Artist research-Philip Toledano

Maybe

'When my mother died suddenly in 2006, everything changed. I thought that parents were forever, but when mine vanished, I realized that nothing really was. 
Obvious to most perhaps, but not me. The future became a shadowed landscape, filled with uncertain paths 
and ruinous storms. I wondered-what other sudden, dark turns lay ahead? Rather than wait helplessly for my future, I decided to confront my fears. I would try and anticipate my fate. Guess at the abrupt and unforeseen directions my life might take. I would see myself as an old man. I would envision failure and loneliness. I would be invisible. Unable to walk. Obese. I would suffer a stroke. I would lose myself. I would slip sideways, into the irrelevant. I would see my own death.

Photography is always about the past. The moment picture is taken; it's behind us, in history.

This project is about the future-but how do you research what has not yet occurred? I took a DNA test that told me what illnesses I was likely to get. I consulted with fortune-tellers, tarot card readers, hypnotists, numerologist’s 
and palm readers. I researched insurance company statistics. I looked within, at my greatest fears. I worked with a skilled prosthetics expert, so I could physically become my future selves. I took acting lessons. I learned how to lose myself in character.' 

It was in a tutorial I found out about his work, it was when Natasha was telling us about the Paris trip that she mentioned him. His work sounded interesting as it was all about what if and the future rather than the past. 

I liked his work as it was dramatic and looked like film stills, the images didn't look too staged and where rather natural.  For Toledano, throwing himself into work has always been a way to process what was happening in his life. He worked on a series about caring for his father, and recently completed a body of work that dealt with the loss of his sister when he was 6 years old.

Although I do not plan to take images like his I do admire his composition and the great lengths he went to to create these images. I plan to talk to a professional throughout the entire process of my project and create images after the appointment. So in that respect his work is something to look up to.