Photos by Dean Shofield
Dean Schofield is a young photographer studying at Leeds College of Art and Design and is in his final year of his degree course. He is situated at Temple Newsam in Leeds, England, and hopes to continue here for further development of his portfolio and finding experience and progressing further into the photography industry.
The only thing a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work.
You canít sleep for eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours a day.
William Faulkner from Arnold, E. (1989) All in a days work.
Originally I decided to document the emptiness of a local supermarket, capturing the mess and bareness
when the store is closed. This is generally created on a Sunday evening when the store is no longer
observed by the public, allowing the rules of keeping an ideal appearance to be forgotten. The idea was
to present something that audiences will not generally see, and this was clearly something that I felt
people would want to view, as we spend a large percentage of our time visiting supermarkets everyday and
only see them at their best with other customers filling out the isles and never witnessing the emptiness
and desertedness that is presented when the store is closed. It also reflects on the issue of the recession, as we can see the main focus point in each image is the price cuts and the different savings on offer.
Again the emptiness of the store allows you to see this concept of the recession much clearer, than when
you are visiting a supermarket in person as the image draws the viewerís attention instantly to the saving signs.
The second part of this project was based on the same concept of the supermarket, however this time my main
focus was to present to audiences the colleagues that work for these large corporations like ASDA, and how
everyone is merely just a number. Most people working for these corporations are treated the same, there is
no individuality they are simply seen to be the same, dress the same and all act the same. My aim was to reflect
the identity of the different colleagues and attempt to present them with information that would allow viewers
to understand and know more about the people that customers and managers quite simply pay no attention to.
The main aim was to capture the colleague on the department that they would generally work on, this way I would
capture both the colleague and the environment surrounding them that they would most generally be associated with. When presenting these images, they were produced into a book that included the colleagueís image and some personal information. This included the personís name, interests, ambitions, and some information about their time at ASDA and experiences good and bad. This was practically interesting as it allowed people to understand and relate more to the person that they most commonly choose to ignore and show little appreciation to. These images were not originally presented together, however I feel that they complement each other by being presented together as a formation presenting a large corporation like ASDA. They reflect two different meanings one being the emptiness and abandonment of a popular store and the other being the identity of the colleagues working in the store. This is definitely a project that could be continued with in the future as supermarkets will always be used
and be a popular part of life.
