Two Projects

Today photographer Juliet Ferguson gives us an insight into her projects ‘Don’t Tell’ and ‘Stolen Images’.

“I’ve been a serious photographer for the last ten years and have been widely published in editorial and travel publications. I felt my work was getting a bit stale so went back to college and have just completed a PG Cert in Photography at Central Saint Martins.

“I work for the Centre for Investigative Journalism and some of the skills I’ve learned there have spilled over into my photography, while other images are completely abstract and for me are a counterpoint to my job. I’m interested in how we can use technology to create images in perhaps unexpected ways.

Project 1 – Don’t Tell

“The idea for this project came about one winter’s evening when I was watching the living room fire and making shapes from the flames. I wondered if it would be possible to capture or recreate this effect. After several failed attempts with the fire I moved on to another element – water – and after experimenting with a range of objects and shutter speeds, eventually came up with this series of images.

“As to what the pictures are actually of, well, I’ve been asked many times, but feel an answer would spoil the pictures as the object/s I used were to create an image and would not themselves be the subject of the photograph. Although I’ve been asked many times, I feel it would ruin the pictures to know what you’re actually looking at rather than creating the pictures yourself – hence the title of the series: ‘Don’t Tell’.

Project 2 – Stolen Images

“This is where my work spilled unexpectedly into my photography. I was interested in the double standards whereby photographers can be stopped for taking pictures in public places but at the same time it’s ok for the ever watching eye of the CCTV camera to record whatever it wants.

“As part of one of the courses at work, I’d learned how to access unprotected CCTV cameras using Google and was interested in what was out there. After randomly accessing a number of cameras, what struck me was how little happened in places they were watching. Aside from a surprising number of cameras in the workplace, there was very little human presence. I decided to watch a selection of cameras over a 24-hour period, ‘taking’ an image at the top of each hour to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

“The most interesting thing that happened in most of the pictures was day turning to night and back again, so what initially started as a project about privacy and control has become about charting the passage of time. This is an ongoing project and I’ll be using ‘my’ cameras over the coming months to take more of these time sequence images.”

To look at more from these very interesting series, and a new take on photography visit Juliet’s website julietferguson.com