To begin developing ideas for this project, I carried out an experimental photoshoot around my house, photographing a variety of everyday objects and spaces without a specific concept in mind. My intention was to explore my immediate surroundings and see whether any interesting themes or connections emerged from the images. After reviewing the photographs and experimenting with how they could be grouped and interpreted, I began thinking more about the relationship between objects, their surroundings, and the context in which we view them.

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This led me to consider the environments themselves, rather than just the individual subjects within them. I became particularly interested in the relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces, how they influence one another and how our own experiences affect the connections we form with them. The shoot also encouraged me to think about how photographs can take on different meanings depending on other images they are presented alongside. From this, I began developing an idea that explores connections both within physical environments and through the ways we photograph, arrange, and interpret them.

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Therefore, under the brief 'connection', I want to explore the relationship between indoor and outdoor environments, particularly how these spaces connect, overlap, and influence one another. Although we often consider indoors and outdoors to be two seperate environments, divided by physical boundaries such as walls, doors, and windows, I am interested in questioning how separate they really are. An environment does not exist entirely independently of its surroundings, and the connections between the spaces can be physical, visual, and psychological.

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One aspect I want to investigate is how the outdoor environment influences interior spaces. Natural light, shadows, weather, and seasonal changes can completely transform the appearance and atmosphere of a room without anything inside it physically moving. In this sense, the outdoor environment becomes an active influence on the interior, despite the physical separation between them. Equally, I would also like to explore how indoor environments could influence the way we experience the outside world.  

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I am also interested in our personal connections to these environments and how they influence us psychologically. Different spaces can evoke feelings of comfort, isolation, familiarity, vulnerability, or nostalgia, but these associations are not necessarily universal. Working with the idea of the punctum, theorised by Roland Barthes, I want to explore which elements connect with viewers on an individual level depending on singular experiences and memories. Raising the question about whether the atmosphere of an environment is something that exists within the space itself, or something we construct through our own interpretation and connection to it.

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However, the relationship isn't one-sided. Just as environments influence us, we continuously influence the spaces we inhabit. Our presence can be communicated through the arrangements of furniture, belongings, signs of use, and the traces we leave behind. Even in photographs without people, evidence of human activity can suggest something about the individuals who occupy a space. I find this interesting as it allows me to explore the relationship between people and environments without necessarily making people the direct subjects of my photographs. 

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Another angle I want to explore is how the connections between photographs can influence their individual meanings and how we connect to them and their narratives. An image does not always communicate the same thing when viewed independently as it does when presented alongside another. This interests me because it suggests that meaning is not necessarily fixed within an individual photograph, but can develop through the connections we make between images. This would allow me to explore not only the connections that exist between physical environments, but also the connections created through photography itself.

 

Ultimately, I want this project to question where one environment ends and another begins, and whether the boundaries we associate with physical spaces also exist in the ways we experience and interpret them. Rather than simply documenting indoor and outdoor locations, I want to photograph the communication between them, considering how spaces influence one another, how we influence and are influenced by our surroundings, and how photographic context can alter the meaning we attach to what we see. 

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