Identity

"Identity is constructed through our social experience"

After spending a large amount of time trying to think about what make identity what makes i person whom the are or whom they seem to be. I started to think about the obvious things such as what you see on the surface so style, glasses, hair colour, facial features or even skin colour, but i font feel that is somebody's identity and i feel it would be wrong to assert that over somebody when that isn't them as a person its not what makes them who they are. I then started to think about thing you don't see so hobbies, personalities, language, ideologies, beliefs and morals in doing this it came to me that when you look at artist work you don't initially know anything about that person or what they look like and i started asking myself does it matter? I started looking at work from artist such as Todd Hido, Martin Parr and David Hockney. All these photographers have very recognisable styles of working, although they have experimented within photography a lot of their work has re occurring aesthetics with created an identity for the artist making their work recognisable to their audience. I feel that even though you may not know what the artists interests, hobbies and appearance may look like, through there image style and subject matters you can really gain a good idea as to what it is there are interested in. Above i shot an image of a selection of the same photographers work, showing how identities are created through art forms. Some time this can even be unintentional artists interests are often reflected through their work and without meaning to they end up shooting in a similar way or even paint with a specific kind of paints making their work look in some way similar. I feel that from looking at the work above it is obvious that the work is all from the same photographer, not only because all images are shot on film and are monochrome but because all work focuses on everyday objects and uses light to make the image more engaging and personal to the viewer. The use of natural light fills the images and draws the viewers eyes across the image allowing you to observe even the smallest of details.

I feel that the more images you take the more you get an idea of what interests you personally there for that is then conveyed to your audience, even when a photographer may feel the subject is new the way that the image is shot is often very similar, I feel that in this respect "Identity is constructed through our social experience" as it allows the viewer to relate your image aesthetics to your artist identity and way of working.