Evaluation

When I first researched all the artists for the Spaces of Leisure I had no idea in my head of what to start of with. My head was all around a typical landscape which was not what I wanted to do, everyone always tries to be different instead of normal and typical, it is hard to think of an idea that will suit you so perfect and will stand out in many other great ideas. At this point I decided to, instead of trying for a greatest idea for my photoshoot, make something so simple with a very big and interesting story behind it. The Spaces of Leisure project was meant to represent your environment and your everyday surroundings, I broke that rule a little bit. My ideas suddenly started to develop quicker. There was a lot of memories on my mind that I could make my work out of, in the very end of my dilemmas I thought about making my work about how my life changed after my big move to the UK from my home country, Poland. For my whole life I lived in a countryside in a nice house in a little village, near a lake. Although it was pretty much in the city (very close) but the country was where I grew up with all my family and friends. When I moved to the UK everything has changed, all of a sudden I lived in a city, many people, loud nights and building on a building. I never hated it but it was indeed a big change and that was what gave me my idea for my photoshoot. My idea was to get in the car and drive somewhere I don’t know but not too far, quite close by, but I did not have a clue where I was, I wanted to find a place in the countryside that will look similar to how my home looked like and also find a lake close by to take a picture. All my images were taken in the evening, there was no particular reason for that. I found a perfect lake with a little hill so I could take my image from above and a perfect country view. But that was not all, even though I took those nice landscape images it was not enough to show my story behind it so I took a photograph of a spike wire and put it in the middle of my two other ones, that has dramatically changed the whole view of the series. I did a little test to see how people respond to my two different series, I showed them two of my first outcomes which they really liked and the only concerns they had was technical things. When I showed them the second series the questions had suddenly started, people asked me questions about why I did that or what am I trying to show, after not answering many of those questions they started to get the ideas themselves. I found that very helpful as I could see view of others. I go really inspired by Darren Almond with my technical ideas and views but I think the artist that really pushed my idea was John Kippin who also has many hidden stories behind his pictures. I am not going to lie and say that my photographs were really good because they weren’t. The quality was not very good, the camera I used was not very good and everything was shot in the evening which has affected the quality even more. That is also why I had to reshoot my pictures. After seeing my previous images and asking peoples view on it and editing and printing I had a little bit enough of my story so I decided to go in the morning, back to the same place but not include the lake anymore and do a series of images of trees growing in lines. I liked the idea of that because those trees have no natural ways of growing, they are all man made lines of trees which I related to my previous idea about my move to the UK. Those trees have not got a chance to change their position, they were planted there and they have to grow there and that was about of a same story with me. I was a child, I had no choice to stay or go. That is my reason for my photographs to be the way they are.