The lectorial that we had in the first half of week 5, prior to the Easter break, gave us project brief 3. A portrait of someone else. This automatically had me searching the corners of my mind for someone to show off to the world, someone who had a story interesting enough that would peak an audience’s interest. Who could I contact? Who would do it for me? Then I realised that I could simply do it about someone in my family. Simplicity can sometimes be more powerful than a complexity. This brought me to the subject of my own mum. I thought about it; she hasn’t worked for the whole 18 years of my life, as much as I love her, would her life draw interest? Then it occurred to me that she’s done some incredible things in her time, leaving  her North English home at 16, heading to the South to work in Jersey in a hotel, having the time of her life, backpacking around Australia in her early twenties, starting a family and then moving them to the other side of the world. Surely, I thought, there’s something in there, surely there’s plenty in there.

In the lectorial, Brian showed some extraordinarily touching documentaries. The one that resonated with me was ‘Gan-Gan’; “A granddaughter celebrates the life of ‘Gan-Gan’ by telling the story of her colourful life”. The the manner in which the stop motion was used, effectively I must add, really evoked a sense of nostalgia, in a reflective state of remembrance.

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2014/06/04/gan-gan/

This encouraged me to think about using photos and images to portray the memories I wanted to show within my own media portrait. Perhaps not in using stop motion due to the short timeframe of the construction of the project, but to use the photos as a starting point and to branch out from there.