ABOUT:

Francesca Stern Woodman was born in 3rd April 1958 and died on the 19th January in 1981, and was an American photographer and was best known for her work based around black and white images using her self in self portraits or a female model to represent herself. In her images they were often blurred this was due to the movement of the model and the long shutter speed, and the subject would often start to merge with the background and surroundings of the image or faces and appearance would often be fairly obscure. From her personal life its important to consider her struggles that she experiences, in the late 1980, Woodman began to shows signs of depressions which was due to the consistent failure of her work to attract attention which was produced from a broken relationship, this was where she survived her fist suicide attempt in the Autumn of 1980 when in Manhattan. Tragically on January 1981 Woodman jumped out of a loft window at the age of twenty-two and died. ‘An acquaintance wrote, “things had been bad, there had been therapy, things had gotten better, guard had been let down”. ‘ Davison, Peter. Girl, seeming to disappear. Atlantic Monthly, 2000 May;285(5):108–111.

MOOD BOARD:

Visual:

Francesca Woodman’s images are always portrayed with such a strong once looking at them. In this image you see an empty room which some what looks dirty with the walls being marked. The room gives off a cold feeling and lonely feeling with the image of the woman, doing what looks like reaching down to the floor. However her whole figure is distorted and blurred so you are unable to see any feature of her body or face. Although her shoes are still in fair quality this will be down to the fact she hadn’t yet moved when the photo was being taken. By being able to see her shoes it implies a woman is being photographed due to the high heels that are worn. The woman is positioned to the left of the image and what feels fairly manipulated to be presented as far away from the camera right up near the wall.

Technical:

In this image there is a clear representation of shadows being produced this could have been effected by natural daylight shining in through the window. The main focus of the image is the woman who is located on the fair left and positioned far back at the wall from the camera. It’s clear that for this image to have the appearance it does the camera must have had an extremely low shutter speed in order to create the blurriness of the figures movement. To me this image is displaying a mixture of texture with the wall and floor almost feeling gritty and unsmooth compared to the figure who is over ‘’smooth’’ in the sense that there are no lines or clear outline to the woman creating a distorted feeling to the image.

Conceptual:

How does this image make you feel? The image present the feeling of loneliness this is represented through the feeling of the rustic empty and oversized room. With then only one distorted figure cramped in the order. Her movement almost like she’s trying to break out from that corner and start to spread out. The blurred figure gives the feeling of rushing that she was moving fast, possibly wanting to get away from something- the loneliness?

Contextual:

From research it is clear that Francesca Woodman ad a hard and what she felt dark. With loving photography so much and no one else appreciating it like she did. The idea of the loneliness in this image could be portrayed as Woodman emotions of her own work the idea that she was alone with no one else to look and view her work.