The portraits are of effigies bought from car boot sales – Typically  bought at the end of a session. maximum payment 0.50p (approx 0.62$ /0.58€).

In this way each object has been tested and deemed by market forces as unwanted, surplus to need – neither use nor ornament. Each a piece of flotsam and jetsam of consumerism: discarded gifts, souvenirs from forgotten holidays, worn out or no longer fashionable toys, mementoes that may have once carried sentiments and dreams.  Photographed, with some consideration as an attempt to lift each object into becomes a ‘portrait’ – to ’embody’ the object with a sense of personality, character and history.  To see if each object can, though being photographed, be compelled and implicated in telling something of its own story.

Series is part a response to an ongoing personal enthusiasm for car boot sales – a slightly compulsive Sunday morning obsession in an activity that is both fascinating and appalling . Beyond the possible economical benefits of finding a bargain,  car boot sales also function as cheap and accessible ‘consumer therapy’ for a society funnelled into experiencing shopping as a leisure activity.  Car boots are places where junk and loose change can be exchanged as an act of pleasure itself. A place where, for minimum outlay, anyone can cosplay an entrepreneur for a day, playing in a market, selling a high as possible, buying up cheap.