Home time

Today i had to take my mums mum home. I wanted to spend longer with her but tomorrow i have to return to Cheltenham for work so unfortunately i cant. I had to drive her back in brum which i was really worried about because he does have a habit of breaking down but luckily i got her home safely.

once i'd manged to get her to hers we pottered about the house for a bit then went for lunch. i wanted to spend the whole day with her but my cars lights dont work at the moment so i had to leave early to make sure i was home before dark.

However i did get a few shots. Mainly of her showing me things she bought before Christmas. shes become very accustomed to the camera and doesn't really notice it but you can tell when she wants her photo taken. she loves the attention.

I think this is a nice portrait of her. its soft and her expression is natural. it also adds her personality to the image because shes randomly holding something. but this adds to the image and i dont think it would of been as effective if she hadn't been holding the cat calender. the lighting is very yellow and this can be edited but i like the warm feel it has on the image. plus she looks very healthy in the image, over the week that i've spent with her shes been so much better shes eaten all of her meals, shes laughed more and had far more energy. shes even slept at night. sounds abit like a baby but this is the thing with her, she needs to be around people and if she'd of been on her own this year we probably would of had a repeat of last year with her in hospital for an overdose. thats why its been so important for me to be around my mums mum this Christmas.

Now even she doesn't know why she bought this fan. She found it funny either way. the light above her head is annoying on this photo. that can be edited out though. but my main focus fr this photo is the details and mainly the bruise on her hand. though the image looks fun and cheerful. it gives an insight into how she does have health problems and that sometimes i forget just how frail shes become.

Now because i have work for the next week i've got to have a week off shooting but once my family return from their holiday i will be going over to my mums mums to get some more shots. this time i'll be focusing on her and my mum and their relationship. How they interact and get on.

Shopping anyone?

Now i have never been shopping with my mums mum before. And now i understand why her house is full of so much stuff. she will literally buy everything.

We had originally planned to go shopping yesterday but my mums mum slept in until half 2 in the afternoon (pretty sure i'm the one that meant to do that) so we decided we'd go today instead. We got on the bus and away we went. it was a lovely day for the both of us we wandered about had lunch did the sort of things i should do with my gran more often.

however you are probably wandering where the point of this post is. well my mums mum had decided that she wanted a onesie. now i was pretty convinced that we wouldn't find one. Oh how wrong i was. she found this beauty...

Yes she bought a bright yellow giraffe onesie. This made my day quite possibly my year. shes already decided shes going to wear it down the garden to make her neighbours think shes even more crazy than they already do. 

Now this is where i am starting to see more of my grans personality. Not only is she completely nuts (well all the good ones are anyhow). But she is almost like a child trapped in an older persons body. Shes never really grown up, but then shes never fully had to. She didn't go out to work she spent her life cleaning, cooking and looking after the kids she so her maturity only went so far. And now that she doesn't have to look after anyone she can be exactly how she wants to be and it doesn't matter. 

ITS CHRISTMAAAASSSS!

So to say i am excited would be an understatement. i woke up at 5 this morning. i couldn't sleep. I haven't been this excited about a Christmas in a very long time.

We all got some wonderful presents and i had my camera on me all day just snapping about at everything. just getting a feel for the day. i wasn't too fussed about working on the project because i was more interested in just enjoying the day but i always take photos on Christmas day anyhow so i thought i might as well.

The above photo shows my mums mum, rum and coke in hand. looking pretty chuffed. shes in her best top and trousers. with all her jewellery on. Something about Christmas day makes everyone feel like they have to look their best. its not the best photo but i love her facial expression. 

Now on Christmas day my dad and brother both got given the same shirt. they are a spitting image of each other anyhow so obviously photos had to be taken of them to show just how similar they are 

Now this is where i started to get very interested in how we look like our parents and reverted back to what i was looking at for the large format project. my brother who is 18 looks the exact same as my dad did when he was 18. its very strange to see. however it gets even better. For my grandads (my dads dad) was also with us on Christmas day and by some freaky chance he turned up also wearing a yellow shirt. It did make us laugh. But what is strange is that my dad who is 46 looks the same as my granddad did when he was the same age. its almost like real life view of how one person will age. so a photo of the 3 of them had to be taken... obviously.

After taking a series of photos of them all stood next to each other i started to think and become inspired  For the large format project i overlayed an image of my mum and my mums mum to show how similar they are and how their faces are pretty much the same. so then i came up with a little side project that i want to work on. i want to get portraits of each family member and do overlays of the faces to see how we inherit different features and how our faces fit into each others. 

So as you can see any photography for personal view was sort of over shadowed on Christmas day but i'm not too fussed about that because it made me really inspired to work on a different personal project. 

Now tomorrow my family fly off on holiday so i'll be spending the next 4/5 days with my mums mum. so my project will hopefully progress during this week =).

'tis the night before christmas

It is Christmas eve and because my mums mum is very religious we took her to the evening service at the church. we haven't been since i was very little and all i can remember is that i used to get an orange with a candle in it and dolly mixtures stuck onto it... so i had high hopes. however this year there was no oranges covered in sweets. just a chocolate coin. i was pretty disappointing. but nevermind. 

We took her to the service and she seemed to enjoy it. there was singing, lots of singing which she liked joining in with. i didn't take any photos in the church, it almost seemed disrespectful and plus i was too busy laughing with my dad at the fact that the lady sat in front of us looked exactly like postman pat and trying to persuade my mum to come to the pub afterwards.

We succeed so after church we walked across the road to the pub.... we were sure this must be some kind of sin yet the vicar went too so we decided it must be ok. The picture above i shot whilst in the pub on 35mm film. i've started carrying a film camera around instead of a digital these days it leaves a bit of mystery and is a nice surprise when i get the film developed because half the time i cant remember what i've taken photos of. The drink in my mums mums hand is the first alcoholic drink shes had in nearly 30 years. She used to be an alcoholic though she says she was never a proper one. She said that she could never be a proper alcoholic, for then she would have to drink all day. Yet she could only drink in the morning, never in the afternoon or evening. 

I do love this photo, both with glasses in hands all wrapped up in their coats. Its generic family snap. A photo that i should already have, one that we should have millions of yet we dont. These family snaps are something that's missing from our photo albums at home.

Collection day

So today we are off to collect my mums mum. we've had a few issues with her this week. and my whole plan was nearly ruined because she decided that she didn't want to come over because she thinks we are only inviting her to keep and eye on her. she decided to tell us that she was going to spend Christmas day at her friend Enids house. However my mum got a phone call from Enid making sure that my gran was coming to ours for Christmas. so in other words my mums mum had been planning to spend Christmas day on her own but we foiled her plan.

The relationship shes had with our family means that shes not used to people wanting her to be around or getting excited to see her. my mums side of the family has a very strange view on what family means. unless someones died no one seems to bother getting in contact. its very bizarre. hence why i've never really gotten to know my mums mum until the past year.

Though i was speaking to my mum and she said that her dad never cared for grandchildren and  he was never really too fussed about having children either but in those days that was the done thing, you got married went to work and had kids. so once he'd done that he wasn't really bothered about getting to know his children kids which is such a shame because my mums mum feels like shes missed out on so much. She loves her children to bits and loves her grandchildren even more.

The massive smile she gets on her face when i walk in her door is something that almost makes me cry. Shes missed seeing us grow up, sure shes had photos but shes never really known us. she asks questions now about events in the past that are things that she should of been there for and it upsets her. however shes  not the only one that's missed out though. i've missed out on having a grandma for such a long time and its amazing how much you need one in your life. that's why this project is more than just a series of photos printed into a book. Its given me a relationship with someone that i should of had so long ago. its made me value my family so much more and understand how we need to be in order to make sure that everyone knows exactly how much you care because some times. Its just too late.

Prep For Christmas

So whilst everyone else has buggered off home for Christmas i'm still at university... oh the joys of having a job. However because i am headed home on Thursday and on Saturday i am going with my mum and dad to collect my mums mum to bring her over to ours for Christmas.

now over Christmas my family are going on holiday so this means that i get to 'look after' my mums mum and hopefully i can work on my project even more. If all goes to plan i will not only develop my own relationship with her but also learn more about her as a person and her views on our family and the way she sees things.

So far i have looked at her life in regards to her house and i was initially wanting to focus on how she is coping now that she is the only one in the house for the first time ever. this is a strong enough subject on its own because her loneliness is very clear and in photos in her eyes you can tell how she feels. But there's so much more to her. really i could easily spend years photographing her. She really is that interesting.

However for the Christmas break my plan is to mainly talk to her. get to understand her and on Christmas day see how she interacts with everyone else because this is the first ever Christmas she has spent with us so it really is a complete change.

Any ways, i'm off to work... need to earn some pennies.

Yesterday

So yesterday i went over the visit my mums mum to work on my project.

its safe to say it didn't go to plan, we ended up spending 5 hours in hospital with her instead.

shes perfectly fine just had a bit of a rough week and then managed to super glue her fingers together so she got into a bit of a state with it all. which is understandable.

However it was still a good day because i got to spend the day talking to her and learning even more out about her. Silly things like how shes always wanted to play the trumpet but her father wouldn't allow it because in those days ladies didn't play the trumpet.
its small things like this that i'm finding out that add to my knowledge of her and it is starting to create a more in depth view on her. now the hospital had to keep her in over night so while my mum went to grab an over night bag for my gran i was sat with her and went with her when they moved her to a different ward. i found it scary spending a day in the hospital i haven't been in one since my grandma (my dads mum) passed away when i was 12 so it brought back alot of memories.
while i was in the hospital i wanted to take photos of her so badly but it seemed almost rude. she looked unwell and sad. she had wires in her arms and was on a hospital bed in a small dark room. the photos would of said so much but i just couldn't bring myself to get the camera out my bag so photographically it wasnt a great day but from a documentary view point i got more substance to the project which at this point is just as important.

now i'm spending my whole Christmas break with her so my project can be worked on then, and over the Christmas period i am going to be looking to record what she says more than capturing imagery, this is because for this project i feel that the wording to go with it will be more powerful and will enhance the imagery so it needs to be just right. however i'm not entirely sure what i want the writing to be about yet so that will have to develop as i go along.

Brian the hoarder

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243516/Compulsive-hoarder-Brian-Clenshaw-filled-flat-newspapers-magazines-DVDs-faces-eviction-disorder-got-control.html

another article on a hoarder. they seem to becoming more popular these days. Brian's hoarding looks far worse than my mums mums but his is in a much smaller space with less rooms. this is where my mums mums problem lies. she has a massive 3 bedroom house with lots of rooms. so although in places it doesn't seem so bad as you begin to search the sheer volume of junk becomes more apparent.