Disappearing Dad

I read an article on christianitymagazine.co.uk by Mark Stibbe, which is about his views on fatherless families.

In response to that article I used photoshop to create the image above. I lowered the opacity of the father to show him 'disappearing'. I purposely made the lines around him jagged and sharp because as Mark Stibbe portrays through his article, when a dad leaves it is not always a smooth exit, it often leaves the family feeling hurt and almost like there is a sharp hole in the family unit, it's often a painful subject to talk about.

Sally Mann

Sally Mann's black and white photographs of her children portray the universal qualities of dignity, individuality and intimacy.

Although many people look at these photos and think they are exposing her children, they are quite provocative images; they are ultimately a documentary of her family. It shows the intimacy that the family has with one another, but it also lets you into their home. The photos allow you to see that they live in a woodland home, with surrounding private land, allowing the children to be free in their own home to be able to run around and play with no clothes on if that's how they wish to be. They are not living under any society rules, they have their own space and they use it how they want to use it.

From media

I found these images in Hello Magazine.

This image is really posed. The man is in the shirt and trousers and the woman is in pyjamas; so does the woman stay home while the man goes to work ? Does the dad spend time with the children ? Are they happy ?

Formal photographs often hide a lot of truth behind the formality, or do they ?

This image I think is a little more truthful. The children are distracted by mobile phones and other things on the table, the parents are the 'posed' and focused subjects. But is this a true portrait ?

Inuit Tribe

I want to include tribes in my research because they often have interesting marital beliefs so I found the Inuit Tribe and looked into their beliefs.

Inuits are not strictly monogamous: many Inuit relationships are implicitly or explicitly sexually open marriages. Polygamy (heterosexual marriage including more than two people), divorce and remarriage are fairly common. Some divorces require community approval. Marriage is usually arranged at early age or forced on a couple by the community.

A household may contain a man and his wife, or wives and children, it might include parents and adopted children; family structure is flexible.

Every household has a head, an elder or a particularly respected man.

'Average family size is getting smaller'

I looked at BBC reports about family as an initial starting point.

I found an article by Dominic Hughes, which says that the commonly used figure '2.4 children' being the 'ideal' amount of children in a family (2 parents, 2.4 children) only really represents the families' of women born in the mid-1930's to early 40s. However, in 2009 the Total Fertility Rate was on average 1.96 children per woman.

In textiles I heat transferred this image of 2 adults and 2 children (the 'ideal' family) and I planned to bleach out the youngest child. Unfortunately, there was no bleach so I haven't yet been able to complete the sample.

Slight Change

After a small group crit, I decided to amend my project theme slightly. I will now be looking at the family unit and at family portraits. I will be looking at 'normal' families and how the definition of a 'normal' family has changed in recent years.

I will be looking at how families are portrayed in the media, photographers who look at the family and questioning what a true family portrait really is.

- Family units with tribes

- Crime within families

- Hello Magazine

- OK Magazine

- 'love thy neighbour'

- How do religions teach about marriage?

- Traditional family portraits

Interesting Etiquette

As we grow up we're told lots of things that we all adhere too for sake of politeness and simply because our parents tell us to! Many of these courtesies can be traced back to the Middle Ages, the age of knights and chivalry, kings and queens. They were created to be courteous, symbolic and some were simply logical.

Handshakes - Presenting an empty hand forward to another person shows no weapon. The other person does the same, again showing they are unarmed. Therefore a handshake meant they were going to talk not fight.

A salute - Think of a knight wearing full armour, he cannot chat while wearing a helmet. So if he wanted to talk, he must remove the barrier by lifting the visor. When lifting the visor the knights hand ended at his forehead, parallel to the ground. A salute, indicating the lifting of the visor, indicates the knight talking not fighting.

Making a toast - When the glasses clinked together, the drinks sloshed together on impact, meaning that whatever was in one drink (poison,drugs,aphrodisiacs) had now been passed into both glasses. If you were to drug your friend you would get some too. Making it your best interest to not let your friend drink an evil drink.

Covering your mouth when you yawn - the first reason is religious. It was believed that when you yawned, your mouth was wide open and the Devil could reach in and yank out your soul.

- the second reason being that in Middle Ages, peasants and nobility stank. When yawning people had a strong chance of swallowing one the flies that swarmed around them.

Keeping elbows off the dinner table - simply a necessity. In those times people ate at very long, thin dinner tables where everybody was packed in tightly. If one person were to put their elbow on the table, the only place it could move to was into the next persons dinner. If someone had their elbows on the table, the next person could not eat.

This information was found at www.allsands.com