A Moment in Time

' A Moment in Time ' is a documentary photography project that explores environments from a personal or emotional perspective, in relation to grief. It looks at the sentimental links between people and places and the potential an environment has to provoke nostalgia and specific moments of recall. The project stemmed from the loss of a close friend, who passed away at the beginning of last year and I wanted to use my photography as a sort of therapy and a way to deal with the overwhelming feeling of grief. The places that I visit throughout the project are places that I have strong personal connections with, and I wanted to try and explore capturing these moments of recall through my images, as well as using it as a cathartic experience personally and a way of keeping the memories alive. Once I had begun shooting these specific locations, I quickly realised that the way that I wanted to really connect the viewer to the emotion in the image, was through the poetic possibilities of photography. I used natural lighting and shadows to create these images with hidden metaphors throughout. I think the importance of light in my images is quite prevalent and I have played with the idea that lots of different senses contribute to a memory such as light, smell, touch etc. After a lot of book-binding experimentation, I created the final photo book using a range of materials such as acetate as a way of incorporating different textures. As well as the faintness of the images acting as kind of a metaphor and it plays around with the idea of evoking memories which is very fitting to the theme of the project.