Back on the right track

After being told that more or less the whole class had misunderstood the brief, our tutor told us what we were supposed to do. Rather than picking an existing theme from our chosen festival we were supposed to pick an existing festival and think of our own theme of which that festival could include. After long discussions within our small group we decided upon two main themes, either 'Change' or 'Invisible'. I personally preferred the theme 'Invisible' because I thought 'Change' was too much of an obvious choice but in the end we all happily agreed on 'Change'. After picking our theme we had to find our own individual photographers who's work portrays the theme 'Change' that we could include into out festival. I found an American photographer named Stephen Wilkes.

I have noticed a pattern of ‘Change’ throughout multiple series’ of his work, this may be an intentional move on his behalf or not. ‘Ellis Island’ is his most famous series of work, this is what he is known for. Wilkes focused on the ‘South side of Ellis Island’ for this series capturing the abandoned buildings of the psychiatric wings which were used to detain the diseased children and adult immigrants before letting them enter America. To me this series captures ‘Change’ because it shows the ghostly remains of what it was once like by capturing the empty wards and silent halls. Another series of work by Wilkes which captured ‘Change’ is his ‘China Old and New’ were he caught the vast developments and changes through industry within both rural and industrial settings. The series that stuck out to me the most however, due to it’s vibrancy, creativity and imaginative content was his ‘Day to Night’ series. 

Wilkes’s ‘Day to Night’ series is a collection of images showing the changing of time throughout the day all in one scene throughout different locations in New York City. Each image is made up of a around 50 photos that he took out of a selection from up to 1000 all taken of the same scene with the same perspective at different times of the day then blended together into one. He would sometimes spend up to 15 hours capturing the changes thus expressing his “deep love” for the city. He merges classic street photography and cityscape styles to capture “a definitive view of New York City’s epic scale, along with the humanity and energy which flow through the city’s streets.” 

I think this series would be a really interesting one to include into our ‘Change’ themed festival because it shows something we can all relate to and understand yet in a way that would never be visually open to us. We all experience the changes throughout the day and these images bring them altogether into one which allows us to see things we would normally miss and also allow us to compare the differences between night and day which otherwise we wouldn't notice. It is interesting to see what actually changes throughout the day, the lighting, the population, the amount of cars and many more simple things which we don’t pick up on as much whilst experiencing the time changes. These photos capture an amazing sense of time, it’s like a story being unfolded before our eyes. This series reminds me of a childlike, imaginative, and storybook theme, they’re fun, creative and magical. Due to the ease of the flow between night and day I can imagine myself being in the images and being able to walk from the day into the night. The time change makes it seem like the two halves of the photo show completely different places when in reality it’s the same place once again creating this magical, mysterious feel.