The camera as a catalyst for performance
The camera plays the role of opening a subjective window into the time and space depicted through the chosen perspective. From a professional angle, the camera's presence adds new undertones to the unfolding relationship between the photographer and their subject. It enables the creation of a new narrative that might not have been on the surface before. From a personal angle, the opportunity to connect with people in a more meaningful way presents itself and helps overcome vulnerabilities by building trust and bridging between what couldn’t be said, turning words into images, and elevating emotion. The highest level of trust is reached by enabling the sitter to hold the shutter release and take control over the narrative and their role in it, which Thomas shares with his grandfather in Just Couldn’t Get the Shoes to Fit.
Thomas Duffield is a photographer from the north of England, currently based in London. He graduated with a PhD in Photography from the University of Huddersfield. In this interview, we discuss how formal education can become a catalyst in finding one’s voice and developing a direction for the research. Thomas takes us step by step from his childhood to adolescence, describing his growing up on a small farm close to Leeds and as time went by the discovery of his father’s struggle with heroin addiction. We discuss the way the camera serves as a connector between the photographer and the sitter, in this case, teh camera becoming the tool that served to rebuild the relationship and bring the father and son closer together. Thomas describes another layer of camera driving toward realization about subjects, “I found that the act of encouraging performance to the camera created a more bilateral interaction between the photographer and the sitter.”
Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski
‘What once was a potato field farmed by my grandfather had become a home for my mother and father, who placed a static caravan on the land and began growing organic vegetables for the local market.’
My Narrative
Hi Thomas, how are you doing? I’m delighted to speak with you about your practice and the projects you’ve been working on. Let’s start with you coming from an artistic family and deciding to study photography, graduating with a PhD from the University of Huddersfield. While working on personal projects, you are also engaged in commercial work, which is focused on portraiture. How difficult is it today for a photographer to enter the industry in the UK? How important is education in building yourself in this career path?
Hello Nastasia, I am well, thank you. I’m very pleased to be able to talk with you about photographic practice and some of the projects I am immersed in. Indeed, family would be a great place to start, as it is a central aspect of my practice. I was born on a small farm on the outskirts of Leeds and was fortunate enough to have a charmed upbringing close to the natural elements. What once was a potato field farmed by my grandfather had become a home for my mother and father, who placed a static caravan on the land and began growing organic vegetables for the local market. This is where my parents raised my sister and me whilst they were still together. The thin walls of the caravan meant that our home lived and breathed in rhythm with the ebb and flow of the seasons. The summers were hot, the winters were cold, and the strong winds in between would shake the walls.
I wouldn’t say that my parents were necessarily artistic in the formal sense of the word — they didn’t have any art training or ambitions to connect with an audience through an established artistic medium. They were however farmers, a law unto themselves, and our somewhat bohemian life on the farm was a rejection of societal norms and the pressure to get a mortgage, a presentable car, and have 2.4 children running around a neatly delineated lawn.
Despite the charms of growing up on the farm, there was a darker aspect of our family life that ran beneath the surface, an undercurrent that carried a sense of uncertainty and illusion. For my sister and me, there was a sense of something being not quite right that remained beyond our understanding. When we were adolescents, we learned that my father struggled with a heroin addiction, which was hidden from us throughout our childhood. I have come to think of this period of life as being raised in an environment of nurturing illusion, protected from what we were not old enough to understand yet.
I left the farm at 18 to study photography at the University of Huddersfield, initially thinking I would photograph events, weddings, landscapes… anything to make a steady living from self-employment. Although the tutors at the university nurtured technical development, they really emphasised the value of contemporary photographic art practice and progressive approaches to documentary practice. I started to see photography as a means to better understand the world, to meet with different perspectives, and to communicate beyond and alongside the limitations of written language.
Having time and space away from my childhood home and the unconventional nature of my upbringing led me to turn the lens on my own family life as a viable subject matter for photographic exploration. Here marked the beginning of a challenging yet wonderful journey of working with my family on a series of projects. As the scope of the work developed, doors opened in academia for further study, and I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to pursue a practice-based PhD. The project, Poppy Promises, forms the main practical element of the PhD and involved me collaborating with my father directly for the first time.
To address your question about the importance of education in building a career path, it certainly has been an instrumental part of my career so far. University provides the time and space to explore a discipline, build a practice under the guidance of tutors, and, most importantly, be immersed in a collegial environment with other creatives. This being said, higher education is but one of a number of ways that photographers can begin carving out a career for themselves. It is certainly not a prerequisite; the knowledge is there for those who seek it, and there are many exemplary photographers who are self-taught or found an entry point through assisting. Finally, I think it is a difficult time to enter the industry in the UK, particularly with the rising cost of living. It is difficult for creative practice to thrive when so much time and energy is needed just to support living costs. However, pursuing photography as a career has always required persistence and resilience, and I do believe that we can each find a way forward by making the most of what is available to us, fostering creative community, and maintaining a childlike curiosity with the medium.
‘Through making Poppy Promises, I learned that it is the activity that surrounds the photographic act that holds more value to me than the resultant pictures.’
Poppy Promises
Vulnerability is one of the main themes in the series Poppy Promises. The topic of family dynamics, the seen and the unseen, the real relationships between family members, and the processes that take place, those of healing, connecting, and building trust, are disclosed to a wide audience. This act of braveness and strength might help others prioritize and reconsider important elements in their lives and allow themselves to become vulnerable. The messages between you and your dad are an additional door into your relationship, as when you speak about the hair trimmer, Ummagumma by Pink Floyd (an incredible album), a song by Pixies, pizza, etc. What have you discovered about yourself as a photographer, a son, and a brother while working on the project? What is vulnerability for you?
The project provided catharsis for my family because of the way that the photographic process gently probed at areas of our shared family history that would otherwise be left undiscussed. As you say, this required a form of emotional vulnerability from my family and me that became a central theme in the project. Vulnerability is an intrinsic part of being human and living out life as the fallible creatures that we are. However, it takes courage to reconcile with this vulnerability, to accept and approach it rather than to deny our shortcomings and sensitivities. My mother and father really led the way in terms of revealing this vulnerability and granting me the trust necessary to explore this aspect of our family life.
At one point in time, my father’s struggle with heroin and the reverberations of this addiction represented a deep wound within our family. It remained a secret for many years, and when it was a secret no longer, the family still discussed the subject with a quiet tone that was indicative of the huge stigma that surrounds opiate addiction. Considering that it is a subject matter too often sensationalised or reduced to tired visual tropes, Poppy Promises provided the opportunity to share a nuanced depiction of the complexities of addiction within a family. The text messages from my father form a multivocal strand in the project that helps grant him greater agency in the way he is represented. Alongside the images, the text messages reach toward the multiplicity of him as a human being, showing the humour and sensitivity that he is known for by his friends and communicating his interest in music and horticulture.
Throughout making this work, I continually butted up against my own shortcomings and vulnerabilities. In the early stages of the work, I was fearful of communicating earnestly with my father about what this project meant for me. It somehow felt unmasculine of me to be sentimental in this way, dwelling so intently on our relationship. I was scared that my requests to further the project may be met with rejection. As is usually the case, these fears lost their power once I found the courage to talk more openly with my father. To my delight, he reciprocated my interest and welcomed the prospect of making pictures together.
Through making Poppy Promises, I learned that it is the activity that surrounds the photographic act that holds more value to me than the resultant pictures. Sustaining this long-term photographic project necessitated a level of communication and exchange amongst us as a family that has led to a greater understanding of one another and the past experiences that we share. This made it clear to me that my role as son, grandson, brother takes precedence over my role as a photographer in the way I relate to my family.
‘I work intuitively to create a rhythm within the run of images where there are changes of pace and proximity, occasional disruption, and finally, some form of resolution to the narrative.’
The whole house is shaking
The project, The whole house is shaking, is exceptionally interesting as you made a decision not to include images of your father, who was struggling with a heroin addiction (concealing this in a way from the viewer while revealing your current understanding of the situation). The perception of the family and parents is different when looking from the perspective of a kid compared to that of an adult. The complexities revealed shed new light on the dynamics of the family, the visible and the invisible intricacies. What was your guiding principle in making the final selection of the images and building the narrative for the series and, eventually, the photo book?
In the early project, The Whole House is Shaking, my father does indeed exist beyond the pages of the book, and at this point in time, I had not made any portraits of my father. Despite meeting with my father on a regular basis whilst making the series, I was reluctant to photograph my father directly. Reconnecting with my father after a period of estrangement, it felt as though I was getting to know him for the first time and I was weary that the introduction of the camera may have jeopardised the rebuilding and strengthening of our relationship at this early stage. Instead, I would sit and listen to my father tell stories of the past, reminisce about life on the farm and his travels as a young man. These stories went on to inform still life photographs and portraits I made of my other family members, such as my mother, sister, and maternal grandfather.
Ultimately, it was the apprehension that I felt towards photographing my father that caused the photographs to take an alternative route that considered my other family members' varying perspectives of this challenging time in our shared family history. It is astute of you to notice the childlike perspective that is carried forth in the project; I often used a slightly lower angle to accentuate this. I also utilised an old spelling book that belonged to my sister within the photobook that echoes this childlike perspective and gives rise to another voice within the project. Whenever I am editing down a series for publication, I work intuitively to create a rhythm within the run of images where there are changes of pace and proximity, occasional disruption, and finally, some form of resolution to the narrative.
‘In Just Couldn’t Get the Shoes to Fit, our performance and gesture within the frame, including the exchange of the cable release, became a way for us to playfully reference the evolving care roles in our relationship with one another.’
Just couldn’t get the shoes to fit
In the series, Just couldn’t get the shoes to fit, the focus is on depicting your grandfather, at the time 86 years old, and yourself trying on some clothes preserved for over 40 years by your grandad. This process is about connecting with your family members on a deeper, more personal level through photography while also relating to the memories from different perspectives. In some images, you give control over the representation, the end result, to your grandad, holding the shutter, sharing the responsibility of the family portrait and what goes beyond. What have you learned from this experience that informed your photography thinking about the next projects? What was this crucial cornerstone stemming from this shared experience?
The series Just Couldn’t Get the Shoes to Fit marked the first time that I collaborated with a family member in a very overt way, literally stepping into the frame beside them. This is certainly something that I carried forth into my approach to making photographs with my father in the series Poppy Promises. My reading at the time was centred on the relationship between performance and photography, and I became particularly interested in the way the camera can be a catalyst for performance.
Traditionally, in theatre and performance studies, photography was seen as a separate act, a means of simply and sequentially documenting a performance. This series, therefore, recognises the camera as an active agent that can provoke performance that wouldn’t have otherwise taken place — performance specifically for the camera. In Just Couldn’t Get the Shoes to Fit, our performance and gesture within the frame, including the exchange of the cable release, became a way for us to playfully reference the evolving care roles in our relationship with one another. Carrying this approach forward whilst working with my father, I found that the act of encouraging performance to the camera created a more bilateral interaction between the photographer and the sitter.
Upcoming Projects
What theme or narrative are you researching, and what can we expect from you in the upcoming months?
At this moment in time, I am working on a photobook for Poppy Promises, taking the time to finalise the edit and sequence and considering how the material form of the book can best communicate the image/text aspect of the project. I am also preparing prints for an exhibition later this year in France, where I will be exhibiting Poppy Promises as part of Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories.
