Family portraits…

As my personal investigation is on Family I decided to develop my initial photo-shoots by looking at family photos over the years .

 Portraiture came about in the middle of the 18th century and was favoured by families in particular as it meant the sitting time was a lot less and so they didn't have to stay in one position for hours.
However, due to photography not being developed like it is now they still and to sit for up to an hour for one photograph.

The introduction to family portraits in the form of photographs led to the development of photography in general. The family photos they took when photography first was introduced are very staged, strict and statuesque, where as now they are often documentary and candid shots of genuine family life or less awkward and more spontaneous shots of the relationships between a family.

For the development of my personal investigation, I am going to look at how family photography has evolved and changed over time to become something much more innocent and meaningful than the harsh motionless faces of the 19th century. To start looking at how family portraiture has developed I researched old family portraits. I noticed that the positioning is particularly significant as it subtly depicts the family roles within the family, for example the man being the tallest in the photograph shows his role of power over the family. The woman sitting down shows that she is to be looked after and the man has authority over the children as well as his wife.

My Photographs...

For my responses I took the old fashioned positioning and techniques and applied them to my own family and the relationships I have within the family unit. I chose to photograph them sitting down to get the precise symmetrical order of the images in addition to the statuesque posing.

These are the photos I took in relation to the history of family portraiture. I chose to use me, my mum and my dad. I wanted to create the poker faces and blank expressions that were common in early family photographs I also wanted to incorporate the symmetrical backgrounds and somewhat boring set ups of the earlier images.  I did this by using the sofa as a centre piece and the two side tables were moved to either side of the sofa with a lamp on each. I wanted the window to almost frame the whole image. I then took photos of me and my dad, me and my mum, the three of us and the two of them together also. I wanted the emphasises the lack of relationship and personality in the photos and show the way the family was so staged and not a realistic view of what family is today.