When capturing images that expressed my own meaning of home, I wanted to do something that is familiar to me, somewhere I feel comfiest and have known all my life. I decided to use the technique of rephotography and add my own twist to it. I used old photos of family, and tried to recreate them, showing the original photo in the image, to show what has changed over time.
My family have a tradition where every Sunday, we go to one of our houses for tea and a catch-up. This started off at my grandma’s house where the original photo, of my mum and aunty as children are stood. I decided I wanted to recreate this but at my aunty’s house, where we now go most often. I’m glad I captured the differences in these two images, as my mum, the younger sibling, is now the taller out of the two, whereas in the original image, it is the opposite way round. I think this is interesting to see, and shows the relationship is still the same but physical things will undoubtedly change. I like this image as I think the old style photo with the black and white helps express the time, however I think I’d prefer this image if it was composed slightly differently with more house in the background, and the background was slightly more in focus.
This next image of my mum and dad at their wedding is a huge factor of what I call home. I wanted to capture their love from then and now, and again show the physical changes of time. We went back to Bestwood Lodge, where they had their wedding reception and photos taken, and tried to recreate this in a more casual manner but showing how they are now compared to how they were then.
The original photograph is of my grandad, who has passed away, my grandma and I in the lounge of my current house. This photo means a lot to me as it is when I was first born, and reminds me of the memories we had when they came to visit when I was a child. This photo couldn’t be recreated to the exact original image, however I have used my grandma’s house in the background to relate back to where my grandma and grandad lived for over 50 years, and where my grandma still lives now. I tried to get the majority of the house in, and felt that using the original photo at an angle and slightly overlapping the house makes the image more dynamic.
This next photo is of my mum and dad outside the house that my dad lived in through his childhood. He has always told me stories about this house, and it has become something that he has passed down to me. The original photograph that I am holding is of my granny and grandad, from my dad’s side of the family. This connection is very meaningful, and again I like how the black and white shows the difference in time in the photograph, yet the house looks very much the same. I wanted to express the idea of generation changes in my series of images and I feel like this photo exceeds in this. Something I would change about this photo is the angle at which I have taken it. I think the angle is a bit awkward to look at and I should have had the camera further away from the house and my parents.
I am in these two photos, as I wanted to create the link between myself and my parents. In the image with my mum, we tried to recreate this image and show how I have grown up from her holding me as a baby, to being stood taller than her next to her. I put the camera on self timer, and got my dad to hold the photograph, and in the photo with my dad, my mum is holding the original photo. I did try and do these photos where I am holding the image myself, to keep the theme the same of using my hands to hold the image, however I felt this ruined the flow of the images with the image in the foreground and the recreation of this image in the background. These photos are taken outside the front door of my house in Nottingham, which is where the original photos were taken, the day that they brought me home from hospital after I was born. I have lived in this house my whole life, so it holds a lot of memories and is the place I have the biggest connection with and feel most comfortable.
To improve these images, I would have made the aperture slightly lower to make the background image more out of focus like the rest of the images I have taken as I feel that is most effective.
I am pleased with the outcome of these images, and to make them have a similar theme throughout, I increased both the brightness and contrast in them all, and in the first picture of my mum and aunty, I increased the saturation to add more colour like the rest of the photos.
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