Wheatley has recently published a book called "don't call me urban!The time of grime" which is a book of 12 years of work documenting grime culture- starting from 1998 to 2010. Through this time span, Wheatley was able to shoot candid images across various events such as the London Riots. As shown in images below, Simon Wheatley has been able to capture the raw form of youth culture in Britain landscapes. Through wanting to research and look beyond the stereotypes the images below form an insight through the stereotypes of youth subculture in urban areas really well.
Much like other images by Wheatley, this image shows the collective identity and how subcultures form a collectivism ideology, conforming and relying on one another. Within this image, Wheatley has been able to capture and show to the audience the symbolism of youth culture, as you can see one of his subjects on the left appears to be ignoring the one on the right who is holding his hand out offering a cigarette. This can form a story to the audience by suggesting they may have had an argument so the one on the left is annoyed yet to try and resolve the issue, the subject on the right offers a cigarette. The location of this image is also really interesting because it appears to be in a run down bus shelter, with graffiti in the background.
This image almost shows the different stages in youth, they are either leaning on the wall, sitting on the ground or drinking. I think this image really interesting in to the youth subculture because much like the image above Wheatley has been able to capture to collective identity through the use of clothing and appearance of these subjects. This is because when you first quickly look at this image, the subjects could all be the same person as they look so similar through their outfit, this implies the youth subculture depends highly on the thoughts of their peers, they would rather conform to the groups stereotype than to stand out and be an outsider of the group.
This is a good example of how Wheatley's use of documentary photography has been able to capture the youth stereotype really well. As you can see in this image, the subjects are helping and depending on one another in lighting their cigarettes. There is a running theme in many of Wheatley's images which is the concept of youths smoking. I find this image particularly interesting due to the background, even though this is a close up of these subjects so not much of the location is revealed, it is suggested to be down a dark alley through the use of low key lighting and also the graffiti in the background. This is useful and symbolic when looking at the stereotypes of youth because it shows how youths know full well they shouldn't be doing behaviours such as this one so they hid away and do it secretly as a way to hide from getting caught. Another aspect I find interesting about this image is that Wheatley unlike the image above, has captured a friendship group of youths who aren't actually dressed the same in terms of colours yet are still in the same styles with the large coat.
I find this image really useful and helpful with my work project because I find that most youths which fit into my work, are of the age of having to get the bus to college and places as they cannot drive yet. I therefore find this image really interesting because it shows the disruption that youths make, through not caring about other peoples spaces. For example the subject in the bottom right corner appears to be someone who isn't part of the group and is just getting the bus to go home. Yet the stereotypical view of the annoying kids sit at the back of the bus and cause chaos complies really well in this image.
Good analysis
ReplyDelete