a.funnytimeofyear.com

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Too tired for a proper update right now.. But this was taken in Bradwell yesterday.

(I thought it was weird that I walked into a room in the asylum and the page was open on ‘DANIEL’, which is obviously my name.)

I am really excited about this weekend. I normally don’t like going back to where my mother lives, but I know that she is preparing lots of yummy food which is enticing. We (Saul & I) are heading off on Saturday evening to be greeted with a scrummy roast dinner and hopefully some rum! I can’t wait to just be out of Brighton and in a different place. I can’t wait to see the Princess Bed and spend time with two people that I love and just be warm and cosy. I’m looking forward to walking through the forest with Saul, stealing kisses and taking photos. On Sunday we’re going to Bradwell to satisfy Saul’s obsession with strange power stations (see here). I’m sure it’ll be very beautiful, as was Dungeness.

Well if you are (what you love)
And you do (what you love)
I will always be the sun and moon to you
And if you share (with your heart)
Yeah, you give (with your heart)
What you share with the world is what it keeps of you
– Noah & The Whale

I haven’t been writing much (online or in general, even on Gladys!) lately as my concentration has been so bad. In the last couple of months I have been suffering with terrible bouts of insomnia. Previously I had been staying awake for three or four days at a time, until my body would just crash. I thought that it had stopped (I am not really sure why it is happening) but I seem to have hit another bout too. It’s Tuesday evening and the last time I slept was on Saturday night. I have tried to just get into bed, listen to quiet music, read a book, watch a film, but my mind is wired and just will not let me sleep. I have been mostly productive over the last 24 hours by redesigning my portfolio website. It’s been a while since I dipped my toes in a bit of web design, but I do enjoy being creative in that respect and it’s always a pleasure going back through years of images.

I have become quite obsessed with Florence & The Machine’s cover of “I Can’t Speak French” (originally by Girls Aloud. I don’t normally put MP3s online but if you want to hear it, it’s here. I saw her at Glastonbury and remember feeling a bit violated, but perhaps it was due to it being on the Sunday afternoon when my body was practically dead and I was, again, unslept. Incidentally, her song Girl With One Eye is really good too.

I took a knife and cut out her eye
I took it home and watched it wither and die
Well, she’s lucky that I didn’t slip her a smile
That’s why she sleeps with one eye open
That’s the price she paid

Anyway…

I had a rather quiet weekend. Spent Saturday milling around the house, then had dinner with Lady Doom & the boys. Saul popped round and suddenly I was quite drunk (damn wine creeping up on me again) and soon I was spilling out with secrets and insecurities like an entirely undesirable psychopath. Oops. On Sunday I aptly visited another mental asylum with A. It was a rather spontaneous adventure, decided quickly in the early afternoon. We’ve been to this one before but we discovered some more randomness. It was eerily silent and glum outside. Each time we passed an open window on the ground floor it was very odd - looking out from this abstract dereliction into the warm colours of the autumn leaves. Very beautiful. I have become obsessed with photographing peeling wallpaper and lightswitches, again. I think what I love most about visiting asylums is the evidence of previous human existence. I love being able to see that it was actually lived-in, that people have made their mark. I find that incredibly emotive and moving.

Mostly when I am in these insomniac modes I don’t seem to eat either. I’ve eaten nothing for 24 hours and don’t even seem to be hungry. But I do luckily have a yummy boyfriend that loves to cook, and is damn good at it, so I am now going to head over to his for Spanish tortilla goodness and a whole lot of loving.

& more…

I am most definitely in love. Big time. What a wonderful person that seems to have fallen into my life.

Oh dear, seem to have gone a bit self-portrait crazy lately.. Guess it’s just boredom.

I quite like how the scars on my arm are rather evident in this photograph. There are a few scars I have (particularly one on my leg) that I find, well, less attractive, but I have always been quite keen on these. I know that sounds rather sickly masochistic, but I just consider them as evidence of my existence, something that I needed to do. They’ve been lightly dubbed my ‘tiger stripes’…

Just some thoughts lately..

Lately I’ve been thinking more and more about what photography means to me, and the direction that my own photography is taking. Not just about my photography as an artist, but how there is a much deeper connection with the medium that is most definitely a form of art therapy for me. Growing up we never took many photos. Of course my mother took photos when we were on holiday (albeit not very many?), and the odd occasion such as Christmas etc. My parents rarely had the camera out (from what I remember), and it wasn’t until I hit my mid-teens that I really became obsessed with the idea of capturing memories. I bought a 1 megapixel camera with my friend and became obsessed with taking it wherever I went, photographing the absolute banalities of my existence. I had never shown any streak of creativity other than my writing, which I kept extremely personal, blazing through journals as a method to create a somewhat tangible mess out of my adolescent thoughts. It wasn’t until I went to college, initially to study mostly academic subjects, that I became really interested in photography. My grandfather had given me a very old pentax and I tried to teach myself as best I could about exposure, aperture etc., whilst scoring through reels of film trying to get it all right.

My English teacher was what can only be described as a fossil. He was incredibly old. His speech was slow, he was most definitely in need of some kind of mobile assistance (but didn’t have any), and his voice was nothing short of monotone. I only attended three lessons before I started searching out other courses that I could take instead. A girl I had just recently met suggested that I join the small photography course (I had been intending on taking a night course). I didn’t have to show any previous photos, just talk about why I enjoyed photography, and they allowed me to switch. At that point I had upgraded to a slightly better digital camera (Canon G3) and really enjoyed taking advantage of its more advanced features, whilst also shooting with the film Pentax. Around this time I began to suffer intensely with depression and my obsession with self-harm escalated a great deal, despite starting my first relationship which did provide me with a lot of love, but also a mass of confusion. My self-esteem had suffered a lot through the previous years and I constantly questioned how I could have someone that loved me. In my mind, the thoughts that I previously penned to paper became jumbled and I struggled to coherently vent my thoughts. It seemed natural that I try to express myself in another way, without feeling the necessity of clarity. I had always been comfortable with my body (despite the multiple scars/cuts) and my lack of confidence in artistry meant that I often confined myself as the subject of my artistic experimentations. Beginning to photograph myself was a very private practice which I did mostly at night (4am being my favourite time of day). I would never listen to music whilst shooting, just simply sit in the silence and enjoy the time I had to create something. Some images were taken candidly as a representation of just simply my appearance at that time (what has now become an archive of self-portraits in memory of the different styles I have taken on), whilst others were staged in order to portray a more emotive response. Throughout my entire two years at college studying photography the only way that I displayed my images was via my website (which was mostly anonymous), and in critiques at class. Whilst I was also shooting self-portraits privately, I also became intensely interested in documenting my first relationship.

Taking on a relationship took a lot of strain on my interpersonal and social skills as I had become quite far removed from socialising, and simply spending large amounts of time with people. I found photography as a way of breaking up awkward silences, capturing the moments before and after quarrels. It also helped in forging a sturdy relationship with a static subject that was willing to participate in artistic indulgences (something I will always be grateful for). It meant that I had someone that would simply put up with me putting a camera in their face, at any time, to photograph anything. I had never experienced intimacy with someone before and I admit that I became a little obsessed with recording it, whether it meant photographing us together in bed, or even having sex. Today, the concept of immortalising intimacy is fascinating to me – as humans we all crave it, and I suppose that I feel that if it were to ever go away, I would want to be able to live vicariously through these images. The timeline of my photography throughout this relationship is entire linear – simply documenting daily events, memories, the sex etc. I slowly moved away from simply self-portraiture and begun to photograph other people, whilst always running a sideline project of personal documentary photography. As a self-harmer, I found it imperative that I photographed the cuts that I had produced on my body each time. Consequently, I have a body of work that is probably quite disturbingly sensitive, no doubt placing myself in an incredibly vulnerable light if it were to ever be shown. To this day I still find it vital to photograph not only those that I have slept with (if they agree), but also document the extent of my relationships.

It wasn’t until I begun studying at university that I realised how different my style of photography was to my peers. Whilst my photography was intensely personal (which I awkwardly begrudged sharing), others had simple project ideas that revolved primarily around aesthetics compared to my obsessive need to create in order to, well, survive. I found it increasingly difficult to relate to others’ work, which was at times incredibly beautiful, but still felt created on a different level. I begun to find it difficult to distinguish between project briefs and the constant photographs that I was taking, building up years of archived emotion. I didn’t particularly relate to my tutors whom often wanted literal translations of the project briefs, whilst I tried to weave each brief into my personal work. As far as considering myself a ‘fashion’ or ‘landscape’ photographer, for example, I could never attach any definition to my work as it seemed to bridge across all genres of photography: fine art; fashion; portraiture, etc. For me, creating a photograph became based on instinct and the need to create something, not working to a brief that involved other aspects such as styling etc.
I admit that I am not a big art buff. Prior to studying photography at college I had no desire to learn about art history, nor did I enjoy it at university. Firstly I very rarely find myself interested in any other artistic medium but photography. I guess I am a bit of a realist at heart – I need to look into a photograph and relate to it being real (even if it’s within a surreal setting) for me to emanate any kind of emotive reaction. It’s not that I dislike other artistic forms, but they just don’t seem to kick start my responses in the way that photography does. I often tired at university of learning about major photographers. I scoured the internet for hours at a time for small-time photographers with an online presence for my inspiration, noting about them in my sketchbooks. I felt that sometimes we were being spoon-fed the artistry of the greats (which of course they are), without ever opening our scope of vision to soak in the sheer mass of imagery that is available due to the internet. I much prefer admiring the work of a fresh photographer online, than constantly attempting to draw inspiration from the photographic greats that have gone down in history. Although saying that, my driving inspiration throughout my desire to document my relationships is Nan Goldin, who has such a talent for allowing you into the inner most workings of sex, intimacy and relationships.

Whilst I do draw inspiration from admiring other photographer’s work online (I hardly ever buy magazines), I try not to do it often as I find myself too influenced, and often left feeling quite disappointed in my own achievements as a photographer. Whilst I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I do have a skill in photography (I didn’t ever really believe it, which is why I hid my work so vehemently), I think it’s perhaps my lack of marketing skills and confidence in presenting my work, which subsequently means that no one ever gets to see my work. My experience, or even desire, to work with fashion has been incredibly limited. I absolutely love working with Katie because whilst she does have more of a fashion-based influence, we both love to create work that has a slightly deeper meaning than simply clothing. Lately I’ve been feeling that I need to push myself further, that I need to draw some more motivation from somewhere to continue shooting my personal work, but also to work with more models and experiment with images of a more fashion nature.

Creating images is, undoubtedly, my form of therapy, and most probably the most effective therapy that I have ever had. The quiet, stillness, of working solitary and being in control of each element - staging, lighting, location, is paramount in the whole process. And the calm selection and editing process is cathartic and yet, always, strangely strengthening.

I guess this website is a testament to my desire to document and archive my life through images. I have been photographing prior to 2003, but every time I look through my own archives I do still get emotional at images shot from 2003 - present. I find it incredible to look back at each month of each year and be flooded with memories stemming from just one photograph.