BRIEF: “photograph what home means to you…”
where is home? home can be defined on a basic level for the dictionary but it’s also a subjective place to define and everyone disagrees because no two people are the same just as no two places are the same.
- a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of aperson, family, or household.
- the place in which one’s domestic affections are centered.
- the place or region where something is native or most common.
- any place of residence or refuge
- a person’s native place or own country.
“where you can sing in the shower and sleep naked”
“the place you’d go back to if something went really wrong or really right”
“where I lay my hat. where the heart is”
“somewhere that will always be there”
– immediate answers from friends when asked ‘what does home mean to you’
LINA SCHNEYNUIS
I enjoy the peaceful and sentimental elements Schneyius represents in her images. She states that most of her images weren’t ever intended for publicity and therefore they show the personal connection she has with her subjects in her photos. I think this represents what ‘home’ means to her, she is comfortable enough to show these images to the world now she is comfortable with them herself.
On a technical side, I like the use of natural light and it’s simplicity so I also experimented with the shapes and angles of natural light in my shoot.
This brief perfectly happened at the same time as the two week easter holiday where I did, in fact, go home (home home, as in where my family live).
Now currently my home home is not what it normally is and it is not how it is normally run. This is due to a temporary life-changing leak which forced us and the insurer’s and many helpful builders to completely re-do the whole of the bottom of our house.
The bottom floor is the ‘hub’ of the house – it is where we socialise as a family and do a lot of daily routines so it is quite difficult to return to!
I chose to photograph the construction sight of our driveway and the developments of what is now my house. I wanted to also portray what our house feels like sentimentally as it’s job so I photographed how natural light reaches into the house to show the soft, comforting feeling of my home.
These shoots shows the human violent destruction against the calming natural light and offers an emotional contrast to me as I am subject to both of these locations and situations.
I chose to do the shoot in a documentary style as I wanted to show it factually and practically, just like the construction site itself.
With this in mind I researched photography on construction sites and was surprised at the beauty of what I found!
I enjoy the symmetry and structure of Molloy’s construction site photography. He represents a calm, controlled and peaceful environment despite the dirty, unkempt environment. This is something I want to include in my own shoot as well as showing the peaceful side as I look at Schneyius’ work with natural light.
NADAV KANDER
I also looked at Nadav Kander has his landscape and architecture work. What I was immediately attracted to with his work was the calming and vast way he photographed the environment. He effectively portrays the greatness of the manmade structures which are forgotten and derelict now after their use has been fulfilled.
The composition and structure of his photographs are powerful and they control the whole movement and direction of attention as they add to the solid silence of the landscape. I show to show this control of structure in my own shoot.
MY SHOOT
LIGHT MANIPULATIONS 
EXPERIMENTS
This manipulation above was done to show the way a personal environment like a home can be shared with a stranger. Here the builders had ‘made themselves at home’ with the comfort of a cup of tea which has been, ironically, forgotten about on the shelf. I layered a close-up of the mug over the top to create an ‘investigator’s eye’ effect as a small, banal detail has been examined on.
I chose to make a diptych with the images above because of the connotations they portray – some viewers may see the kettle and the bed and think of a relaxing Sunday lie-in however when you realise the kettle in on the floor of a building site sharing a practical plug socket you may think that this image is are from relaxation.
