Nigel Shafran
Nigel Shafran is a photographer who first started in the 80's with radicalising fashion photography within magazines while privately photographing the boring and mundane.
He focuses on the still life little details of everyday life, exploring ordinary London.
You can tell a lot about a person from the food that they buy in a supermarket, and that is exactly what Shafran did, in 2005 he shot a series on supermarket checkouts.
In the first image you can see a packet of underwear in the woman's size, an envelope, water, bread, a plug, possibly some sweets, colouring pencils and a planner of sorts. At first you don't notice the toy cars also on the conveyer belt which as they're not in a packet would suggest that it's the woman's little boy who has bought them along shopping; we also assume that it's a woman buying these because of the underwear when it could be someone buying them for someone else.
The colouring pencils also lend themselves to it being for a child; though the pencils might be for whoever is going to be using the planner at the front.
The colouring pencils also lend themselves to it being for a child; though the pencils might be for whoever is going to be using the planner at the front.
To me it looks like when you go in after work or during lunch to pick up a few bits that you sort of desperately need.
The second image for me is reminiscent of my grandparents as that is what their shopping looked like growing up, filled with fruit and veg which was quite healthy but then with the biscuits and the canned meats like hotdogs which aren't healthy at all it's quite a contrast health wise but also their generation grew up on rations and canned food was the norm so now in modern day life those eating habits are very hard to break, I think that the way he's included 'ASDA over 50's life cover plan' is also a nod to their possible age range.
Those particular items were also relatively cheap and still are, so that might show their finical status, they might be quite thrifty with their money.
I like the mundane of his photography, but for this project it doesn't fit with the look or subject matter that I am planning on going for as it's too documentary compared to other artists I have looked at that have an abstract look to them.
