DOCUMENTARY: Richard Billingham

Richard Billingham:

Born in 1970, West Midlands Lives and works in Swansea, Wales 

Billingham graduated from the University of Sunderland in 1994 and in the same year took part in his first group exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery, London.
the world of photography became increasingly analytical, subjective and confessional of family life,the very private was becoming very public. However, Richard Billingham didn't care about how his family ought to look and instead he focused on them and their situation at the heart of working class life in Thatcher's Britain. Billingham's snap shots form a kind of family album no ordinary family member would ever show to anyone. This is not a family life of fake smiles and awkward calendar events, it is more like a backstage glimpse of the chaotic happenings within everyday life. It's a view that turned Billingham from a would-be painter into a well-known photographer.

The series of photographs, taken over a period of years are a stark, painful and often humorous documentation of the emotional, often violent relationship of his parents and brother. 

He never considered photography when he was living with his father Ray, he was simply a painter in need of a patient model. He began taking pictures of his bed bound alcoholic father that would act as a source material for his paintings as he wouldn't stay still for longer than 20 minutes at a time. This was how Billingham first started taking photographs.

 

 

I think these photographs aren't particularly astetically pleasing however this is because they aren't staged but are natural, there are no fake smiles and show the real expression of everyday life according to the photographer. The surroundings don't look very clean and is cluttered with empty bottles and cans of beer. A lot of Billingham's pictures are of his mother waiting on his father whilst he is sat down, showing the unequal distribution of domestic labor at that time.