Jade Birchnall

Jade Birchnall is currently studying BA (Hons) Photography at Manchester University. Jade used to be a student here at our college, she now in her third year of Degree and came back to give a lecture on what work she is doing at the minute and how University has been helpful for her.

Jade began some of her more recent work with portraits of her grandmother, who was recently diagnosed with dementia, she wanted to record her deteriorating mind. With this project Birchnall took along to the photo-shoot a dictaphone, which she told her grandmother was a light-meter, secretly recording her grandmother speaking naturally about her everyday life, showing her forgetfulness. This sound was played whilst the images of her grandmother were shown. This gave the images an added depth, the conversation was very natural and earthy, which matched the style of the images, giving a true representation of her grandmother. The sound recording made the viewing experience much more personal, giving an in-depth insight to the lady's life.

From this work Birchnall decided to look more in depth at dementia, working with different people. She decided contact The Little Sisters of the Poor, which is a Roman Catholic religious institute for women. Birchnall described how at first she struggled to build contact with the group, mainly due to a lack of knowledge of Birchnall's work. After persisting with contacting the group, Birchnall was allowed to visit the home, she was allowed to take pictures however she was followed around by one of the nuns. She described this experience as awkward, she had taken a few images but felt unable to be completely herself with somebody watching over her. However over time she kept in contact, revisiting and eventually the nuns and archpriests began to trust Birchnall, to the point where she is free to meet with residents whenever she wants to, taking images and interview people. She talked about often just going to spend time with the residents, building relationships. She did many shoots of residents and a nun saw one of her images and commented on how sad the resident looked. This was when Birchnall realised that she would have to show the resident these images, and although she was pleased with them, she also understood that the residents may not appreciate the sad angle she had drawn upon. She started producing some more happy natural images of the residents, which she could then show them.

Birchnall's main choice of camera is a medium format film camera, she mentioned that this has slowed her down, making her images more composed and thought through. She experimented with lighting and also with using the same chair to put the residents into, which gave a routine background, giving more attention to the subject. Birchnall is still in contact with this group of people and she eventually wants to create a book of the images.

Another project Birchnall was involved in was with women strippers and pole dancers, this project was created alongside of her university work. It was a joint project with a friend, Amy Clarkson. They decided to do this project as a 'bit of fun'. It became more of a challenge than they first thought though as the situations they found themselves in were often very intimidating and hostile. The Images produced were not of Birchnall's favourite, however it gave her a new experience to work with people that she would never have talked to or worked with before.

I really enjoyed Birchnall's lecture, it has given me an insight to where I could be in a few years time. I admire the way in which she gets involved with different things and really pushes herself to meet new people, achieving her desired images.