Jay Van Dam

Jay Van Dam is a photographer who currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. He has published his work at exhibitions, and has won many awards for his work. On his website; he has 3 main sections of photographs, the one i am most interested in is 'revelation.' It is a collection of photographs of a man practically living in a box. It shows nearly every park of the day of this guy living in a box made out of cardboard.

This is one of the images of the collection and i find this really interesting because he only has one source of lighting and it seems like that is all he needs. The fact that he is dressed in a suit and tie is like he is at work yet he seems to be stuck in this box. Also the masses of paper beside him looks like he has so much time on his hands however it could be showing what it is like in the real world. The thought clouds i love because i think it adds to the crazy idea of these photographs as he doesn't have to say anything yet we can tell he is deep in thought to what he is doing. I like the thought that has gone into these photos and it really expresses the message of what is going on. It's not too busy and i like that but there are enough things to look at and really wonder why, for example the scarf in the background and the pictures on the wall, you wonder what they could represent in the context of this photo.

This one in the selection is a couple after the previous image i have just analysed and this is really interesting because it seems to tell a story over the day or over a year as you can't really tell because he is inside a box. As you would observe the plant has grown since the last photograph and also so has the thought clouds. This makes you wonder what he is thinking about and what seems to be troubling him. Also the box seems to get much more emptier as the series of photographs go along so it seems like a part of his life where he seems to feel stuck or trapped.

This is the last photograph in the series and it really sums up the series of photos because in the first ones he seems trapped and then it gets progressively emptier and then he becomes free in the last photograph. The way he is running looks like he really needed to get out and the reason the thought cloud got bigger is maybe he was thinking of escaping and being free. I love the fact that at first look at these photos you think they are quite interesting but then you notice different things when you look at them carefully and that the story becomes clearer when you look further into it. I'd love to recreate something like this in the same sort of way of telling a story but being very subtle about it.  

This is his collection as one.