Fridays Brief - community

Friday we got a new assignment to do with capturing community, people, location, or objects. The first part is to find three photographers that are inspiring, and then to create a number of images that signify my interpretation of community. I spent Friday night going through a book I had taken out of the library PhotArt photography in the 21st century. This is a book on famous photos from many photographers, but by the time I had been through all the photos I only had one that caught my imagination.

Seung Woo Back is a South Korean photographer and I just love his image from his Real World II collection, No 14. When I first saw the image the simplicity of it caught my eye, it is an ordinary backyard and the shot is taken at night. It has a connection to me of old low class houses, a sense of community of the working class. But then I notice the little soldiers and it changes the concept of the image all together. I read about his work and how he likes to play with what we call reality.

Here is the image

It can be found at http://seungwooback.com/ under Works Real World II.

The caption is RW02-010, 2006, 180x225 cm, Digital print

Okay so where does community come into this image. Well first it does by its location. We are all born into a community, the family unit. This community lives in a house, well at least most of the people in the western world do, and these mini communities are part of larger ones, suburbs, cities and countries. The other part of the image that relates to community is the objects that we call soldiers. Soldiers symbolise war, and this is when this is when two or more communities can't get one, so one tries to destroy the other. Yet within this warring communities are the ones formed by the soldiers themselves. We all know the stories of how comrades lay down their lives for each other. Out of the destruction of one community we create others, it is in our nature.