Martin


  • Photographer
    Ananda van der Pluijm
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    Ananda van der Pluijm Photography
  • Date of Photograph
    2011-2012
  • Technical Info
    Nikon d700
Story

Photography to me is the means to make contact with my environment and subjects. I was travelling in 2007, when I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré. As a result, I was homebound in a wheelchair and crutches, feeling like an outsider. During the five years of rehabilitation, I started photography to reconnect with my surroundings.

My experiences inspired me to focus on human relationships: inevitably, we’re thrown on our own resources, and securing a sense of place and belonging requires courage and persistence. We seem more networked than ever, but in reality we’ve never been lonelier in our lives. More than before, we need real connections and contact. From the beginning, I’ve been pursuing small and personal stories based on this theme of loneliness; a lack of contact and the search for connection with others.

This project is about my half-brother Martin (18) and what I recognise in him. He returned to stay with our mother after living with his father for ten years. He was jobless, had no qualifications, and had spent time in a youth shelter. I had no contact with Martin over the previous decade, and decided to use my camera to help get to know him again and make a new connection.

His situation is not a big and dramatic story. He has problems, but he’s also just teenager who's trying to get his life back in order, and find a place for him self. I've felt like an outsider a long time, and I think many people feel 'disconnected' like that. It’s not a subject people like to talk about, and I hope to get the audience to realise that this story is about them too.

The images should best be presented in a sequence. It shows the story of how we long for actual connection, and the fact that relationships include doubt, anger and pain. I want to show this through Martin getting reconnected with his family. A selection of this ongoing project won at 3rd Prize Observed Portraits Stories at World Press Photo 2013.

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