Artist Inspirations

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.