I am an A Level student currently studying at Hautlieu School. My subjects include, Media Studies, Photography and History. My blog includes updates of my current work in both media and photography where I am able to show research, planning and experimentation. I update this blog weekly with different posts relating to my subject topics.
Throughout the duration of the AS year I kept referencing back to the artist Cindy Sherman. A woman who found her voice within the photographic world during the 1970s when women were finally voicing their opinions in an artistic and creative way. I really enjoy Sherman’s set of ‘film stills’ that she created mainly during the 70s were she focused on the cliches modern women are faced with. To this I responded and came up with my own cliches as well as mimicking a few of Sherman’s. I believe that Sherman is a great photographer and knows exactly what she wants the spectator to get out of the images that she has created. She is the face of all of her images yet appears different in every one. This is one of her signature works were she plays dress up in order to create the best images possible for the spectator and without knowing that Sherman was the face of her own photographic work you would never have guessed it was her.
The images that Sherman creates are not reflections of herself but, I think, show as a reflect of our society and how we expect women to be and how we expect them to act. I believe that Sherman wants to bring across a message that women aren’t the way most people think they are and we can do so much more and have greater aspirations than living and working at home like our ancestors. Something that has really come to light in recent years is feminism. The right of equality of life for both men and women. Yet people like Sherman have been exploring this and working hard to open people’s eyes on this topic for many years. I am a strong believer in feminism and I think that now is the time were things are going to change dramatically with huge impact. I like the idea of sending out a message to the world through the art of photography and tableaux photography is an excellent way to create a staged way of documenting serious issues of our modern world.
Some of Cindy Sherman’s ‘Untitled Film Stills’
#14
#13
#54
#3
#17
Sherman was born in 1954 and is an American photographer and film director and is most known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman tends to work in different series of images and all of which are ‘Untitled’. I believe that she does this as a way of allowing the spectator to make up their own mind and form an opinion on the images themselves with an open mind and no preconceived ideas of how they should be looking at the images. I like this as most of her images speak for themselves and don’t really need any title or introduction to them. They are very hard hitting yet the spectator is about to form a completely independent view of each image, they are simply different representations of cliches and the way that women are viewed in society.
This is one of my favourite of Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills. There isn’t one thing in particular that I like about the image, I just enjoy looking at it. I love the amount of books everywhere showing that the subject is in a library somewhere. An effect element of this image in the direction that the subject is looking as she looks up the sky over her shoulder as if looking for even more books whilst choosing some already. I think the idea of mimicking the cliches women faced in the late 1970s an excellent documentation of the way society used to think and being able to compare it to our modern day society and how much or how little has changed over the past years. I like that all of the film stills are in black and white, this is largely to do with the type of cameras that were around in 1979 as they were all black and white, however I still think that it makes the images more interesting and allows the spectator something to maintain focus on rather than dotting around the whole image looking at all of the different colours of the books and what the subject is wearing. Something that I also enjoy about these film stills is that in every one of them Sherman is the subject. She seems to create a brand new character in every photograph and each time they are faced with a different scenario in a different environment, which is a great way of documenting what places in America looked like in the late 70s compared to what they all look like nowadays.
Tableau simply means staged. This is a type of documentary photography as the photographer may find the subjects in their natural environment but may ask them to pose in a certain way to make for a good photograph. It is the form of a ‘living picture’. Most photographers will use their own models who are carefully positioned and posed and can often be quite theatrical and staged in an attempt to create a meaning and bring across a message to the spectator looking at the images. Often props will be used as well as facial expressions. I like the idea of tableau photography as I am able to develop a story and bring in different characters for the spectator to interpret and view. I also like the idea that it is documenting the way people think. This can be more of a broad way of doing documentary photography but it does fit. Photographers are able to explore new things as well as make a visual documentation of the way our modern society thinks and the way some people feel within it. We are able to document the environment that we live in, in a more interesting way. Something that I have noticed in modern tableau photography is that everyone appears to be naked. Somehow I don’t think that I will be using this in my response to tableau photography just because I feel that there is no real need to be naked in images, I think that images are more effect in the art of telling a story through the emotion of the subject/character rather than the physical appearance of them.
Mary Ellen Mark was a 75 year old American photographer, who died in May 2015. She has had 18 collections throughout her career that have been published and is known for her street/documentary photography. A lot of her works are exhibited in galleries and museums all over the world.
The reason I chose to look at this artist was because she does street photography which I find very interesting. I like that she finds different people from the norm and embracing that takes a good photo of them. I think that I will keep the concept of candid photographs on the streets in one of my own ideas for this project. I like how all of her images are in black and white, early on in her career this will have been the only available filter to use but more recently I think it is used to add more character to the environment and the people who she is photographing. This allows the spectator to focus in on the people in the image rather than being drawn in by all of the different colours, distracting them from the possible meaning behind the images she creates. I believe that a lot of Ellen Mark’s work fits into the tableau category as a lot of the time the people are looking directly into the camera and with a neutral facial expression which Ellen Mark will have had to ask them to do. I do think that the people are genuine and she comes across all of these different people on the streets yet it does hold the element of tableau photography that I think a lot of photographers will use in documentary photographs to make it more hard hitting and to make it more personal for the spectator to really be looking into the eyes of the subject in the images.
After looking at a few pieces of Mary Ellen Mark’s work I discovered that she tends to make images of poorer people or those who seem troubled. For example there is one image where a small boy is sleeping in bed with his mother and father yet he is wide awake and looks crapped in the image. This shows that the family is poor and that they only have this one single mattress on the floor to share between the three of them and the boy is possibly troubled because maybe all he wants is his own space to grow and be happy. I feel like this young boy feels trapped by his parents but he can’t figure out a way to get out of it all and to escape into something better than the life he has with his parents. This could also be symbolic of how a lot of teenagers feel when they are finally growing into young adults but are still bombarded with pressure from their parents and still feel trapped under their wing even though they’ve been trying so hard to get away and create their own individual life. I like this image a lot because it really makes you appreciate what you have and allows the spectator to reflect a little on their own lives and the things we as humans always seem to take for granted, like having our own bed to sleep on each night.
This image creeps me out. I have no clue of what is going on in this image. I feel like the little girl really does not want to be there and is being held against her will by this freaky looking clown who is holding a gun! I just noticed that on his hat states ‘Captain America’, this could mean something. Captain America is a character from the Marvel comics. He is supposedly a hero who was frozen during the war and was to be brought back to life in the future to save America. Here the clown has a gun and looks as though he is casually aiming it towards the young girl, yet nothing seems forced. The little girl just looks as though she’s being in the photograph to please her parents and there is no real struggle. The clown looks extremely pleased with himself which creeps me out the most as I have no clue of what the motive of this image could actually be. Mary Ellen Mark could possibly be trying to say that this “Captain America” is just a stupid idea that would never work and that he would just become a clown for the government to play with and control. He would just follow orders and do as he was told no matter what the circumstance, hence the little girl possibly symbolising innocence. I really do not have a clue what is going on in this image and I think it is really random and difficult to figure out. Even though I did manage to create a possible meaning from this image I don’t think that it really has one. I think that this little girl was just at a circus with her family and the guy was dressed as the clown and then Mary Ellen Mark just asked them to sit together and she took this photograph, that is why he is not pressing her with the gun or holding onto her arm too tightly. They are just real people who were put into a real life situation together. The main thing I took from this was just a reminder of how much I dislike clowns.
An interview with Mary Ellen Mark:
Debatably one of the most famous photographs of the 21st century was hers of the ‘Migrant Mother’. This is a very powerful image that throughout the years has caused much controversy with the subject herself and the photographer.
This is Mary Ellen Mark’s most iconic image. Here the children look as if they want their faces to be covered, that they are possibly ashamed to be seen in the photograph. Whereas, the mother looks as though she has a lot on her mind and possibly battling whether or not it was a good idea to take her and her three children out of their country and migrate to another for safety. They are all very dirty looking, including the little baby that she is holding with her left arm. To me this image is very sad as if all the happiness in the world wasn’t anything compared to all the sadness. This image allows the spectator to take from it what they want as well as bringing across a strong message of how lucky we are to live in a safe place where we don’t have to run away in fear of civil war or attacks from the governments. It has been stirred that a reporter talked to the migrant mother who claimed that she didn’t actually want Ellen Mark to take the photograph of her yet she did it anyway. I feel like this is possibly true because why would a migrant want their photo all over America? She is trying to get away from all the drama of her own country she doesn’t need to start her new life with her children filled with drama of a new kind, being constantly bombarded with questions about how she felt in that image and what was going on at the time. This image really does make me thankful for the life I have, to not have to escape a country in order to keep safe.
Overall, I think Mary Ellen Mark has made many inspiring images that I want to try and follow in the footsteps of by possibly going to the streets and making images of people. I like the rawness of the images and having no plan until I am in a situation creating more spontaneous images rather than pre-planned and rehearsed ones.
Throughout summer I have been looking into our next topic, documentary photography. For this I wanted to find a way to bring in my own style and ideas without completely ignoring the original concept of documentary photography. To me documentary photography is simply taking photographs of a person’s everyday life, following them around and taking various action shots of all the elements of that person’s day. Documentation is an extremely popular media and I believe it to be something that we as humans have done for millions of years, even from the beginning when cave men made drawings on the stone walls, the carvings made by Egyptians to the stained-glass windows in churches. Documentation almost comes naturally to us. I believe that there is no perfect way to document something, however I do believe that documenting something visually is so much better than simply writing it down. I love watching videos diaries that people create and show the world from their perspective and those who document their day and what they have done. One YouTuber in particular that I really love is Jack Harries who has created a series of short documentary films as he travels the world and discovers new people and new places.
My favourite videos of his
The Rickshaw Run series:
24 hours in series:
The reason I love watching this style of film documentary is because it’s so real and exciting. I like seeing different cultures and people and being able to discover new places even if I am sat watching it over the internet and not actually being physically there. The way these videos are filmed are excellent as Harries created his own Steadicam from a first person perspective. He used a bike helmet, put two weights on the back and his Canon 6D on the front with a view finder too right in front of his face to create the most real reactions possible while seeing the world from his perspective. I really enjoy discovering different cultures and seeing different streets of the world without even having to spend any money at all. Visual documentary is a great thing and, I think, the best way to lock in mementos of our modern world for the future generations to come.
MEXICO. Oaxaca state. Tehuantepec. 1985. Children playing in a courtyard.
HAITI. Port-au-Prince. 1987. Fires set by anti-election provocateurs.
HAITI. Etroits, La Gonave. 1986.
MEXICO. Matamoros. Tamaulipas. 1978.
I find Webb’s images interesting as they are somewhat staged but also documentary. His images lean more towards the tableau side of photography as when he goes into a situation he gets real people and repositions them to make for a more interesting photograph.
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At first I struggled to come up with, what I thought was, an interesting idea. I thought that it would be challenging to come up with a concept and a meaning behind each photograph but then I realised that the whole concept behind this style of photography is not to have some amazingly moving concept or meaning, it is simply a way of remembering. A way to hold on to memories for longer than our minds could ever hold onto. I began to question how interesting ordinary people’s lives were, mainly my own. I thought that my life was very mundane and not worth the documentation but then I realised that we are all different and all unique and it would be very interesting to see how every ordinary person lives their private life. What actually makes us ‘ordinary’? I want to find something different, someone who stands out from the norm. This is when I realised that we are all very different the way we handle and approach things and I think that this alone could be a really excellent exploration of documentary photography. I want to follow ordinary people throughout their day and see how each one of those people do things differently.
I believe that there is a set of ethics that photographers must follow from a humanitarian perspective. Each other their images must be true to its surroundings and not suggest something that is completely false. I think that photography can be very honest as photographers are able to express themselves through their work as well as in documentary photography, getting a true and real message across for the rest of the world to view. Photographers are able to manipulate events by only allowing the spectator to see what they want them to see. This can simply be zooming more into the environment only just allowing what the photographer wants their spectator to see. There has been debates between staged photography and the photojournalists methods of only bare witness. I like both methods and think that as long as the situation isn’t completely fabricated and manipulated to make a person, town or country look bad then I think it is fine to ask your found subjects to stand in certain places in order for the photographer to make the best photo possible. sometimes I think it all depends on what is actually in the image itself, a lot of documentary/photojournalism photography do not focus on composition at all as what is actually going on in the image is the most important thing which is the message that the photographer is trying to get across.
Nowadays photographers have blogs and can share their images all across the internet as well as explaining the situation as background information on their individual blog. I think this is a very honest process and allows photojournalists to tell their side of the story and what was actually going on outside of the image that they took. This makes it easier to avoid backlash and inquiries into why the photographer took the photo instead of helping out in the situation.
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I think that nowadays we all think that only celebrities are worth looking at and that watching them living their ‘perfect’ lives will somehow make up for our very much mundane ones but here is where I think we as humans fail. We shouldn’t be continuously watching the lives of celebrities but we should focus on our own lives and living them the way we want to. I think that there is no such thing as the perfect life and no one on this earth is living it because obviously we all have our ups and downs. I will be exploring different versions of documentary photography including tableaux/staged photographs.
I also like that a lot of documentary photography is in black and white. This is done to make the images more shocking to the spectator and to really maintain focus on the people in the photograph as well as what kind of background the spectator might assume that they come from. I will use this method in a lot of my photographs as a lot of my ideas will look a whole lot better if produced in black and white, however I do have one big[ish] idea that I want to make in colour as I think it will be more interesting as well as keeping a record of the colours and fashions of the modern world.
Below are some images that I have looked at for inspiration –
There are different elements of documentary photography including tableaux photography. This comes from the documentary style but is more commonly known as staged photography. This is were the photographer may find the subjects in an area and re-position them to make for an interesting photograph or they could be completely staged and prepared to bring across a message to the spectator as well as documenting more serious issues of the modern world, for example feminism.
Tableau came from a French phrase meaning ‘living picture’. Here the subject will dress up, possibly using props, using appropriate backgrounds and poses in an attempt to re-stage past/original events. This style of art was going on long before photography came around as was done in paintings many years before. The 1970s saw the rise of a now famous photographer, Cindy Sherman who began to voice her own thoughts as women were now beginning to express themselves more freely in the public eye. I like this style of documentary photography as I am able to stage some interesting images as well as get across important morals that I believe in and I think this style of photography is a great way to make hard hitting images to start people talking and to open up people’s minds on subjects they may have never thought about in the past.
Overall, I don’t think that I have produced enough work which is why I am going to carry on working on this project for a while over summer. I just don’t think that I have done enough of my own work other than the day trip to St Malo, a few experimentation’s inspired by other photographers and one of my own shoots. This week I am going to carry on working on my Invisibility Cloak project to try and produce some more good work as I like the idea behind it and think that there is plenty of room for a lot more development. I want to develop this over the summer as well as get started on some research and planning [and shoots] for the next term of documentary photography which I think will be very interesting. I’m not sure how well I will do on this but I will obviously try my best and get to work over the summer period.
I don’t yet have a favourite final outcome from my individual shoot of Invisibility Cloak as I have quite a few and I still want to create more during summer. I have decided on some final outcomes but I don’t actually prefer any over the other as I think they are all basically on the same level and get my message across. I do however like the stranger ones as it makes the spectator think and wonder what is actually going on in the photograph. Below are four of the images taken from my Invisibility Cloak shoot.
Over the summer I will be working on a new location at the beach and I think I want to develop some experiments on John Baldessari with beach shots, having a load of people on the beach but everyone of them being anonymous with the different coloured dots in front of their faces as well as it being in black and white.
On Friday 10th July Tom and Gareth came into school and for most of the day we created and presented our ideas and final outcomes to them. We got ourselves into groups and I went with Robyn, Tania, Sophie and Jamie. We were happy to go up and present first during the second hour of the day, which we think went quite well and it wasn’t as bad as we had thought it would be. Our presentation was in two halves, one being the artists and the concept of performance photography and the other being our experimentation and final outcomes. We were able to exhibit a variety of our work and it was very interesting to see them next to one another and be able to compare and contrast the different perspectives we each got on the St. Malo day.
When we received our feedback forms we got a lot of positive response and we did fairly well even though we didn’t add everything that we have actually done. This was fun to do and interesting to find out what other people thought of our work as a group. We got a lot of good feedback saying that our ideas and work was well developed which was good for us to see as well as being able to see what we can improve on and change. I did think that maybe this way of testing could have been more effective in the way it was done as we have each done our own individual work and not completely worked together for the entire thing, especially when it came to doing the research. I liked this task and thought that everyone worked really well and all the presentations were well laid out and presented.
slides from group projectslides from group project
For my final ideas I have decided to stick with the movement of Surrealism for this I want to create images with no boundaries. To me surrealism is the creation of a new world, a new form of reality that is why I chose to focus on it. I really like the idea of having no limitations within my work and being able to come up with the craziest ideas imaginable and see how well they work out for me and whether some of the weird ideas from the depths of my brain come across well in the photographs. I think that this applies a lot to challenge as it is something very different to anything that I have ever done before in this photography course, it is a new style of performance. I find it challenging for the model in my images as a lot of the time the ideas in my head stay in my head and I simply direct them and position them without them really knowing whats going on or what is going to be produced, I do explain all my ideas and progress my ideas. It is also challenging in the editing process as I need to layer the images and find new ways to develop my creations in order to make them look good and to come across how i imagine them inside my head. Through my work I plan to communicate a wider message than just a non sense surrealist image, which is what I think a lot of surrealist work has, a concept behind it. For my shoots I am going to name my project Invisibility Cloak, I decided on this name because it makes me think the most and I feel like a spectator would see this title and wonder what it meant and would make them want to read on. I have already done one of the shoots for my project and one of the images that I made reminds me of the Harry Potter films and when Harry receives the cloak of invisibility. Here I got an idea of what the message behind my project was. I think that we live in a world where everyone judges you on your appearance, the first time you meet someone it doesn’t really matter how hard you try to impress them because they’ve already made a judgement on you based upon the clothes you wear, how you’ve done your hair, how your makeup looks etc. Now I imagined what if we lived in a world were you can’t see any of that? And instead of hiding behind our clothes to cover ourselves up we use them as a way to be known to the world for people to see that we are living. I thought this would be a good concept and although it is quite cheesy I like the message behind it and I think it will make for some good images at the end of it all.
My experimentation
My experimentation
My experimentation
My experimentation
I’m taking a chance with this project because I think that a lot of people might not get it and might just think its strange, which is the risk element of this project but I like it and I haven’t seen anything EXACTLY like this before so it will be a good chance for me to show my skills and try and create some really good work. I have looked through many surrealist photographers and in the end I found two that I really like as I think their work is different and imaginative. The first one, my absolute favourite, is a photographer named Christopher Mckenney who specializes in horror surrealist photography, to me this is very interesting and is a huge risk to take because for a lot of people it can be too much. For example, I showed my parents one of his images [man holding gun to head] and they did not like it at all. My mum didn’t really get it and wasn’t keen on it and my dad just hated it because he thought that it was going too far and too much for an image. I explained to them what I thought the image represented [see earlier post] and told them the whole concept behind it. The next photographer who I really like is Brian Oldham as his work is very unique and I think has a deeper message behind it. He sticks to surrealist photography and has work which won’t make people as uncomfortable and Mckenney’s might for some.
Work from Christopher MckenneyWork from Brian Oldham
My Manifesto RULES:
I’m not really keen on having set rules for my shoots as I think that anything can happen and a lot of the time things that are unplanned and unprepared can turn out looking better than those that I have planned weeks in advance. If I had to give myself rules and limitations this is what they would be:
1. Keep track of time, don’t shoot when dark [creates more of a horror mood, which I do not want]
2. Allow models to have their own say and don’t restrict them to following the exact directions that I give to them
3. Remember to take a photo of the bare background before starting to shoot with model to make editing simple
4. bring all props and allow time for preparation before shooting
5. don’t go crazy and make hard images to edit and change
6. stay in woods for first shoot and don’t mix locations [unless it looks good]
7. allow space for spectator to generate their own meaning behind the photographs, don’t make it obvious
8. no black and white images for this shoot [doesn’t allow for enough detail in photographs]
9. remember it’s PERFORMANCE photography so stick to telling some sort of story, performance doesn’t necessarily have to have a live public audience waiting, the spectator can see and image it for themselves when looking through images]
10. there are no limitations in surrealism or performance photography so keep strong ideas and allow them to be expanded
“So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life – real life, I mean – that in the end this belief is lost.” – Andre Breton [1924]
Here are the presentations that we made on Friday to present in front of the class with Tom and Gareth. This was an interesting task to do which ended up going quite well.
For this shoot I took a lot of inspiration from Christopher Mckenney, a surrealist photographer. I really enjoy his work and find it visually interesting. I think that this really gives off a dream-like reality as a lot of his work shows clothing without the person’s bare skin ever being shown. I adopted this idea for my own work and in some photos did a similar thing and others I got some inspiration from his work and put my own little twist on it. I enjoyed editing these too. I thought this style was great as it isn’t something you see every day, its weird and unique, it makes for a really interesting photograph and I like how experimental it is.
I find much of Mckenney’s work very intense and with a deeper meaning but my photographs do not hold the same meaning. My photographs aren’t supposed to make sense, they allow people to broad their minds and to think more in-depth than they usually would to really try to understand what I am trying to portray to them but the real meaning of my surrealism photographs is simply what the spectator thinks of them. There is no right or wrong specific meaning behind them, I want to give room for people to bring their own meaning to my surrealist photographs. Although, if I had to portray meaning in these photographs I would say how in our society we often judge people by what they look like and how they dress. We as humans don’t tend to see someone for their individual personality but we first judge them on their physique and we don’t allow them to first talk to us as we have already got our first impression and opinion of them. I want to say that people are quick to judge and if we only ever saw someone for their physique then we would live in a very different world, an invisible one whereby everyone hides behind their clothing and objects instead of embracing their bodies and accepting others for what they look like and who they are.
An image that particularly caught my eye was the one below.
All rights of this photograph are reserved by Christopher Mckenney
I find this image very hard hitting. The American flag wrapped around the subjects head and the suit the subject is wearing makes me think of the American Dream and that if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. The gun, to me, represents the pressure of being successful has brought on the subject and that the dream isn’t all its made out to be. The fact that the subject is submerged in water makes me think that he possibly doesn’t want to be found when he does shoot himself and the dream. I think this is a great surrealism piece as it isn’t something you would ever expect to see in real life, especially the American flag wrapped tightly around the subjects face. The background looks very dull and gives more of a chilling atmosphere to add the the main prop of the gun in the image. I really enjoy this and think that it is a great visual representation of how people may actually feel and really embodies surrealism. I really enjoy the reflection of the subject in the water which adds more to the image. Overall I think that this is a really great image and can say a lot about the subject and is a great surrealist piece. I really want to explore this movement further and come up with some more ideas with a deeper meaning behind them.
Surrealism Plan/Ideas: Images all in woods/forest
– Subjects legs and shoes only on a log with everything else rubbed out
– Image of subject holding balloon up on a long coil of string. Wearing black hat. Face rubbed out/or balloon covers it [experiment with swapping face of balloon with face of model]
– up close shot of subject with black hat on holding balloon in front of face, everything rubbed out accept balloon, hair and hat
– sheet covers certain parts of body all bare skin/clothing out of sheet is rubbed out
– image of subjects clothing but all bare skin is rubbed out
In this project I was able to imbed chance, change and challenge. It was a bit of a chance to guess how he managed to create him work. For this I took a photo of the background image and then got my subject to stand in front and I positioned them how I wanted them and then in Photoshop layered the images on top of one another and used the eraser tool to create a new image where the bare flesh of the subject isn’t there at all. It was also quite challenging as it isn’t something that I would usually do and a lot of people may not understand it but I did actually really enjoy it and thought that it was successful. The change is also the style of the photograph and my experimentation with surrealist photography which also ties into performance photography. My subject has to stand in various odd positions in order to create a good photograph and to make them as visually interesting as those of Christopher Mckenney.
Here are the images I made as a response to Surrealism photography, specifically Christopher Mckenney.
Invisibility Cloak
For this shoot I went with the theme of not being able to see any bare skin. I like the idea of this as I wanted to portray people as invisible and can only be seen for their clothing. I wondered what it would be like to live in a world where everyone is invisible and whereby instead of hiding behind clothes to cover ourselves we use them as a way to be identified, to express ourselves and to make our presence known.
Brian Oldham is a twenty-two year old fine art photographer from Southern California, currently living in Los Angeles. I came across Oldham’s photographs when searching for surrealism photographs. One particular photograph, which I wrote about in a previous blog post, really caught my attention and led me to read on and find out more about this photographer. I read a quote from Oldham which I think it a great way to express the art of photography: ‘I make art to replace the words I cannot fathom’. I really like this quote as it is so true in photography as a lot of the time photographers will use the visual arts to show their inner emotions or what they are really feeling. They want to create a visual world and representation of something to make the spectator feel something and to try and to challenge the way we think as a society.
I like Oldham’s work as it really makes me think of a dream-like reality and does come under the surrealist photography movement. I like how unique a lot of his photographs are, most of which I have never seen anything like them before. This is what I want my outcomes to look like but I think it will take a bit more time to get my ideas together and to carry on working on this over the summer period.
I find a lot of Oldham’s work very unique and dream-like. These photos make me wonder what is going on and how he managed to do certain things such as the fire on the arms of the male and female, possibly in editing or possibly both of them wearing a special glove in which can take fire. I think that his work is very artistic and really embodies surrealism photography as many spectators may not understand what is going on or why the subject is doing what they are doing. I like how there is not one photo of his that is the same. Each is unique to its own and adds more and more to his work.
Beautiful Lies
This piece of work is entitled ‘Beautiful Lies’ which I think is amazing as it puts focus on an important matter about our earth and what we are doing to it. Manmade objects and large corporate factories adding more and more pollution into the air and ruining our earths most beautiful skies and natural clouds and blue skies. Instead we are faced with polluted grey skies covered in grey manmade clouds. I really like this photograph as it is an environmental movement which is something I feel strongly about and think that we should change in order to keep it alive and to protect the natural world we live in instead of trying to create a corporate jungle filled with skyscrapers and harsh chemicals covering the world’s atmosphere. I like the message Oldham brings behind a lot of his photographs as I think they mean a lot more than just a dream. Maybe he has a dream that one day we will actually see that beautiful blue sky in real life without having to dream about it or visualise it inside our heads.
This image really interests me as I interpret it in two ways. The first way is someone falling out of the sky from the clouds above. They could possibly represent a fallen angel or even someone who has been rejected by the sky. On the other hand, I also see it as someone being taken up to the sky. This could be by aliens, much like you would expect in a dream or as a conspiracy theory. The subject could have been taken from a spiritual being or it could even be magic like something from the Harry Potter films. I really like this as you can interpret it in many ways and you can see different scenarios rather than there just being one clear message and meaning behind the image, it is open for interpretation. I like this work and I want to experiment with different methods of photography like this and to create new unique photographs that haven’t ever been seen before.
This is one of my favourite of Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills. There isn’t one thing in particular that I like about the image, I just enjoy looking at it. I love the amount of books everywhere showing that the subject is in a library somewhere. An effect element of this image in the direction that the subject is looking as she looks up the sky over her shoulder as if looking for even more books whilst choosing some already. I think the idea of mimicking the cliches women faced in the late 1970s an excellent documentation of the way society used to think and being able to compare it to our modern day society and how much or how little has changed over the past years. I like that all of the film stills are in black and white, this is largely to do with the type of cameras that were around in 1979 as they were all black and white, however I still think that it makes the images more interesting and allows the spectator something to maintain focus on rather than dotting around the whole image looking at all of the different colours of the books and what the subject is wearing. Something that I also enjoy about these film stills is that in every one of them Sherman is the subject. She seems to create a brand new character in every photograph and each time they are faced with a different scenario in a different environment, which is a great way of documenting what places in America looked like in the late 70s compared to what they all look like nowadays.
