Traces

 

I wanted to take my cast domestic objects into an environment that was equally as haunting as the objects. Something that was abandoned and fragile, almost dead-like and untouched. After researching possible places online, I came across the Whitchurch Hospital in Cardiff, near my home, which used to be a mental asylum. It was quite easy to get too as there are always people passing through and it turned out to be the perfect place to visit and do a photoshoot in.

I took an ironing board and some laced fabric with me to photograph the iron, but with the milk bottle and light switch I just left them to their own stance. I was able to attach the switch to one of the more decaying walls where all of the paint was peeling off, quite a beautiful scene of decay actually. The milk bottles were placed on one of the parlour mantel pieces in low lighting.

I had so many photos from the day which I edited using photoshop just to take out any photographic glare and also to adjust the brightness and contrast. A very simple and easy process. From these images I chose three to create a tryptic piece for my end of year crit show with the fine art course. This became quite difficult, I had lots of issues printing the image to the right size and scale. I then came across the difficulty of hanging the piece also, and resulted in having to use industrial bulldog clips, which I felt distracted from the piece slightly but it still worked in some way.