American Family by Nathanael Turner

Information

Submitted on: 10 Mar 09

Category: General

Rating:

Description of Essay as provided by photographer:

This body of work is based on my surroundings. A narrative is formed when I place myself in an environment and make photographs. I am interested in exploring the relationships I have with my subjects and how that is conveyed through my photographs. I am there, in my photographs, experiencing what the viewer is seeing, influencing the visual story.

Starting with my own family, I am beginning to discover what the American family is and what it looks like. Through a created visual story, I hope to express the image I form of the people I meet and photograph.

This first group of photographs focuses on two families, one being my own family and the other being a family that I was introduced to through an internet posting, I find it fascinating to see the differences in the photographs I take based on my familiarity with my subjects. The photographs of my family are, in a way, reflections of my own childhood, as well as observations of how my parents have changed since I was a child. The photographs of the other family consider the experience of meeting new groups of people and fulfilling the curiosities I have about the unknown.

Although I have only been working on this project for three months, I think this first series of images tells a slightly different story than the one I see being formed in the future. Because a majority of the photographs in the first series are of my family, they become more personal and less of a pure observation about a group of people.

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Viewing 9 Comments

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    Judges Comments:
    Nathanael – I really respect that you are trying to approach this from a different standpoint and working to stitch together an abstract narrative. That said, I don’t feel it is really successful as of yet. These images all hint at an emerging voice and vision that you are honing. There are a lot of positive aesthetic qualities that these images contain individually, but as a whole they don’t all seem to mesh. The key is to keep plugging away and allowing your vision to develop at its own pace. Your use of subtle color, light and the inclusion of details reminds me of a lot of work you’d see in FADER magazine – look at some of the photographers they publish regularly like Dorothy Hong or Lauren Fleishman to see how they utilize a lot of these same aesthetic hooks you are working with to flesh out your narrative. Photographing your family is crucial – you are the only person with that access. You will learn a lot about yourself and also create a priceless document of your family history by continuing that work. Keep it up.
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    JUDGES COMMENTS:

    Nate, you have a lovely eye for sure. I think I see where you were trying to go with this essay but a tighter edit would have been much more beneficial to get me there. There are some really nice images in here and some creative ways to mix up a body of work. However, I don't see a cohesive narrative.

    The idea in your photographer's commentary of your own parental relationship was intriguing but it didn't really pan out in the images. When I think of a family essay, I think of stories like Carol Guzy's recent award winning essay on two sisters:
    http://www.whnpa.org/contest/eyes2009/stills/picturestoryfeature/02/1.shtml.

    I would like to know what images you see being the future of this story and what your motivation is professional for such images. For now, they seem very disparate and more along the lines of artistic representation than narrative storytelling. That's not a bad thing but it seems discordant to your photographer's comments.

    Best of luck to you and feel free to chime back in on my comments.
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    Ya, I agree, the edit is all over the place. I was not intending for these images to form a journalistic narrative, but more of a reflection on the relationships present within my family (which is also not completely there yet.) I would say the first image of my mother and father comes closest to what I am talking about. The edit on my website is more recent, and hopefully a little more cohesive. Thanks for the comment.
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    my favorite is the one of your brother in the room with the slanted ceiling, with the window in the back
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    I can see the difference, Nate. I love the direction you're going in!
    The shot of your mom with her yogurt is so real, its incredible.
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    Do you shoot medium format?
    I love the clean look.. Awesome...
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    NATHANAEL,
    Esoteric photography..., you got some "courage" my friend...
    I'm really impressed... You dare to "mirror" yourself....
    My good friend and "Mentor" David Alan Harvey , always
    "mirrored" himself in his work... thats why he became a MASTER...
    Great start, great approach... more in a while...
    We also need tighter edit here so to avoid confusion... i had to read your "artists statement"
    to figure out whats going on.... more in a while when i come back... but , great start...
    Question: What was your motivation?
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    Thanks for the comment,
    My motivation comes from my mother. She was diagnosed with MS over a decade ago. It has been quite a challenge for her and my father bringing up 4 more kids; that is, after the first 5. This past summer my mother spent two months in the hospital. It was a scary few months, but it really put back into perspective what the important things in life are. At first I was trying to integrate the photographs of my family with those I took of other families, but recently I am beginning to see the photographs of my family as something completely separate. This is for sure a work in progress. I would say that most of the images I have made during the past year have had something to do with my memories from childhood and adolescence. My website is www.nathanaelturner.com, you can see some of my more recent work within this project there.
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    congrats nate
 

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  • Kylie BattName

    April 12, 2010 at 2:24 am

    Как вариант, да... дизайнер This body of work is based on my surroundings. A narrative is formed when I ...

  • Kylie Batt

    May 4, 2010 at 9:38 am

    прикольно!!! давно его уже ждал........ помощник менеджера I am there, in my photographs, experiencing what the viewer is seeing, ...

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    August 27, 2010 at 3:53 am

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