“She was young once. She sank her feet into those fluffy slippers, dusky pink and worn. Door left wide open; her bare legs twist out the door. Greyed hair let loose from rollers, silk crumpled round her waist, she’s going to the pictures, where she dreamt one day she’d see her face.”
As a set task we were paired up with creative writing students to read their short pieces of writing, to spark or stimulate ideas for a visual response. We had an hour and a half to photograph, image selection and edit our images, before presenting the outcome to the group. Before shooting I had a few ideas of how I could emulate Beth’s story visually from the first read. I thought about old age and reminiscing on dreams or ambitions that she may of had during her youth, “door left wide open” gave me an idea about dementia and memory loss, simple things like forgetting to shut the door she forgets. Or my other thought was that her dream she had in her youth or door to success was still open for her.
After talking with Beth about her short creative writing piece, I brainstormed on paper the ideas and thoughts I had when first reading the piece, thinking about how to create a visual response. As it was a timed task I didn’t want to spend too long dwelling on ideas so I travelled straight into town to create my visual response, capturing around me that would convey the story. Also I travelled to Leeds Grand Theatre to create some interesting images and viewpoints to work with the short piece of writing. I wanted to mimic the thought of her chasing her dreams or documenting her youth, that’s why I shot at upwards angles to give the illusion she is looking up at her dream theatre. Where she always wanted to be and perform at!
It isn’t my favourite work I’ve produced but it was a lovely task to push ourselves out of our comfort zones to just create. Make work, shoot content and not think too much about the composition or if things suit. It sparks creativity and can give you inspiration for personal or educational projects for modules etc. Not only did this task push us to create content out of our genre but also social skills, networking with people who are on a different course. I naturally can talk to anybody and chat for Britain, however for others it’s more of a struggle but this task would have helped that hurdle a little bit.
Images by Ella Ward
Above are the final images I created and edited for the visual response for this task, I wanted a high contrast aesthetic with shadows and bright highlights. For this to emphasise age and growing older but the brightly lit highlights to imply the good times she had in her youth. Although this is not my chosen photographic genre I still like the composition and meaning behind the images. The task was enjoyable and different to anything we have been set before, it was lovely to work with another creative but in a different field.
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