Stephen Lamprell

This project started from my own experience of visiting markets and car boot sales and being a collector of cameras, records and other ephemera. These trips made me look at other people like me, sifting through boxes looking for rare and interesting things. It started me thinking as to why we are driven to collect, to keep going back, again and again.

Collecting something usually starts in childhood for most people and psychologists cite this as a way of trying to order the world, at the time in a persons life when they start to realise that they can’t wholly control the world around them.

However, collecting also reflects upon a person’s identity, as well as a personality trait. Through photography I am trying to show in part, something of this identity.

The portraits in this series are titled with the person’s first name, and then secondly by the form of collection.