Website: https://studentpages.scad.edu/~djones36/gasmask.html
Daniel Ray Jones is a commercial photographing who is working towards his Bachelor degree of Fine Arts and the Savannah College of Art and Design.
He is native to the Pacific Northwest, he lived in Greater Seattle for 20 years before moving to Savannah, Georgia.
He has created a project using gas masks. He places his models in eerie looking places with darker clothing but also clown clothing and photographs them.
His work is very dark and haunting but he adds a humor element to his photos by adding a clown wig but this could also work in the sense that it adds more tension and makes the photos much scarier. He does mostly night shoots as they are much more dramatic however his images do not relate directly to my work as i am trying to avoid creating scary looking images as that is not the point of my project. However, i am planning on doing a night shoot but i do not want to create images like these as i am photographing my models from afar and not so up close and personal. One primary composition which i have noticed with his photographs is that they are very anonymous, we are unable to see the models eyes in any of the photographs he has taken which is the opposite to what i want to achieve.
This photographs relate slightly to one i have taken in which my model is partially hiding behind a tree and is hidden by twigs and branches. I like this photo as everything is very dark and gloomy but the mask draws your attention to the model who’s body you can barely see which makes it look like the mask is floating in the air. However, i do think that the model may look better right in the middle of the grass as it would create a frame for your eyes to focus on and it would consider the rule of three. The object in the background is distracting but i think that Daniel’s work is not meant to be perfectly composed as it is abstract photography in my eyes and i think that is what attracts my attention. The anonymity works well in this photo as it makes the viewer wonder what kind of person is underneath and what they are doing. I like these types of photos as they allow your mind to imagine what could be happening. I also like how Daniel combines both Tableaux and Abstract photography to create unusual images which catch the eye.
This images is very sinister and feels like you are being hunted in a sense but this is just my personal view, as again the scenario of the image makes it a mystery and allows the viewers mind to try imagine what could be happening. I very much like photos which leave it up to the viewer to decide whats happening, as many different stories could come up and all could be correct. Daniel did very well to mask the identity of the model even when so up close but this could be done by tinting the windows in the gas mask. The background is very interesting because you cannot tell what it is, for me it is trees with a bright skin behind and the highlights in editing turned up high. This image creates a lot of tension as we cannot see the other half of the mask but we not that there must be one and the same with the models body. This again makes the viewers mind create an image in their head of what the model would look like which makes the image feel more personal for each viewer.