Professional Practice - Julian Hughes

Julian Hughes' work explores people and places through the medium of photography. Aside from his own projects, he collaborates with designers, film makers, writers, choreographers, performers and more to develop commercial and personal pieces.  

One project he shared with us was his long term quest to plant oak tree saplings and document their growth with photographs. I like the idea of taking artistic inspiration from the process of re-wilding the landscape, it helps promote tree planting to the viewers of the work. I feel a connection with these images because the environment is something I've talked about in some of my previous projects as it's a very important issue right now and I've been conscious of it from an early age.

Another of Hughes' projects that I enjoyed was the Nottingham bus station lost property photograph series, particularly since my Collecting project explores ideas of forgotten and reclaimed objects. Photographing the found, mundane items in a professional way is an unusual juxtaposition of status and makes a really striking visual effect as we begin to believe these things actually have some kind of significance or meaning, when they're just ordinary things people accidentally left on the bus. Having them displayed in backlit frames in the passageway to the bus station was a fitting choice as the placement is relevant and the lighting makes the images look vivid and evocative against the unspectacular location.

 

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