Family Photographs

The first and most obvious method for recording memories is the photograph.

I have always found old family photographs hugely appealing, somehow the composition, colour, features...they all seem more beautiful. Is this to do with the nostalgia attached?

It' s not just my own family's photographs and memories, I think maybe everything aesthetically about an old photograph appeals to me- selectively, however.

I also love the very old black and white portraits. Maybe it is because a photograph of a moment in your life can be something so personal, yet given time is accessable to so many.

My origional inspiration for the direction of this project began whilst drawing from a photograph of my Grandad Bertie. I had a visual idea of creating a hand-drawn animation of just a murmer of movement around the still image of a photograph. I'd really like to do this, with a background of hazy colours- the interior of a house, outside- whatever is in the photograph, but all in hazy light. (maybe done over a lightbox?). I can just see the animation circling on a loop, a colourful square of colour on a white wall.

I am going to start off my primary research by interviewing my Nanny, and looking through her old photographs for source material. I think the photograph coupled with a memory is very important.

I've chosen my Nanny's life as source material because it combines two things- firstly that when I speak to her on the phone it upsets me that she is lonely and bored, and this allows me to go and spend lots of time with her. Secondly because her life was hugely interesting. From childhood she toured with her dad, the magician Ali Bey, all over England in theatres. She then met my Grandad when he gave her driving lessons, then they ran a post office together. The prospect of being able to use old photographs of an arabian magic show as source material is really very exciting.