Social Documentary
Everyone attended high school. In general, high school is remembered with respect and happiness, with images of chalkboards, desks, auditoriums, and cafeterias. There are full hallways during breaks, fields filled with players, and teachers at the front of the class. There can also be an emptiness associated with high school (as with any large institution)- a gymnasium without participants, or a stage devoid of actors. This documentary connects full and empty high school memories.
Full high schools are commonly remembered in daylight, while empty high schools are recalled more at night. This documentary imposed the limit that ‘full’ photographs were taken during the day, and ‘empty’ photographs be taken during the night. This brings the documentary into a social documentary vein, an account of the average person’s high school memories.
In order to continue the theme of a person’s memories of high school, all photographs were shot on black and white, 4x5 film, and converted to sepia post-production. This extends the idea of memory, which, in some cases, loses it colours and vividness, as well as the memory of high school photography classes, almost always containing analog methods.
The purpose of this documentary is to analyze the events of the past by confronting them in the present. ‘Full’ photographs will blur those photographed, creating brief snatches of familiar scenes. Meanwhile, ‘empty’ photographs will be more formal and stylized, accentuating emptiness and darkness, creating a foreboding feeling. This documentary is a study of memory and its variable nature, combining halcyon images with the turbulence of unconfronted fears.