Life’s journey is something we all experience, and at times, it may feel like we are sharing the same journey with others. However, each person’s journey is completely unique to them, and can’t be fully replicated by anyone else. Even when a global pandemic, like the Coronavirus occurs, the sense of ‘we are in this together’ certainly exists, fuelled by the months of endless news coverage that took over our newspapers and television sets. This isn’t true of course, however, one event that I believe did resonate with most, was the experience of lockdown. In March, over 20% of the world’s population were unable to leave their own homes – expect in special circumstances – and this will have considerably grown as the disease spread overtime. What I find particularly fascinating, is that even though billions of people have shared such a unique occurrence, each person’s experience of lockdown will be different from the next. This became evident to me, during my last assignment, after hearing a number of lockdown stories from other individuals. I now want to take this opportunity to share my story, and reflect on the journey I encountered from the beginning of lockdown, to now, through a combination of image and text, specifically, the spoken word. Inspired by the works of Hiroshi Sugimoto, and in particular, his series Theatres, I explored the notion of ‘time’, relatable to my lockdown journey. Sugimoto expressed this idea, by photographing movie theatre screens in a single exposure, for the duration of the film. This resulted in each individual frame to essentially amalgamate, producing a bright, white screen. In order to demonstrate my personal journey, and reflect on the passing of time, from the beginning of lockdown, until present day, I used such devices as televisions, computers and mobile phones – anything with a screen that could produce a moving image like that seen in a movie theatre. The exposure times were of course considerably less than what Sugimoto had used, however, the results were the same. Again, unlike seen in Sugimoto’s images’, there is evidence of people – more specifically, myself and my family – within the scenes, to help emphasise my experiences with them throughout my journey. However, taking advantage of the long exposure times, we are depicted merely as ghostly apparitions, which was done purposely to strengthen the concept of time passing. In all of the images’, some of the individuals’ represented, respecting the corresponding spoken text related specifically to that photograph, have been captured multiple times within the same scene, which again helps solidify the concept of time, and takes into consideration the multiple memories, and ever changing experiences I encountered. As my lockdown journey continues – like many others – I’m fascinated, yet, a little apprehensive in how it will end.
Iain Barbour - BA (Hons) Photography 