Exercise 3.11 – Visual Evidence

Brief:- Make four photographs that document the place where you’re reading this and the act of reading it. Be as neutral, as dispassionate as possible. This is visual evidence. Space usually means a wide photographic description. Act may require a series of ‘shots’ as a movie does: ‘¹I am ²reading this ³text in this ⁴place.’

Other than the image “I am” I have only used the auto tone in Lightroom, and re-size during the export procedure, so that I could follow the brief as closely as posible. My home is lived in. I utilise all available space, so although my floor appears messy, it is a working space which is for the things that I make most use of, and whatever I am  currently working on – I am feeling embarrased to post these.

I am

Reading this

Text in this

Place

When considering this exercise in relation to the brief relating Richard Billingham’s Rays A Laugh (seen here), I still cannot see that collecting visual evidence is an exercise that can be neutral. Maybe if a photographer was making scientific eveidence, a record of artifacts, medical and crime scene photography, then yes. But we as humans are designed to respond to other people and their lives. I bet that you do not look at the four photos above without having some kind of response. Again its clear that your response may not be the same as my own, but you will have a reponse. These photos have been made purely to collect visual evidence for a brief, for one of the exercises in my studies. They have been made over a very very brief instance of time, and yet I, and you, have either an emotional or cognitive analytical response. When people are involved in general life, there is no neutrality.