For my personal study I looked at Dorothea Lange who was a documentary photographer who worked for The Farm Security Administration (FSA) which was Initially created as the Resettlement Administration (RA) in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty and make people aware of what was going on. I am going to look further into this by researching Walker Evans who also worked for the FCA.
Walker evens
I want my work to be – “literate, authoritative, transcendent”.
Walker Evans is a documentary photographer who is most well known for his work while at the FCA which was documenting the effects that The Great Depression had on people. During 1935 Walker photographed in the South of America. In 1936, he was sent by Fortune Magazine on a project to Hale County, Alabama where he stayed with three tenant white families photographing them during the depression. The photographs he took were not published by Fortune Magazine but later in 1941 these photographs were published and considered to be a ground breaking book called ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’. This book included detailed accounts of the three farming families living in rural poverty. These photographs like the ones of Dorothea Lange were used as ‘ icons’ to represent poverty and the depression era in America. Walker Evans continued to work for the FCA until 1938, he then became an independent photographer with his own first exhibition held later that year at The Museum of Modern Art.
I think that Walker Evans photographs particularly the photographs from the Alabama series achieve what most documentary photographer want. I think they look very raw and credible. As well as interesting. Being used to seeing portraits of people in a very glamourous way, looking at some of Walker’s photographs make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I think they portray the true likeliness of the person, although most of his photographs look as if they gave been staged I think they still manage to capture something genuine although I can not pin point what this is.
Examples of portraits from ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’
John Baldessari is an American conceptual artist and has over the years created images distorting people’s faces making sure that the spectator does not see their faces. I really like Baldessari’s work as it is unusual and makes spectators think more about the image and what the subject is doing rather than the features on the subjects face. I like this style of distorting the face or making it less clear for the spectator to be able to see, it intrigues me more and makes me wonder about it. In my own work I want to distort people’s faces to almost make them anonymous and so the spectator won’t be able to recognize anyone and so they don’t focus on their facial features but instead on the meaning conveyed in the image itself.
John Baldessari photography
John Baldessari photography
John Baldessari photography
Christopher Mckenney is a horror surrealist photographer from Pennsylvania who makes strange images that don’t often show a person’s full body. They tend to be covered by something or parts of their body have been rubbed out. I really like Mckenney’s style of photography as it is so unique and interesting to look at. His work makes me think of nightmares and a lot of it reminds me of the devil, his work is dark and twisted. Something about that really intrigues me and makes me want to look at more of his work and find out the meanings behind his work too. I want to adopt his unique style of photography with rubbing out parts of people’s bodies and features to make for more interesting photographs.
Christopher Mckenney photography
Christopher Mckenney photography
Christopher Mckenney photography
Linda Blacker is a fine art photographer from Chelmsford, United Kingdom. Her work is very put together and staged down to the last point with extra attention to detail as well as her models almost always being completely painted head to toe. Blacker’s photographic work is very fantasy based and images are usually touched up in editing to make them more perfect. I don’t find Blacker’s work very interesting but I like the idea of using a more conceptual approach using paints etc. I also like the use of making the model not look like themselves, just another way of distorting the face and body.
Linda Blacker photography
Linda Blacker photography
Linda Blacker photography
David Hilliard is a documentary photographer. He works making panoramic style images. I love this style of work as it brings in more of the surrounding environment and gives the spectator just that little bit more to see and to look at. Hilliard’s work is so visually pleasing as his images are always so bright and clear. I like to just look through his images and see how colourful they are with the natural beauty of lakes, flowers and plants. His work is interesting to me as I feel that a lot of it is staged as he would need to get the subject to hold their position while he makes his panoramic images.
David Hilliard photography
David Hilliard photography
David Hilliard photography
Orvar Atli is a landscape photographer and has been a mountain adventurer since his teenage years. He usually photographs in Icelandic mountains and captures the raw beauty of the places that he visits. I love his style of work, I think it is very beautiful and really captures nature at its best moments. I want to experiment with this idea and possibly add some panoramic images into my own work too to add to the effect.
Orvar Atli photography
Orvar Atli photography
Orvar Atli photography
John Baldessari – distorting the face
Christopher Mckenney – rubbing out peoples features
Linda Blacker – staged + dressed up models
David Hilliard – panoramic style images
Orvar Atli – how images look [visuals]
Subject | Topic
After thinking about the exam project for a while I have decided to focus my photographs on the environment and make surrealist images of how our society treats the natural world and show in a more theatrical way how it really is effecting everyone not just humans. I did think about carrying on with something in the realm of feminism but I want to show that I have more to offer and that I believe in further developing different photographic skills as well as following a range of movements. I will be using myself in some image as I have previously done just because I find it fun to experiment and easier to mess around with when it’s just me doing it. I aim to incorporate some aspects of feminism and the ideal of female beauty which is so often pushed towards women. I want to maintain the focus however on the environment and to make my images as interesting as possible. I think that surrealism is a really great photographic method to follow as after researching many surrealist photographers I have found their styles to be so unique and interesting as well as all seeming to follow the theme of nature and how humans are changing this for the worst. I love how beautiful surrealist photographers make their images, making the spectator really feel like they are in some sort of dream.
Style of Images
For this exam subject of Truth, Fantasy or Fiction I have decided to really take all three elements in different ways. Ultimately, my images are a reflection of our society and how it really does treat the natural world, I want my images to be a reflection of the truth. Something I read about photography was that none of it is true, it is how the photographer sees the world and their own personal interpretation of it. This is what I see the world as and that is what I want to focus in on. Something that I spotted in the exam booklet was a quote from an art critic, Charles Baudelaire, who claimed that artists must be truly faithful to their own nature. I like this as it is so true that artists tend to make photographs from their own minds and will come up with concepts and ideas to express as part of their own self expression. The fantasy aspect of my work comes from the surrealist images that I am going to make, which I think merges well with the title of fiction too as my work is more fantasy based, it isn’t real or necessarily true. The work that I am going to create is a reflection of how as a society we neglect nature and take over it without a second thought. How we as a society tend to think nothing bad is going to happen if we cut down the only remaining trees in our neighborhood. For me it’s all about getting my message across and sharing that message with a wider audience, with my spectators. I want them to be able to understand nature and how badly we as humans are effecting this natural and beautiful world.
When/how are they going to be created?
I want to start making images this week and have been planning on how I would actually be taking them. PhotoShop is going to act as a key element in my photographs as I want to focus on distorting the face and not allowing the spectator to see the subjects face as well as manipulating some images to make them more surrealist. I want to create images similar to the ones that I have done in the past by rubbing out peoples bare flesh. It will make my images more interesting and conceptual. I will need to prepare a lot for making these images and create some sort of plan to get everything prepared before actually going out and doing the shoots. I know how I want most of my images to look exactly and need to plan my way around actually being able to make these images.
This week I plan to start getting some shoots together and start producing some work towards my photo book. I definitely want to create a photo book as I have a strong idea of what kind of images that I want to produce for it as well as a front and back cover. I have begun some experimentation and have brainstormed most of my key ideas. I feel that I have enough ideas currently to make an effective book and want to add to the book as I go to see whether or not I need to make anymore images or whether some need to change to fit in with the aesthetic of the rest of the images. I have decided to focus in on surrealism within photography as I have, in the past, really enjoyed this topic and found it more fun and exciting with outcomes looking more unique. I want to be able to put my own stamp on my images and make them stand out so experimentation with surrealism will really benefit my project. As previously stated in a blog post I am going to focus my work on the environment and how we as a society treat our natural world. I really feel passionate about the environment and the way that it is treated and want to enlighten people, to get my spectator to think more carefully about how they treat that environment. I’ve come up with a few interesting ideas that I need to do some more figuring out about as I want to make them as good as they can be. I have decided to make all of my images portrait as I want to make my photo book portrait and make everything look complete and together. I am also thinking of making some landscape images that can be used as double page spreads just to add more dimensions to my work and to make it more appealing visually for my spectator to look at.
Shoot 1 | Ideas
For this shoot I want to go around the streets of Jersey and take extreme close up photographs of rubbish that has been left around. I want to make the images more abstract and close up to make them more interesting and to add in layers to my photo book. I want to add a few of these images into my photo book as extras to bring in the more real and truthful side of our society. I came up with this idea a few weeks ago as I looked outside my window and just saw an abundance of rubbish all around my area. I was so frustrated that I went down and picked up all the rubbish and threw it in a bin that was about 5 steps away from where the rubbish had been left. I just don’t understand how people can be so lazy that they are unable to walk over to a bin to get rid of their waste. I want to bring this to light in this shoot and make those close up photographs purely to make the images more abstract and interesting rather than just photographing a boring piece of rubbish left on the ground. This is quite experimental as it might not work out as well as I am hoping that it will but I want to try it out and see whether or not it does work out.
average rubbish photos [inspiration]Shoot 2 | Ideas
For this shoot I want to make surrealist images similar to the ones that I have previously made in the past. I really like this style and want to experiment with it further. For these images I will take a photograph of the plain background of the woods and then another with the subject stood in front of the camera to make it easier when editing and rubbing out any bare flesh that is on show. This time when editing I want to make my images very sharp and spend more time on getting the edges sharp and making it look as professional as it can be. I also want to make images like this in town and again have a plain background image with the next one being one filled with people with their faces and any bare flesh being rubbed out. I really want to experiment with this idea as I find it so interesting and unique, making the spectator wonder what is going on and why they can only see their clothing. I think that these images will work well and I want to use some of them as double page spreads in my photo book. This is something I really enjoy doing as it is different and strange making it more interesting for the spectators to look at and interpret.
previous surrealism work
previous surrealism work
previous surrealism work
Shoot 3 | Ideas
I have an idea for this third shoot but I am unsure whether or not it is going to work out. I want to try it and experiment and to just try it out and if it doesn’t work out it isn’t a big deal. Basically I want to use the woods to create a sort of thrown for Mother Nature. I want to dress my subject up as Mother Nature and have a strong image of her looking into the camera. This is just to add another layer to my photo book to make it more intriguing as well as adding in the fantasy aspect of the exam theme to my work. I think that this experimentation could work out really well if I organise it and plan everything well. I really want to make this particular image/set of images mystical and really interesting to look at. I think that this is going to be one of the most challenging shoots for me to do but I if I organise everything and plan it all out before hand I think that I will be able to do it successfully.
