Final images

I went onto look back at our old family images, at this point I didn't know this was the route I was going to take for my book, I was doing it purely for entertainment purposes. After my trip down memory lane I realised how much different me and my brother were from when we were younger to now; almost all of our characteristics had changed. I went from a young, confident, centre of attention, loving, friends with everyone child to a wiser, more cautious, shy young adult. My brother seemed to show signs in the older images of what I'm like now, it was as though the 'me now' is like the 'younger my brother' and the 'him now' is the 'younger me then'. I found this contrast very interesting and it allowed me to think up lots of ideas surrounding the changing characteristics and old family photos.

I started to re-create these family images by getting the old photos and re-creating them same situations but how we would act now in them situations to show the change in how we react and are. I took my images to a feedback session but came back with a new outlook on what I wanted to portray. My photos didn't have a strong enough connection with the old images, they needed to portray a sense of awkwardness and look more like the older images I was re-creating. I went away and had a think and got a new idea, my new idea was to have me and my brother be the focus but rather than us act out the actions of our younger selves in the old photos, I had us swap places so I was portraying my young brother and he was portraying my young self. Switching us around created a lot of awkwardness, not only did we have to re-create these already 'too close for comfort' poses but now we had to do them by being the other person.

This was the first photo I produced. The photo on the top is of me and my brother when we've just got out of bed, you can see the darkness and tiredness in our eyes. To re-create this photo me and my brother got up at 7:00am and took the photo within minutes to capture the look of tiredness. Jordan had to put his arm around me and although we are very close, we don't hug or anything so this was very awkward for both me and him. No awkwardness is present within the first image because at that age kids don't feel it. The awkwardness is captured in the second image through the lack of contact made by my brothers arm as well as our faces and how we aren't leaning on one another. I think the awkwardness is the most important thing, it makes the photo interesting, it gives it meaning.

By switching the re-creation rolls between me and my brother I felt as though it not only portrayed how our rolls have swapped from then to now but also it gave us a chance to see how we were. Me pretending to be my brother allowed me to see him pretending to be me, it gave me a sense of knowing of what I was like then through both my eyes and my brothers.