Assignment 2 – Body of Work – Regeneration in Deptford

I have been asked for this assignment to develop a set of carefully considered images which improve on the set of images I produced for Assignment 1 – Body of Work.

This collection of images juxtaposes the old and the new, within single frames, around my local area of Deptford. I have chosen to layer the old and the new in order to show the regeneration that is occurring at a rapid pace in Deptford. I have taken a step back, concentrating on wider views of the changes. These ‘grand documentary landscapes’ were inspired in part by Yan Preston’s Mother River (2010-2014) project found at: https://www.yanwangpreston.com/projects/images.

As well as adopting a wider viewpoint with juxtaposing layers, I’ve decided to incorporate a composite approach to the images. Here, I stay at a scene for a while with my tripod in one place, photographing the same setting multiple times. In this time people within Deptford pass by the camera’s viewpoint and these are the main changing features I incorporate into the composites. I feel these people, who were all in the same setting but at different times, have the potential to add narratives for the viewer based on their interaction with the setting and with each other. Of course because they weren’t at the scene at the same time, the relationship between each other is somewhat false. However, I feel this adds interesting dynamics within the images. I have definitely been inspired in this regard by Chris Dorley-Brown who uses a similar realistic composite approach in much of his work. Most notably he uses this technique in The Corners (2009-2017) which can be found at: https://modrex.com/photoworks#/the-corners/.

I have also tried to use cloudy weather to my advantage when producing the images for Assignment 2. Not only is this weather more compliant when making the composites (there is less need to deal with the shadows the people produce), I feel it adds consistency to the collection and helps focus the viewer’s eye on the old and new of Deptford as well as the people that inhabit its setting.

The images can be viewed below and clicked on for a link to the full resolution file.