Secondary Research: The peoples City Exhibition
This exhibition started in 2020 where many notable photographers such as Richard Davis and Rob Bremmer took photographs throughout the British society and its culture. In this project many photographs of the landscape in Britain was photographed along with the people who lived in the areas which directly links to my project! The project aimed to show off the cultural diversity around Britain as it is one of the most diverse countries since the 1960's, along with this he wanted to give people all over Britian a chance to be apart of the project, so, he opened it up to the entirety of Britain (mostly to the North as he wanted to feature a strong Northern focus) with the proposal being for them to photograph where they are from and the other people who lived there. He wanted people to have creative freedom and see how they envision the place they are from.
Above are 2 photos, the first by Richard David and the second by Rob Bremmer and both are photographed in Manchester. Though Rob does not normally take photographs in black and white here he tried to capture the mood in the right image as it looks quite depressed along with the harsh language wrote on the wall. Looking at these images I can see that the first image is in contrast to the gloomy, depressive atmosphere. Though not intentional I think they go really well together and I think with them both being black and white it brings them together nicely when places side by side. Unlike the second image the first is not gloomy though is still black and white, this is simply because Richard takes a lot of his photo's in black in white.
Rob loved to capture local faces and the every-day life of these people. He also stated that he enjoys to photograph the communities they are from so you can see where they grew up. This gives a sense of getting to know the people in the photo's and I feel like that gives it a deeper meaning that I really enjoy. This also seems to be the same case with Richard Davis as he is seen as a social documentary and portrait photographer.
Rob loved to capture local faces and the every-day life of these people. He also stated that he enjoys to photograph the communities they are from so you can see where they grew up. This gives a sense of getting to know the people in the photo's and I feel like that gives it a deeper meaning that I really enjoy. This also seems to be the same case with Richard Davis as he is seen as a social documentary and portrait photographer.
Other people have also taken photos in the same location as Rob Bremmer's image. I have decided to also compare these two images as they both show many differences yet they are taken at the exact same place. The photo on the left is bright and unlike the right image which has no colour. This is to show happiness and follow the emotion in the image where the people look like they are having fun, smiling and enjoying themself. This image contrasts the right one really well as it is opposite to it in every way,
As you have realised I have shown many different photo's and have been comparing them to this same location on the left. This is because you can really see how everyone perceives Manchester and how different all the images are. In these two they are both black and white and both show the location as sad and dark. The only real difference in the two is that in the first there are people in the back and text on the wall and the perspective is more lower to the ground while the image on the right has a more wide view of the place and is more higher.
Here are 3 more photo's from the exhibition. They are some of my favourites from the whole collection. In the first image you can see what looks like a dad and his two kids outside, we can guess the dad is the one sitting in the drivers seat of the car as you have to be over 17 to be able to drive and he looks around mid 30's-40's. They are most likely in front of they house because the boy sitting on the floor has the news paper sitting next to which he probably collected before the photo was taken. The boy leaning on the car looks very young which is why I can tell he is the mans son, they all look very similar to each other, they all have brown hair, brown eyes and are wearing the same colour scheme in their clothes.
The second photo is similar to the first, but, this time they seem to be on the roof of they house. We can tell this by looking at the roofs in the background only being a bit higher than the roof they are on. They all look the same and while the boy in the back and the boy on the left seem to be wearing the same colour scheme the boy on the right is wearing something completely different. Like the first image they all look a lot like each other, same coloured hair, eye colour and eyebrow shape.
The final image does not look similar to the other two. The final image had what looks to be a man and his wife who are on their way back from 'Kwik Save'. Behind them is a mountain of rocks and rubble which looks like it has been building up over time because of the wide variety of recourses there. They have an expression of disinterest or annoyance and from the background of the photo we can assume its because nothing had been done about the mess.
This image I feel is particularly powerful due to the context behind it. As we analyse this image we can see that there is a crowd of people and behind them a stage with a performance going on. The person who created this image is called Richard Davis and he took this photo in 1989 in Hulme. The story behind this image is that this area of Hulme was left abandoned by the council and eventually things started to go downhill. It was filled of destroyed properties which never got repaired and rubbish left throughout the street, it went into disrepair. However, the people of Hulme took this and reformed it creating a multicultural and diverse environment where raves were very common and people such as artists and punks began to join in. Eventually this era ended and flats, homes and other buildings were fully bulldozed in 1994 so it could be rebuilt better than before.
