There's no place like home...

…there’s no place like home

As a photographer myself, my own family-photography has often been somewhat of a double-edged sword, but not entirely as a busman’s holiday. Photographs of-and-with my children are undoubtedly those most treasured. However, I have so often preferred not to put the act of photography between myself and them, to not have to filter and change an experience (for either party) through the act of photographing and being photographed.

I generally feel the same when travelling or on holiday - that I would rather be in the moment of experiencing things which will later become memories - than finding, or taking pictures. The photography I undertake when I reach out to the world is usually a means to an end for me, more than an end in itself.

On the other hand, photography of-and-with my family seemed more like an end in itself, to record the moment for posterity. But perhaps that is just how it seemed.

We lived and captured photograph-worthy moments. Anointed by the act of being photographed, these moments became documents, testaments to past-presences and evidence of social and family expectations being met - the highlights of our “humanity” as a family. But how many of the many, many pictures taken were looked at since, let-alone printed and made tangible? So in this sense, these are not only evidence of a family, but also evidence of the performance of family; just as within many of the images there is evidence of people performing masculinities and femininities.

There are very painful reasons that any photographs of my young family are so important to me. These modified images better represent my current history and not those histories imagined when the images were taken.