15. Genius of Photography - We are family

We are family -
Link to website 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/sultan.shtml

We are Family - Larry Sultan 

Larry Sultan photographed his father and family over a 10 year period, this was during the 70s and 80s. This particular project was to include his parents, home movies and statements.

'Photography is there to construct the idea of us as a great family and we go on vacations and take these pictures and then we look at them later and we say. 'isn't this  great family?' So photography is instrumental in creating family and not only as a memento, a souvenir, but also a kind of mythology'. - Larry Sultan. 

The Sultan family experience began when Larry started to do a series of photographs, his father Irvin struggled as it is said below in the quote...

'I'd get set, id get comfortable and he says to me 'don't smile', which would absolutely irritate me because when he says 'don't smile' in my mind i have no idea what he is projecting. What is he trying to tell me to do?. I remember that picture so distinctly sitting on the bed, shirt and the dressed up and i looked like a full on lost soul and i look at the picture and i would say thats not me'. - Irvin (father)

The main thing when being a photographer is that you need to have a little distance from what you are doing.

Photo above belong to Larry Sultan 

We are family - Cindy Sherman 

Cindy Sherman is not only a photographer but is also a person who dresses up to be in her work, she is her own director, own cameraman. She turned familiar children games, dressing up as someone else into art by photographing the result. Her photo shoots that she did were based upon scenes from old B movies. Appearing in everyone of them.

Above photo belongs to Cindy Sherman

We are family - Richard Billingham

Richard Billingham didn't care how his family was portrayed, but his worked showed how the working class lived.

I was living in the tower block; there was just me and him. He was an alcoholic, he would lie in bed, drink, get to sleep, wake up, get to sleep, didn't know if it was day or night. But it was difficult to get him to stay still for more than 20 minutes at a times i thought that if i could take photographs of him that would act as a source material for these paintings and then i could make more detailed paintings later on. So thats how i first started taking photographs' - Richard Billingham. 

Billinghams work was based on a family album type. Its not a family life, fake smiles and awkward calendar types.

All above photos taken by Richard Billingham

All of the photos and information above are present in the We are Family because they are either about family or relating to one another.