeing them in a previous house of his) but I never expected the photos to be of such high quality and relate to such important moments in my Grandparents' lives.

Here are just a few from the collection, starting in 1955 through to '88. I'll put some more on later.

Writing About a Relative: Tone is Difficult

I've started the wording accompanying the photo archive of the cars and have encountered some problems - namely what tone to use when writing about / for an elderly relative.

I have written and re written countless paragraphs trying to get the tone just right, with the results ranging from faintly mocking to obituary-like. 

It's actually a really interesting subject for me, how tone differs in context and how important the resulting choices are on the final piece.

I Went For a Chat

I decided to spend a day with my Grandpa chatting about his history with life with cars. It is  - by nature - a very personal project and subject which he was more than happy to talk at length about.

I recorded the conversation and have since transcribed key quotes.

Once we'd talked over each photo, I took them away and scanned them to a high enough dpi to use and enlarge for print.

First Thoughts

Throughout level 4 I've already produced extensive work researching and documenting my main interests, Vinyl, Music, football etc. and so for the sake of not repeating myself for this brief I've wanted to tackle something slightly closer to home.

I thought about what collections I have in my house and whether family members would have anything of interest (I have a big extended family). I came up with two initial ideas from this;

• My Grandpa (Peter Finney) roughly a year ago handed me his life collection of  - largely film - cameras. I've always loved analogue photography, particularly the romanticism behind it in comparison to digital. As well as being aesthetically beautiful objects, I know that these cameras documented both my Grandpa's young life and also my Dad and his siblings' childhoods. This gives them a very powerful and personal meaning to me and should make for a very interesting project if I can pair the cameras with notable pictures that they took throughout my family's history.

• Whilst talking to my Dad about this, we ended up discussing my Grandpas history with cars over his lifetime (we think he's had around 65!). As a youngster I was obsessed with cars and went to motorshows etc with him so we have a strong bond over cars anyway. He also raced Mini's back in the 70's and was lucky enough to own some really interesting cars - Ferraris & Porsches which my Dad believes he's photographed every one of! 

• I'd love to chat with him about both of these and gauge which would be the most interesting to pursue... Perhaps there will be an overlap of both! 

Collecting Things / Case Study / Martin Parr - 'Boring Postcards'

So the summer brief involves collecting, archiving and presenting research on a subject of interest to me.

To start with I've looked at Martin Parr's Boring Postcard collection which has the kind of feeling I'd like to capture with my project. It is a visual collection, tongue in cheek and with content which is made interesting by way of it being brought together as one. 

The series is a testament to the power of a strong collection. The subjects are postcards so boring that the regular eye would have never been drawn to them. 

Parr saw past the lack of interesting features in the cards individually, brought them together as a set and the results are brilliant.

I want a similar feel in my collection, the path I'm choosing does echo the reminiscent feel of this project by Parr.