My intention for this study is to explore my family, including my extended family, by using archives and at home films that we own. I am using archives similarly to Larry Sultan, so that I can present my family tree and how we are all unified together. I am also using archives, so that I can take inspiration from them and recreate some of the photographs. To recreate some of these photos, I am going to be taking photographs of my mum and my dad, similarly to Larry Sultan, but I am also going to be taking images of my sister, dog and maybe even myself. I am going to be taking staged photographs, as well as some documentary photographs, which is also what Larry Sultan did, so that I can show a range images during this project.

I also would like to explore my mum and dad’s marriage, so that I can present how their marriage has unified there two families and how they have extended the family tree, by bringing my sister and I into the world. I also want to explore my mum and dad’s lives before they were married, or met, so that I can present how the union of marriage can alter the people in the union and their extended family. In order to discover what their lives were like I am going to be asking them questions each and using archives to do so.

I would also like to experiment with collages throughout this project, so that I am able to blend together my photographs and the archive images that I am using. I am going to experiment with lots of different types of collages, including joiners, which I have taken inspiration from David Hockney and more ordinary collages similarly to Larry Sultan. In order to create the joiners, I am going to take multiple images of my chosen subject, but from multiple different angles and at slightly different times, so that I can then print them off and lay them out on the table in whatever unique layout I desire. While exploring with these joiners I am also going to explore the theme of time while doing so, because these joiners take a lot of time to do, which symbolises the time it takes to create a union and how they change over time. I am going to be using archives and my own photographs to present this when making my joiners, as the historical archives and current images can present how time has altered and created more unions.

I would also like to be more creative in this topic and take inspiration from Carolle Benitah. I want to display how our DNA and blood links us together, as we are all a part of each other and share similar characteristics. In order to do this, I want to explore my family tree and create a stitched image that links us all together, similarly to how Carolle Benitah has used stitching in her work. In order to do this, I am going to experiment with creating stitching on photoshop, as well as actually printing off my images and actually stitching them. I also want to create a collage of certain family members faces, so that I can present the huge similarities we all have.