How photography student's grandad became a life-like mannequin (From Basildon Recorder)

How photography student's grandad became a life-like mannequin

2:00am Thursday 21st May 2009

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A PHOTOGRAPHY student said her grandad was the inspiration for her eye-catching end of year project.

Gemma Amor, 25, of Webster Road, Stanford-le-Hope, has based her showcase at Europe’s largest graduate art and design exhibition – Free Range – on her grandad, Colin Stock.

Gemma, who studies photography at East London University, created the images by taking hundreds of microphotos of Colin’s head with a close-up lens.

She then printed the images and plastered them on to a mannequin, which she dressed in her grandad’s clothes to create a life-like replica.

Gemma said: “He is quite a character. He is a really comical person, and I’m very close to him, so I suppose the photos are a sort of tribute.”

Gemma then photographed the model doing tasks like the gardening and washing up at Colin's home, in Gaywood, Laindon.

“I like the photos because they’re the sort of things my grandfather gets up to. You think it’s a real person and then you look at it again, I hope it makes people go home and think about the images.”

Colin, 71, said he was delighted to be the subject for Gemma's project.

He added: “She’s such a smashing girl and I love her to bits, so I’d help her with whatever she wanted to do.

“We’re generations apart and she still comes round to see me regularly, and that’s a rare thing nowadays.”

The photos will be displayed at Free Range, Brick Lane, from June 18 to June 22.

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