Projects

THAT DETACHMENT

“City life is millions of people being lonesome together”-Henry David Thoreau

This quote summed up in one line a strange pattern that began appearing in the images I was taking around Manchester in preparation for my university brief, a strange sense of detachment.

These 30 images have been shot on the streets of Manchester, they have attempted to capture a quality of the city that has puzzled me for a long time, the rather obvious yet hidden sense of detachment between people that prevails in this city and many more like it. The images were taken without the subject’s knowledge, there is a strong theme of the loss of identity in the images this is shown through the lack of faces and the obscuring dark shadows in some of the images. All the images have a theme of detachment in them somewhere, and I am asking my audience to study the images and to try and make a connection with this theme.

I feel that my sensitivity to this subject is due to my regularly changing environments, I live in a rather small and quiet town, and regularly commute to manchester, I am usually struck by the vast changes in ‘feel” of these two different environments and how these two area’s affect the interaction between the people, in relation to this I have lightly studied idea’s such as psycho – geography, which is quickly defined as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.”

(only 7 images of project shown here, if you wish to see the full project please contact me via E-mail, thank you)

Mans best friend, Image © Arron Hansford

5. image © Arron Hansford

Leap, image © Arron Hansford

Lonely train journey, image © Arron Hansford

Space, image © Arron Hansford

Passing through, image © Arron Hansford

All together, image © Arron Hansford

CITY OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS

City of ghosts and shadows, is my comment on the current condition of Britain, and the society that we live in, after the last government election did not go the way i wanted it to, i became worried about the future outlook of our country and where we were heading, idea’s of 1984 by George orwell, and the V for Vendetta graphic novel were popping up in my head, and i wanted to create a piece on these idea’s.

All the images i created show a dark and obscured future through the use of shadows and colour, the people in the images are heading face first into the unknown and this is how see Britain’s future.

5 seconds of light, image © Arron Hansford

Further towards the truth, image © Arron Hansford

Suns silhouette, image © Arron Hansford

Moment of clarity, image © Arron Hansford

Crossing, image © Arron Hansford

Closing in, image © Arron Hansford

EXPOSURES ON LIFE

“I am at war with the obvious” this is one of William Eggleston’s rare statements on his work, but what exactly is “the obvious”?, is it the day to day noticeable things, the cars, the shops, the sky? these are things we notice, without failure, every day, these are obvious things, but what about the smaller obvious things, the things we see just once and pay not attention to, these are fleeting snippets of beauty that we pass up as obvious, the bright red crisp packet glistening beautifully in the early morning sunlight, directing your eye from everything else, the out of place.

These images are trying to bring meaning and thought to these moments, what makes these images so beautiful, so profound and yet so ordinary and obvious?

Confederate? image © Arron Hansford

Want not, waste not, image © Arron Hansford

That time of day, image © Arron Hansford

A piece of life, image © Arron Hansford

The days sustenance, image © Arron Hansford

The light is warmer on the other side, image © Arron Hansford

Not so forgotten past, image © Arron Hansford

EMOTIONS

“Lets not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives, and we obey them without realising it”

– Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

The emotions project is an experimental and camera-less project, i used exposed photographic paper, and a combination of different strength paper developers and fixers to try and depict the exact emotion i was feeling at the time i sat down to create a piece, the whole project was turned into a hand made book entitled “Emotions” if you would like to view the whole book then please contact me via my e-mail address in the about section.

Relaxed, image © Arron Hansford

Excited, image © Arron Hansford

Worried, image © Arron Hansford

Anger, image © Arron Hansford

Thoughtful, image © Arron Hansford

12 21

taking idea’s from a rather awful recurring dream that i have been having where i am always nearly blind, and having trouble seeing everything, i set out with a video camera and began filming, this initial idea has now turned into a video project called “12 21″ the name is taken from the time it takes for me to complete the journey captured in the film, the idea of the film is to show the crossing over from the concious world to the dream world, and shows the confusion and difficulty with vision that i have been experiencing in my dreams

Reverie

Dreams are ambiguous, and mystical, they can lead us to thoughts on life, and even influence our decisions in day-to-day situations, still to this day scientists are struggling to explain what exactly is a dream and why we have them.

To me the idea of being caught in a dream world fascinates me; I am intrigued by the idea of lucid dreaming and the ability to walk through ones dreams with complete control.

These images are intended to be a story of my travels through a dream world that I have created in my mind, the images are still, quiet and slightly de-focused the way I see my dreams.

“A person starts dying, when they stop dreaming”