Old posts
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08.26.08An empty room
This is Emily, she’s been my flatmate for two years and we’ve been attending the same art college for four, this last year I’ll be by myself. There will be no random shopping trips after lectures finish (or sometimes while they’re still going on), there will be no funny nicknames for the new people on the course who’s real names we can’t remember, and there will be no going to the Chinese supermarket and buying lots of Pocky then attempting to eat it without freaking out our lecturer. I’m not sure how I’ll cope without that really.
I’ve been incredibly busy these past few days so you will have to excuse my lack of a blog post. I’m absolutely exhausted right now, to be honest my sleeping pattern really hasn’t gotten any better but either way I am forcing myself to post this.
I have been putting the final touches to the mammoth bedroom de-cluttering which basically involved me pretty much throwing almost everything I own out because I hadn’t seen it in two years under piles of other stuff I owned. Needless to say I didn’t accidentally throw anything important out like I usually do in the whole process.
All of this needed to be done of course because I am moving out, something I’ve been fully prepared for for a while but still sort of rushes up on you at the last minute. It’s my last week in my current residence and I’ve been here for two years the place sort of feels like mine and it will be hard to leave it behind even if it wasn’t worth the rent I’ve been paying.
Everything that managed to avoid the intense de-clutter however has ended up in suitcases (I had no cardboard boxes and figured I’d save a few trees) and holdalls, quite a lot of them I’m still shocked at how much stuff I have and how on earth I managed to fit it all into this tiny tiny space I’ve been calling home for the past two years. It is odd to sit and look at it all and then look around my now pretty empty room, all of your stuff ends up in boxes or cases or storage at some point. It’s like you accumulate things, some things you can throw out but some things you know you have to take wherever you reside from now on, I have too many of the latter it would seem even after filling 25 bin bags.
Have you ever needed to de-clutter your room and been shocked by how much stuff you have? I’m sure we all realize it sometime like it dawns on us that you have things you don’t even remember buying, it’s a weird feeling.I’m going to London on Sunday with Jon and it will be a much needed break from the usual if I am honest, this summer has been the dullest one ever filled with an incredible lack of money. I’m not sure how I’m going to pay for anything while I’m in London but the break will be fun.
I’m probably going to end up seeing a lot of things I really want but can’t afford, I wanted to go to China town originally and try and find some cute pointless things I don’t need but I think given my current financial situation I should probably stay well away from any store selling cute things, however this train of thought will most likely go out of the window. Oh well.
06.01.08The students domain
T
his is Linsay, she lives with a girl that is in my class and I shot her a while back for a series of bedroom portraits I’ve been doing. I must say sometimes it can be quite strange photographing someone you don’t know in their own space, you can’t help but feel like you’re invading and it’s even worse when you’ve got a big old camera and are pointing it in their faces.
Linsay was nice though she had a really small attic room, so small in fact I had to squish myself up against the wall to frame the shot. Discomfort aside I always find peoples bedrooms rather fascinating especially the ones of student’s. There’s just something about the bedroom of a student living in rented accommodation that is always full of personality, maybe I’m just bias because I fall under the category of ’student living in rented accommodation’ but I love the way nearly every students room I’ve seen has been crammed full of their personality, maybe it’s because the space isn’t theirs that they have to make it feel like their own. Or possibly because they share their home with so many other people they need to have a room they can just let their personality take over. Either way I always find them interesting it’s good to have a reason to have a good look around a persons room as well, and having a camera and wanting to take a photograph is a pretty good reason - it makes it feel less like you’re snooping when you’re eying up their posters and record collection.
I’ve spent most of this weekend editing the two images that will be going into the final exhibition show that our class are having, I can’t say I’m totally happy with the images but I never really am. It is taking longer than it should really but I must admit after a while editing pictures turns from enjoyable into tedious and then I have to have a break, which usually ends up with me procrastinating a fair few hours away. Hopefully they’ll both be done and I’ll be happy with them by the time they need printing. After that though it will be the end of college for summer which I am sort of disappointed about though I never thought I’d hear myself say that, summer is exciting of course the hope for the warm weather we never get and trips to the park, but the prospect of being without all of the photographic equipment I am so used to at college is a one I find depressing, no studio, no high quality scanner. I’ve been trying slowly to buy as much of my own equipment as possible but in no way can I afford a set of studio lights right now, so It’ll just be me and my bronica, my metz, copious rolls of unused 120 film I seem to have been collecting and my last pack of polaroid SX-70 blend and possibly a holga thrown in for good measure. Actually it sort of sounds exciting.
