Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Michelle Sank has been living and working in England since 1987, after leaving her birth country in 1978. Her work focuses on the issues about social and cultural diversity and the challenges within.

Her work have been exhibited and published in England, Europe, Australia and Mexico, South Africa and the USA, and are held in collections in the UK, Channel Islands and the USA.

When it comes to her images, they almost always feature a person as the subject, capturing them in ways which portray their personality and what they’re like as a person. They’re always centered in the image despite what angle the picture is taken from.

Visual :

In this image you can see a young girl in a bright orange coat crouched down on grass. The buildings behind her are prominent yet don’t steal the attention away from the person in the center of the image.

The colours in this image are bright and contrasting, the eye catching orange of her coat standing out between the vivid green grass and the blue sky. The angle the image was taken seems to be taken from a lower angle, just lower than the girl herself, to really capture her in the image and to make sure she is the center of attention.

Contextual :

This image is from a collection called ‘Teenagers Belfast’, done by Michelle Sank. These portraits were commissioned by Belfast Exposed Gallery, in Belfast, Northern Island. This was made to empower these teenagers with a sense of individuality and to locate them in environments which don’t reference the political struggled or past emblems of this. Sank wanted to portray these young people as normal teenagers, positive aspects of a new and developing society, but also being able to portray the culture through the clothes, buildings, light and the landscapes.

Technical :

The lighting used in this image is natural, it doesn’t look too bright or too fake on her clothes and the fact that it’s been taken outside also proves this. The distance where the image was taken from isn’t too far as to not have her be the main aspect of the image, yet it’s not so close that it’s not giving her her own space. It gives the image the perfect amount of background to go with the person in the middle.