SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

Hopes and fears is a subject that people don’t often talk about, let alone write about. They feel private and personal, not the kind of thing you share with just anyone. But when you actu-ally analyse your hopes you realise that for them to become a reality, you have to share them. And to reduce your fears you must face them and examine them and abolish them.

William Arthur Ward wrote;

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self,to place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss (…)To hope is to risk despair, To try is to risk failure.But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing

This is one of my favourite poems because I think the words are so poignant and so entirely rel-evant to everyone and everything.

Whilst no one wants to be defined by their past, but it is the decisions that we made up until the present day that have shaped us and brought us to the place we are right now. The past has lead you to this moment, and it’s this moment that you can control and change. In this moment you can become the person you want and hope to be in the future.

MY HOPES AND FEARS

SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

My past starts 19 years and 10 months ago in a little village called Chiddingly. I grew up in a loving family home that was always busy, always noisy and usually on the brink of hys-teria. My family is extended and made up of all sorts of people, most of them not blood related but all of them a big inspiration for me to make the most of myself and to make them proud. Being the youngest of four girls meant that I had to try and find my niche as early as pos-sible. Unfortunately for me, my sisters are all very creative as well as having scientific minds and passion for all things theatre and music related. So I wasn’t left with much. Up until my decisions for my A-Levels I had felt a bit lost, with no real goals or dreams. I knew I wanted to be successful in some field but that was as far as it went. I have always liked writing so English was an obvious choice. I found it challenging at times and didn’t give it all my attention or effort, which I regret but hope to learn from and use positively to encourage me in the future.

SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography was never on my radar before making my decisions but, looking back, it has always been a part of my life. My father owns a few old Pentax cameras and often uses them for his experimental artwork. As well as that, my house is actually opposite Farley Farm, the house that Lee Miller lived, worked and died in. So when I started the Photography course, I realised I had all this previous knowledge and experience to draw on. My passion really lies in using a big bulky manual SLR with black and white film and experimenting in the darkroom for hours. Having said that, it is exciting to see how much can be done digitally and how much more accessible powerful, interesting images are, both to view and to create. My most recent past is possibly the most powerful driving force in my life right now. In May I flew to Bangkok and travelled around Southeast Asia for 3 months. I visited Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos and had the most amazing experience.

SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

I saw things that completely changed my views on life and made me stop and re-evaluate my life-style. I know it’s a cliché but I feel like I came back, not a different person necessarily, but definitely a changed version of the person I was before I went. The trip shook me up at times and some of the things that people in countries like Cambodia have been through are so intensely unjust that you cant possibly come away from that un-moved or unchanged. It obviously wasn’t all upsetting though, there was a lot of hope in the new gen-eration and I tried to capture some of this on film. The happiness seems more astounding and inspir-ing considering the surroundings and conditions they are living in and that was something that I really wanted to take away with me to inspire me in the future.

SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

The ‘present’ is a bit more of a challenge to write about. I’m not sure what it is about it that makes it so difficult but I am struggling with this the most. I guess the course is a good place to start. Because this course is my focus at the present moment. This project. This essay. And if I’m com-pletely honest, it is overwhelming me a bit. I knew it would involve a lot of independent work because that’s what photography is. And I knew that I would have to motivate myself to do the work. But even though I knew all that, it doesn’t make it any easier to put into practice. After 18 months away from education and deadlines and obligations, it is hard to get back into the swing of things. But that is part of the challenge, and I came to university to challenge myself and to get out of my comfort zone. Starting with this essay.

A lot of things are surprising me at the moment. I know that most people get nervous before uni-versity because it is a big step, and I was com-pletely terrified.My flatmates are all brilliant, even if we always fight over whose turn it is to wash up, we get along really well which has made the whole pro-cess of moving 250 miles away from home a lot easier!

SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

My next concern was meeting people on my course. I thought that everyone would be very artistic and quirky and overly pas-sionate about photography (no that there is anything wrong with that!) but I have been pleasantly surprised that I am able to be myself and have still found people who I can connect with and have things in common with.The biggest surprise of all is the course itself, so far. The briefs are more regimented than I expected. Although I appreciate that this is only the beginning and it is nice that we have an opportunity to push the boundaries and see what we can get away with. But I thought I would be more excited to get out there and take photo-graphs and start making the most of my lovely camera. I just can’t seem to get the enthusiasm up. I was more excited about writing this essay. Maybe that’s something to do with talking about myself though…

Now, onto the future. Which is both terrifying and exciting. I like the idea that anything could happen; by this time next year, or month, or even week, so much could have changed. In some ways that is a good thing but there are certain things that I never want to change and it’s the idea of that not being in my control that scares me sometimes.

SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

In terms of my immediate future, I’m happy as long as I can keep my head above water for now. There is so much going on and so many new things to get used to at the moment that I am just focusing on not letting it all overwhelm me. In time I hope to get settled and be able to put all my effort into getting the best degree I possibly can. I know that should prob-ably be in the ‘present’ section but I wanted to be honest and admit that right now I have a lot of things splitting my attention

and in time I hope to narrow that down to the absolute essentials but for now I don’t want to miss out on anything because everything is so new and exciting. Maybe that isn’t the best thing to say to the people teaching my course but at least nobody can accuse me of not being honest about it.So all that’s left to talk about is the distant future. The scary things that nobody likes to admit to; my real hopes and dreams for my life. When I was little and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I used to say, “I want to be a Mummy”. So I was quite realistic at 5 years years old. Then I hit 7 and I wanted to be a princess. And then I hit 10 and that’s when I decided that I wanted to be rich and famous and married to Heath Ledger. It’s kind of sad to lose those dreams to the realities of life. But my dreams at the moment con-sist first and foremost of a happy family, a house in the countryside, a couple of cats and maybe a teacup pig or two.

SINEAD O’HARE PHOTOGRAPHY

Maybe all that seems a bit irrelevant to this essay but honestly I don’t have any big dreams for my career. I want a career rather than a job and I want to love what I do. I’m not sure if photography will come into it because it is so competitive and unstable. The thing I love about photography is that even if I don’t end up using it in my future career path, I can always keep it as a hobby and the things I learn over the next 3 years will be interesting because I find photography fascinating and love learning new tricks and I genuinely like looking at photogra-phers work and the fact that I can get a degree out of it is a real bonus. I am looking forward to our next project and the creative freedom and that will hopefully come with it and what I manage to achieve.

This essay comes with its own set of hopes and fears. There is the fear that I have writ-ten too much, or too little, or about a load of irrelevant nonsense. And the hope that I have shown you one of my strengths (talking about myself) and given you a better picture of the kind of person I am. The future holds all sorts of possibilities but at this present moment, I’m just happy to have finished this essay on time!