Born Edinburgh 1963.
Currently working as a lecturer in photography at The University of Derby. This image is 'Work in Progress' #35

Work in Progress

The creation of tableaux in painting has a long and illustrious history. Painters have used models to pose for paintings depicting scenes from ancient mythology, religion, and later, to depict scenes that illustrate incidents and disasters that made the news. The methods by which these painters constructed their tableaux have recently come under the scrutiny of David Hockney. He has suggested that artists such as Caravaggio used the latest technology available to them at the time, individual models being painted separately using lenses, mirrors and the camera obscura to build up the tableaux. Photography has continued this tradition through practitioners such as Henry Peach Robinson and Oscar Rejlander, who created tableaux using darkroom techniques in the 19th Century, and more recently Jeff Wall, Ken Lum and the so-called New Neurotic Realists using computer technology. The one common characteristic in all of these, if Hockney is to be believed, is that they are all, in some way, lens-based.

Work in Progress (2002-2006) is visually influenced by recent trends in television, which has seen the proliferation of Reality T.V. programs such as Big Brother and Wife Swap. Freud said that every active perversion is accompanied by its passive counterpart. Perhaps as we become more and more style conscious, which must be a form of exhibitionism, the rise of Reality T.V is its passive voyeuristic counterpart. Coupled with the continuing popularity of lifestyle programming, and in this I include the D.I.Y. shows such as Changing rooms as well as the multitude of gardening, cookery and fashion programs, this seems to suggest that changing ones life is simply a case of watching and mimicking others. These voyeuristic and inexpensive programs have become very popular with a large audience, which seems to cross many cultural divides and in the case of reality television regularly make newspaper headlines and are the subject of frequent conversation.

In the process of making this work I gained (and mostly lost) 3 stone in weight, and changed my facial appearance several times over the 3 years of shooting.

Cameron Jinks

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