A little background about me.

All these posts are very researchy aren't they?
I thought it might be an idea to place all this research against the background of my life, why I'm doing all this and how.
I am 42. I live in Cornwall with my husband Jon of 11 years and my three girls, Rhiannon (18), Shannon (16) and Ilona (9).
After a turbulent first marriage to Shannon's dad in Coventry, I returned to Cornwall in 1998. I met Jon in July '99 and soon after decided to return to education. I took Art A-level, then began Art and Design Foundation, during which I decided that Photography was my true love and left the course halfway through, had Ilona, and then returned to do Photography A-level in 2005. After that I stayed on to take Photography National Diploma.
That led to my University offer at Falmouth.
Just after learning of my University place Jon was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's Disease. He was 37. We considered me declining the place, but decided that if I was going to do it, now was the only time I would be able to. He continued working to support me for the 3 years it took to get my degree.
My work at Uni centred around self portraiture and the family album and memory.
During the three years at Falmouth I used to dread essay writing and presenting my work. However, about a year after graduating, I realised that it was the thing I missed the most about my work.
So, I decided, after consideration for Jon (he was still working and doing well health wise) to apply to do a Masters degree at Plymouth University.
After the realisation that I loved writing, I decided that a research Masters was the way to go.
And you pretty much know the rest of the story!
Alongside my research work, I run the house and kids, and i have recently become involved with a charity, agreeing to have my head shaved on the 25th Feb. Yikes! Anyway, a little boy's health and happiness is far more important than my vanity. I can wear a hat!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Well-Wishers-Fundraising/242829942459022 
 I'm also in the process of assembling my own PROPER family album (actually more a cross between photo album and scrapbook). It gives me plenty to think about while I'm reading and writing about it! I hope to be putting together some case studies for my thesis work.


Finally......here are some of my old family photos that will be going in my album.

 Me and my sister 1975

My Mum and Dad. 1969

 The family. 1976

 My little sis. 1977

Family Christmas. 1971

My and my Daddy. 1974

  

A Penny for your thoughts?

At some point soon, I'm going to have to survey people about their thoughts and ideas behind the concepts of the family album, past and future.
I'm getting a fair few visitors to this blog, but not much feedback so far. So I thought I'd be more direct and ask for your opinions. Please be kind and take a few minutes to let me know the following:

Do you keep a physical family/photo album? Did you start it yourself or has it been passed down the family?
Where do you store your photos now? In albums? Online in folders? Why?
Do you have any opinions about which is better for you and why?
Do you miss printed photos?

I hope some of you who read this will let me know your thoughts. It will really help me to start asking the right questions and delving deeper into the subject.
Someone asked me the other day what I thought the difference was between the physical photo and the digital image.
The easiest way for me to describe what the difference means to me, is to imagine deleting a photo online.....now, imagine tearing up a photo. What does the difference mean to you?

Just a thought.

Practice based or theory based?

OK.........so the project is taking a different tack.....again!
My research not longer requires me to support it with practice, I shall be doing a theory based written piece of work that stands on it's own. This means that instead of taking photos and producing an exhibition piece alongside my 12,000 word thesis, I will produce a 30,000 word thesis and no supporting practice work.
This is a relief because I've been struggling lately to find an adequate reason to produce practice based work that will adequately support my written work. My argument does not need supporting with practice any more.
I am in the process of revising my proposal to reflect this change.
I'll keep you posted!

The methods and methodologies quandary

This is my project revised.

What I want to do

What has the digital age meant to the Family Album?

Having completed earlier projects in the area of family album, I would like to explore this further, on a larger scale and in greater depth. I would like to explore the effects of the digital age of photography and computing on the traditional analogue and storage of family photos and mementos and the reasons for the change. Is it all about convenience and ease? If so, is it worth what has been lost? Do people even realise what society is losing as a price for their convenience?

I would like to further my understanding of the objectification of the photograph and discover how this is changing almost daily with the introduction of social networking and digital imaging and storage. I would like to explore the loss of the treasured object and perhaps how it can be regained to work alongside our new technologies. My aim is to define what exactly it is that has been lost (if it can be defined) and explore how, if at all, it can be rediscovered.

Having purchased a wedding album on eBay, my ideal project would be to follow the history of the album, tracing the family and working with them to rediscover their memories, whilst documenting by means of analogue photographs, cine film and audio recordings.

As the cooperation of the family is paramount to this project going ahead, and I have not yet had contact back from them since I wrote them a letter before Christmas, I have put into place an alternative working plan.

I will work on my own, tracing my own family history throughout the UK, tracing people that I have lost contact with, or indeed that I have never met before. Following the same lines as above, I would work on recollecting memories, and documenting the communications involved by letter, photos (old and new), audio and cinefilm.  My plan is to go back to my Grandparents, then work across siblings and back down to my generation, discovering second and third cousins, who may have similar memories of people and places to me. This will involve travel to Scotland (where my roots are based), to study and research family history, meeting and spending time with the people I discover, recording meetings and photographing as well as collating pre-existing photographs and documents and communicating by letters. It may involve visits to other parts of the UK, dependant on what I discover during the research.  I plan to use as little digital technology as possible, to emphasise the loss of the object in the telling of family history. It’s all about the process of recording memory. Has memory been discarded? Is it no longer trusted? What is trusted instead, if anything?

I would like my written thesis to concentrate on the future of family album in the digital age, and my practical work to be more about what has been lost and how it can be regained, thus supporting my written work.

I would like to review my work periodically using exhibitions to gauge responses from the public and my peers outside and within the university. I would expect this to help me understand whether my work holds any interest to the wider public as I view my work as of public interest.

I would like my final outcome to be in the form of a book and an installation exhibition of the final selected work.

Ideally, if I have worked with the family who the wedding album belongs to, I would invite them to the final exhibition and present them with their original wedding album and a history of the project they have been key in creating.