Photographer - Niki Feijen's "Disciple of Decay" (Nostalgia)

Niki Feijen Photography of Isolation and abandoned objects.

The context behind the photography of abandoned places and objects by Photographer Niki Feijen is to captivate and conveying the sense of ‘lost’ moments or memories of old frozen in time, through the use of subject matters such as furniture, ornaments, beds, chairs and clothes. The visual connotations are to represent the nostalgic emotion where one revisits places from the past, an urban exploration of the homes that were left untouched since their owners had departed.

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(1b)

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Looking into the photography book of Niki Feijen’s “Disciple of Decay”, the composition and subject matters plays a key role in capturing the essence of isolation and the hauntingly beautiful landscapes of homes and objects that were once filled with life, laughter, joy and personal associations. Delving back to the past by revisiting places of old that we once lived in brings in the emotion of nostalgia, where we reflect on the simpler times we have when we were in our youths.

Nostalgia is one of the strong emotions I always go through as I often reflect on my memories through old objects or revisiting places I have not been for many years that makes me who I am as a person. I will deconstruct the photography of Feijen to explore the effect of how composition, lighting, framing and context can tell a story or narrative through various photographic techniques. Loneliness also ties in with the emotion of nostalgia where singular objects often conveys the sense of isolation, the refusal of letting go of the past or to leave a mark behind as a reminder.

Quick photographs exploring composition and object placement using the rule of thirds. Framing is also key as minor details in the background or foreground can contribute heavily on how you want to portray the object or environment, including negative space.

While the framing and composition are important to capture the essence or moments in time, I will attempt to take some of Feijen’s photographs and manipulating the composition by altering the shape and size of each photograph. Changing the size or making the photo to focus on one particular object and excluding the rest can help to express the importance of objects and ornaments that will represent nostalgia, as they are normally associated with personal attachments to the past. Colouring is also something that I think will play a role as a visual language to make the viewer feel personal towards the subject matter in a way that they will too, reflect on their past or childhood.

Cropping out sections of some of Feijen’s photographs to see if the alterations of the composition has an effect on how we perceive its context. Shifting the framing and the focus could change the way how we observe and interpret the imagery, as it can change our perspectives on what is important within the camera frame. 

Desaturating the colours of the photos to black and white, as greyscale photographs generally associates and represent the ‘past’, memories of old, or to document our history.

Applying a similar formula from Feijen’s photography of visiting old places, I had revisited my old hometown where I had spent the first 8 years of my life. I had brought with me an old clock which was given to me by my late grandfather many years ago when I was a child. The old clock, out of other objects that I could have chosen, is perhaps the most symbolic, as it represents the ‘time’ of my childhood (the clock representing time) and the nostalgia. It was a little difficult trying to incorporate both the object and the setting itself, as it was hard finding a right location to situate my object in. The locations I visited in my hometown are the areas I closely grew up with, and I desaturated the colours to black and white or to a singular hint of colour to represent the ‘past’. The aim of the object is for it be on its own in an environmental setting that I once grew up in, which will enforce the idea of nostalgia, by combining the visual elements of the object that represents the ‘time of childhood’ and the familiar setting from the past.

My conclusion to the investigation in Niki Feijen’s photography in capturing the sense of nostalgia through the use of objects/ornaments to represent the past. Following the earlier photo experiments in using a familiar object from childhood, I combined the idea of changing the surrounding environment to greyscale gold to represent the warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia of my hometown, with the idea of leaving the object in the photo unchanged and unedited, as a visual connotation to represent its relevance to my childhood that makes me who I am as a person. This idea is informed from photography that combines black and white photographs with colours, where certain objects remains in colour, similarly in the film, “Schindler’s List”, by Steven Spielberg, a black and white film that shows a scene with a girl in her red ‘coloured’ coat, a visual metaphor that is symbolic to represent the innocence of the people. 

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The location of my conclusion could have been better, however I chosen an area where there is decay (to reflect on Feijen’s photography of decaying environments) to represent the aging hometown that has not changed over the years since I have left.

References

(1a) Feijen, 2013

(1b) Feijen, 2013

(1c) Feijen, 2013

(2) Spielberg, 1993

Bibliography

Feijen, N. (2013) Disciple of Decay. Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The Art of Urbex. 

Schindler’s List, 1993. Film. Directed by Steven SPIELBERG. USA: Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment.