After getting all of my prints together I was very overwhelmed by the sheer amount of them all. I had planned before to put them all up on a wall to decide the order and how I wanted to show them but I couldn't find a wall big enough with enough space around it to allow me to move it around and so I decided that the floor was the next best option. I laid them out in an order sort of deciding where they looked best. I was hard because there are so many of them and I think this could actually be a super long task if I did actually come to exhibiting them. Order could be so important with this! I separated the landscape images from the portraits and decided only to lay down the landscapes as I do prefer this format and also there were much more of them.
With all of the images, I struggled to decide which ones to actually put in. There are so many ways I could display this. Not all of the images followed the brief to the exact, but I quite like this. You can tell the people from some of the images whether or not they really wanted to take the picture. Some you can tell took the picture, some you can tell didn't and others are questionable. It's this idea of the unknown that makes these so interesting. There would be no information with the images, no information with any of the pictures. It is left up to the viewer to decide. I think it's really interesting that I too am unsure with some of the people, I have no idea who a lot of them are. Some I do know, but some I don't so it's interesting to be in a similar position to the viewer. It isn't normal that the photographer can experience the same as the viewer.
I decided to put some of the images in that hadn't come out so well as I had actually noticed that there were details amongst them. You could see a slight outline of a person and this idea of the unknown of who is actually there is what made me decide to put them in. To see what's there you have to look more. You have to try to see them, you can't just glance at it and see what's there, you have to want to see it. It almost makes it more unsettling the fact that you don't know who is there. You don't know who that person is. Much like all of the other images, they could be looking towards the camera, evoking the feeling that they are looking at you. And this idea of not being about to see them, see who is looking at you is definitely unsettling.
When I first saw all of the images in this position and showcased in this way I felt so overwhelmed, I was surprised as I hadn't actually thought of the project in this way. I'd spend a lot of time thinking about getting the photographs and I had always assumed that I would show the images like this but I hadn't always thought about the feelings expressed when viewing the images or how much of an impact seeing them all together would make. It works so well and that's something I'm really happy with. It's really inspired me to perhaps carry on with this working style as I really have found this way to be effective.
The images together are all there, at a first glance you just look at it all as a piece as a whole. You don't think about the individual people, which is so strange as essentially a lot of them will have no links to each other. As you view the piece more, this is when you start to notice the people as individuals. You look at them, come up with stories about who they are and almost compare them to the people next to them (this is why I think the placement of the images are key, when it would actually come to exhibiting them). Some images are quite comical, some creepy. It just depends what you associate with each of the people, whether they remind you of something, whether they look like someone you know, it changes your thoughts and the thoughts of each viewer would be different. They may think that someone is ugly, someone is pretty and I think this contrast between each of the viewers is what too makes it so interesting.
After I laid out the images, I had a few of the people I live with come up to see the work to see what their reaction would be. In most cases their first reaction was wow. They all knew the project I had been doing had seen images here and there but to finally see them all together created a great impact. Next came the discussion between them, pointing out specific people and saying 'look at them'. I didn't realise how much of an interactive piece this could be. They were discussing each of the people, laughing in some cases, and talking in some cases too about how they were next to other images and how they could relate to each other.
For exhibiting the piece, I want to have it shown in a similar way to this. I would possibly put it on top of a piece of wood, painted white and show them like this. Although the order I have put them in for hand in works now, if exhibiting I would probably think a lot more about it. Give it time to decide the right order, because looking at the same group of images in one go to decide the order with this amount was totally overwhelming and honestly, the order could be forever changing. I'm not sure that it will ever be final. Moving the images around can create different stories, different ideas and actually I think that that works pretty well.
There are 156 images in the final selection from over 200 images. The piece is 12 x 13 which within my final hand in is labeled clearly how the piece should be seen.
If carrying on the project I would try and take the images further. I would try and make sure that the images were taken in landscape and that the flash was used to make sure that images would come out and this way I could imagine a whole gallery wall filled with images. This would create an even larger impact and I can imagine it would put across my ideas in a more exaggerated way.
If I was to take this project further by expanding out and taking the ideas and using it with different images there are so many ways I could take it and throughout the project I have thought of so many ideas. I like the use of disposable cameras as they create this snapshot aesthetic within the images which I think works really well with these ideas. I could do a day in the life type thing, and give specific people a camera to take the pictures over a day. Perhaps this too could work over a month or so. A picture a day? I also thought about documenting myself. A 'selfie' a day. This too could work with others. Getting them to take one 'selfie' every day. Again using the disposable, or possibly a phone to work with the origin of the 'selfie'. I also thought about documenting my life. A picture a day. Documenting my family. Documenting something every day, or every hour. Something like this. I like the idea of time, through using a time span. Seeing how it changes. I'm unsure exactly where I would take this now, but I definitely want to take it further as I feel so inspired.
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