Guest lecture Simon Weldon: 2
He said this allowed him to make connections as many of the image where related around drinking and pub culture in the 70s, with the images linked to drinking it was like his father’s alcoholism was written from these images. There were limited coloured images of his father’s photos, those that were in colour centred around his family life. Simon asked himself who his father was in these images, he was finding it hard to relate to his father until he found an image of his father jumping into the water, this reminded Simon of his family trips to River Aire in Leeds when he was younger and this was also where him and his family had scattered his father’s ashes. This gave Simon the idea to walk the full length of the River Aire, which was 90 plus miles, this was to represent following his fathers last route. Simon also recreated some of his father’s images, which also included some self-portraits, Simon named the project Loiners, this was to represent him being from Leeds, as the people from Leeds are known as Loiners. Simon felt his father’s presence is shown in the images he has been taking and he felt the project has changed to collaborating with his father through his images.
Simon admitted he found it hard to go down this root and has felt steamed-rollered with doing this project over so many years, but that the story he has made through his images has given him solace. Simon said, as a photographer he feels as though his work is never finished, you can always look back on and say I can do this better or that better. Simon felt now is the time to take some time away from the his project to be able to go back to it to move it forward in the future.
Siobhan :)
17/02/21
https://www.instagram.com/simonwphoto/
All copyright of images belongs to Simon Weldon, images taken from his website.
