Format Festival.

Edward Swinden.

  Edward Swinden is a Manchester born photographer who has worked all over the north of England. Photography is a passion for Edward and alongside completing portraits of celebrities he is constantly travelling the world in search of new angels within photography in documenting the modern world for his publications and exhibitions. Swinden's work mainly deals with the issues of society, conformity and regeneration; he works both with documentary as well as fine art. Swinden is also an award- winning journalist working for such institutions as Manchester Evening News, Metro News and the BBC; Edward does not do much writing anymore and sticks to photo books instead. He has published a range of books and journals of his work as well as exhibiting his work in galleries around the world.    For the FORMAT international photography festival in Derby Swinden has been concentrating particularly on street photography, taking candid images of passers by addressing such subjects as service and dehumanization. Dehumanization is the issue in which I feel Swinden’s work links directly to the critical thinking for my essay in which I explored how women are represented within advertisements. Dehumanization, dismemberment and objectification being the main themes discussed within my essay. The images Swinden has exhibited within this particular exhibition are part of a wider project on going entitled ‘Inside the Hive’ in which Swinden invites us to consider whether life should just be about self fulfillment and individuality or there should be more concentration on serving the greater good. 

 

   The image above is one of the images included within the FORMAT festival exhibition and deals with the issues of dehumanization within society.

Dehumanisation is defined as making someone less human by taking away their individuality, any creative and interesting aspects of their personality and their compassion towards others. Swinden’s work is a lot to do with society and how the public should concentrate more on servicing society as a whole rather than just looking after themselves. I believe that Swinden is raising the issue that people today are more concerned with themselves; people are less worried about any kind of community anymore just as long as they are ok and doing well. I think that this causes the people of today to become more dehumanized, there is less compassion in the world for others and more and more people are becoming the same, all looking after number one with little or no concern for others.

This is a very striking image, there are a lot of strong shapes and blocks of colour within the frame, and this causes the image to be broken up into sections and makes it harder for the viewer to view the image as a whole. The lighting here is the main cause for this divide within the image; it has caused these strong shadows to be cast across the image and hide some of the detail from us. There is only a small section in the image that has much light which is just off centre towards the right hand side, I really like the shape this light has created and this really draws your eyes into the photograph, your eyes follow the light from the bottom of the image all the way to the top from left to right, almost how you would read a book. I think it is really effective how the person within this image is not the main point of focus, this relates directly to the theme of dehumanization. The woman has become a shape within the image and is not really seen as a human any more, there are no signs of what this woman is like, what her personality is like or even really how she looks. I believe that this image comments of the theme of dehumanization within society, it is demonstrating how people can become lost within the large modern society and how everyone can start to look and act the same as everyone else. There is absolutely no way we could pick this woman out from a crowd, she is just a passing shape within the fast paced society of today.