Conclusion

Can a portrait show someone’s true identity? As Olmetti has stated about his project “It’s not you, it’s me”, a single portrait cannot reveal one’s personality. I have worked around this idea, using a series of images combining found imagery with a documentation of my Grandmother’s everyday life in order to capture a fragment of her identity, past and present. The work I have produced concerns age and identity, and in particular focuses on time and place- looking back on memories and reminiscing on past events and relationships. I have been greatly influenced by many photographers/writers, but in particular by Angela Kelly’s essay and photographs named “Catharsis”; based on her upbringing in Belfast and her return to the place in which she grew up. Kelly also uses found imagery taken by her Father and juxtaposes it with new photographs she has taken during her documentation of her return to Ireland. This juxtaposition of found imagery with contemporary photographs sets a site for the viewer to look back on their own memories and reflect on how time changes a place, a person and relationships. 

I am extremely happy with my final images and the way in which I have presented them for the exhibition. I feel that the photographs I have chosen not only highlight my ideas about age, loneliness, time,  the family and it's influence on identity, but they also provide an opportunity for the viewer to relate and associate with the work, forming an interest and making them want to know more. I also feel that the photographs I have chosen to exhibit show a real improvement in my technical ability to work with my digital SLR compared to the work I started producing at the beginning of the term. Overall I am pleased with the way in which the work has headed and I feel it is something that I can continue over a longer period of time. I don't feel the images I have produced are a completely finished product but part of a much larger project that I would like to continue with, perhaps looking into other members of my family, including myself, since identity is formed in part through the people you live and grow up with. 

The layout I have decided on in terms of exhibiting my work is extremely important because it highlights my earlier idea that life is a recurring circle of memories. This circle is represented in the way I have exhibited my work. It also represents the idea of time through it's similarities to a clock face, again challenging ideas about aging, time and memory. The use of the large Found image within the center of my work is something I find extremely important. This image was taken in the 1960's of my family when my Nan was in her early 20's. The use of this image not only links back to my previous research but also forms a starting point for the viewer, somewhere to look and understand a little about my Nan's past before taking on the more current work that shows the aging process. This image also links back to the idea examined in Merendino's black and white photographs that this colouring takes the viewer back in time to a particular era. This contrast with the newer, colourful images represents ideas about aging and how time has changed and I feel this is significant in terms of what I wanted to achieve with my work. 

Overall, I have looked at a large variety of photographers and writers and researched their work quite extensively in order to understand fully what I wanted to achieve with my own work and how best to go about producing it. Whether I have liked the work I have looked at or not, it has all provided me to some extent with ideas, questions and starting points to consider within my own practice so that I can produce work to the best of my ability and achieve exactly what I want to. I feel the work is subjective but in a way in which others can place themselves within the context of my work and use it as a basis for looking back on their own memories of family life. As discussed before, identity is not something that can be fixed, but instead something we all interpret differently depending on life experience, situations and the people we have been surrounded by, therefore my work is merely a small documentary series about my own ideas about my Nan, and provide just a small indication about her life, her memories and her life experiences.