Connecting Essay: Dash Snow -

Connecting Essay - 

(Dash Snow)

(My own work)

The first image is by the photographer Dash Snow who created the "Polaroid Wall" installation for an art gallery and the images that compose it are captured using an instant polaroid camera. The installation itself is almost constructed like a photoessay collage and conveys the theme of connected images strongly through the corpus of polaroids. There are twenty polaroids composed into a grid depicting multiple scenes that convey themes of youth, nihilism and hedonism which are recurring throughout the majority of Snow's work. The photographs explicitly show intravenous drug abuse, naked forms engaged in sexual activities and urban decay featuring graffiti with messages that convey Snow's own ideologies and subcultural deviant beliefs. The photographs were taken to capture "nights he wouldn't otherwise remember" and also depict how Snow, himself, is constructed and socialised by those around him to form norms and values that are different to that of wider society which emphasises the rebellious, self-destructive and sexual nature of youth depiction in media, art and photography. 

My final outcome seen above is also meant to be viewed as an installation instead of as a digital copy to show the 3D elements and also to show the scale of the piece. There are multiple photographs and momentos that have been combined into one collage that uses disposable film cameras, polaroid cameras and phone cameras combined with the use of social media. The theme of this shoot it relating to youth and conveying the subculture as fun instead of in negative deviant ways.

There are similarities in that are installations opposed to digital photographs and they also employ the same technique of polaroid photography. Whilst it is exclusively a polaroid camera used by Dash Snow I used other mediums to convey youth in the new digital age whilst bringing in elements of nostalgia to create the desired aesthetics. Furthermore, the work of Dash Snow is conceptually darker in its subject matter than mine; Snow followed youth rebellion whilst I wanted to showcase a side of youth that is too often forgotten about when displaying collective identity of youth in photography. Moreover, the final outcome of Snow's is more simplistic in its composition and works in a style that is associated with fine art photography whilst mine is intended to be more intimate in its final layout and instead mimc a an amateur scrapbook effect so that the first five photoshoots can work together as connected image to create a narrative.