Jimmy Fletcher shoots an evocative series of ‘Picture Postcards’ photographs of his hometown. ‘Wish you Were Here’ was photographed for the first year module, The Personal Portfolio.
21st July 2021
This project was very personal to me and was based around the thoughts and feelings I had about my hometown as a teenager. I grew up in the Cotswolds which is known to be picturesque, with beautiful countryside and pretty little villages.
However, growing up within the town of Stonehouse in the Stroud District, I viewed things very differently, I saw the failing secondary school, I saw the run down and missing public amenities, I saw violence, crime and felt that my only future would be factory work alongside most of the Stonehouse’s population.
The project itself, whilst mainly inspired from personal circumstances, was also heavily inspired by Simon Wheatley’s: Don’t call me urban, Rut Blees Luxemburg’s: A Modern Project and The Stroud District Council’s Postcard campaign to promote tourism.
Each image in my series: Wish you were here? is a postcard image of a landmark that was an important part of the story of my teenage journey and has been created to show an internal point of view rather than the picturesque view normally used within tourism advertisements.
