dsdn 144 | first shoot and proposal

I have decided to focus on bathrooms... AKA restrooms... and toilets. Plus a multitude of other monikers.

A little background: I have a long history with toilets. The business which I founded in 2003 and ran until I sold it in 2010 provided 'powder room' services to high-end/high profile events in NSW, Victoria and Queensland in Australia. It continues to run successfully today and its website can be seen here

Proposal:

In my time running OdT I learnt a lot about toilet spaces and people's behaviour around them. I have also been forever changed in terms of how I perceive each toilet space I enter and consequently have developed a unique perspective of this subject matter. Given that I have allowed enough time to lapse since ceasing my involvement with the day to day running of the biz, I have decided to devote this trimester to evaluating this experience through my assignments in DSDN 144 and CCDN 231.

The objective of my work will be to show the viewer what I see and, more importantly, what I feel when I enter a toilet space - be it private or public and irrespective of size.

I will experient with a few different aesthetics. I feel like each space can lend itself to its own feel. I favour a clean and crisp visual. But I enjoy the ornate and find what each person considers to be a touch of glamour to be really interesting.

For precedents and inspiration I have been looking at the work of Nan Goldin who is widely known for an enormous body of work that consists of her personal experiences captured by means of photography and text. These have included studies of people in their own intimate spaces such as bedrooms and bathrooms. I have found that even though I really like her work the look of it is a little too 'dirty' for me - I think the point I am trying to make revolves around comfort and considered design ...even a touch of glamour.

Kthe in the Bath, Berlin (1998)

Source

 By way of explanation: I really appreciate it when a relatively down-market restaurant maintains a really clean toilet and even places a box of tissues on a shelf near the sink or offers a really nice liquid soap. This leads me to ask questions like

• A lot of people may pass through the space on any given day, what can the owner or caretaker of the room do to ensure that there is no tangible evidence of the rooms (over)use? 
• What are the positive experiences one can have in a toilet? 
• Is it possible to find beauty in even the most banal or mundane of public toilets? 

These are the questions I would constantly ask myself with OdT and they are the ones I want to answer with my photographs.


The first shoot:

Armed with a friend's camera I entered the female toilets on level three in Wigan and shot 52 images. The aim was to shoot with my 'critical eye' which is to say I looked for the room's faults and shortcomings as well as its positive attributes, much as I would have when conducting site inspections for clients with my business.

I was handicapped by not having my own camera and having limited time to work. I don't know this camera very well so I am not confident with it.  I have just bought a Canon 600D which is what I am used to and it just awaits the memory card to be fully operational.

Here are the contact sheets:

Sheet One

Sheet Two

The images I felt worked best are:

©2013 helenkwilliams

©2013 helenkwilliams

©2013 helenkwilliams

©2013 helenkwilliams