While I was studying photography at college, one of the project briefs that resonated with me the most was titled “Domestic Construction”. This was a wide open brief, to be interpreted individually, and the idea that I had was to reflect on my personal experiences of home life.
Throughout my childhood, from an early age, my family liked to move. We weren’t an Army family or anything like that, simply restless. To be honest, I still am; though the constant moving does become tedious. I think I’ve lived in around 22 houses in the 26 years I’ve been alive (possibly forgetting a few from my childhood).
The series of images below give some idea what this is like, along with an outline of the processes I took to create this.
For this series I used a combination of dolls house and hand-made scaled down furniture, wallpaper samples on a cardboard box to make the rooms, and a difused tungsten light from above to mimic ceiling lighting. For the final images I used a 5×4 large format film camera so I could achieve a tilt-shift effect to make the scene look more realistic. Once the film was developed, I scanned the negatives into the computer to finish them with digital post-processing.
The plan was to create a series of Triptych photographs, each starting at a room full of moving boxes, next in a room being started to unpacked, then, lastly, a fully furnished room with all possessions in place. In each set of three, the wallpaper and décor will change. This shows that moving house constantly is repetitive and boring and no place seems like home as once you’re finally settled, its time to move again.
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