Final Evaluation

Photography And Narrative

North East Stories






Initially in this project, coming to terms with photography as a narrative was something which i found difficult to grasp. I seemed to find myself pondering over what chosen narrative I wanted to portray through my images rather than just capturing photographs. little did I know that all images have a narrative to some degree, whether it be intentional or none intentional. 

For the first part of this project, I found inspiration from the narrative photographer Cig Harvey. Her narrative photography was produced in relation to her own emotions, feelings and life experiences. Whatever emotion or experience she would currently be dealing with at that time in her life, she would portray it in a photograph. One particular image by Cig Harvey i was most influenced by was an image which was made to represent the hard time a close friend of hers had been going through, and the way in which she had to support that friend through it. This was a relatable subject to my own life experiences as I was currently dealing with comforting my  own friend, after the loss of her grandfather. This experience had lead me to think a lot about my own grandfather. Because my grandfather was the most significant thing on my mind at this time, i chose to capture an image of him. 

The group critique in which we presented our single images was something which I found extremely helpful. I came to find that almost every member of the class had done the same as myself; thinking too much into the concept of narrative. Rather than producing successful photographs, we all had seemed to let that aspect go, in the need of creating an engaging narrative. 

Following the group critique I had now learnt to just go and capture whatever I felt was of interest to me, knowing that no matter what I’d capture would have a narrative. My initial idea was to capture the industry side of the North East, as well as the run down houses and areas which we see every day. However this project happened fall upon Shrove Tuesday. This is a day which is celebrated rather uniquely in my village. I chose to study the work of Homer Sykes and Tony Ray Jones, who have both captured strange English traditions in series of images during their careers. 

Sedgefield’s Shrove tuesday ballgame is a North East village tradition that many struggle to understand, I therefore feel capturing it in a photographic story is a really interesting thing to do. My digital slide show and choice of images is something which i therefore believe is successful as it not only tells the story of the ball game but tells it in a interesting light. 

If i were to do anything differently in this project I would have possibly looked more into the techniques and skills needed to capture a fast moving sport like this, as I found a lot of my images were blurred or inaccurate. As I found my most interesting images were of the people watching the ball game and small details such as their reactions, I would have liked to capture more images like these, rather than focusing purely on the game itself.