Looking more closely and in depth into the background of my initial idea for my investigation it essential to continue looking back at my questions and statement of intent that helps guide the study and overall investigation of my projected. Through this, it is now essential to note the main photographer that I got my inspiration from that aided me to follow up on the deeper meaning and genre of dance. Born on November 28th, 1904 and passing away February 14th, 1984, Gjon Mili is a extensively influential photographer that was a flourishing influencer to the type of photography he produced, known for using stroboscopic instruments to help capture a sequence of actions in one photograph. Furthermore, his life dedicated to photography allowed him to be one of the first to tamper with electronic flash and stroboscopic light to create images that had a more scientific background to the creation. Many of his notable images revealed the beautiful intricacy and graceful flow of movement too rapid or complex for the naked eye to discern. Gjon Mili’s highlight of his career that aided his popularity and well-deserved credit was his work published by Life, in which he photographed artists such as world-renowned painter Pablo Picasso. Mili was a photographer I wanted to use to investigate for my study and potentially be my inspiration for my images that I produced, due his simplistic approach creating such astonishing outcomes, as well as this factor he has done a lot of photography were his has capture dancers specific movements; instead of just the specific movement he presented the steps towards and after that certain movement. Mili once said ‘Time could be truly be made to stand still. Texture could be retained despite sudden violent movement.’ To me this clearly demonstrate his approach to photography the concept of time and movement being projected in his images. Here is one of my favourite images that he has produced using stroboscopic technique to allows each movement made to be capture and represented; this image is a multiple exposure of Alicia Alonsa (vintage sliver gelatin print).
From this image is it clear there is a deep technical consideration to be made and highlighted; firstly, there is a strong artificial lighting being produced from the left of the image and illuminating the dancing’s main features in each particular movement to be captured. In addition, the positioning of the camera is pretty much straight on which gives the illusion of being on par with the flooring which helps the ballet shows on the dancer have a significant standout feature which additionally aids the point of the images; the image has high intensity with a strong detailed focus on each aspect of the dancer in each position. Overall form the texture of the images it suggests a low light sensitivity due to the lack of graininess being shown in the photograph, as well as the colouring of the image which are warmer forms of black and white shades producing a more emotional point of view of the image being transformed though each aspect of each position of the dance move being captured. On the other hand, you have visual aspect of the photograph to consider as previously mentioned thighs the use of the black and white shades used in the image it aids the feeling of a darker representation of the photograph to be exhibited; alongside the view of a 3D image due to the shadows of the dancers which help highlight this point.
Evidently though the technique Mili used to create this image there is a visual aspect of repetition of the image, seen through the repetition of the dance with a slightly different position as she moves through the whole movement. In terms of lines you have the strong lines being formed through the dancer herself through the specific positioning of her body and her gradual arm movement which creates a different point of view and overall positioning in each step and section made.
Contextually the image is pretty clearly showing the motion of a dancer, the dancer in the image is Alicia Alonsa who was Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and chorographer whose company became Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1955; this additional information aids the point of the image and the actual emotion, the genuine passion that the dancer has for the movement, which is believe to be very well represented in the image by Mili through the specific positioning and layout of the ballerina dancer. When investigating this type of photography it is very important to consider the original type of work that had been produced that would have influenced the work produced by Gjon Mili. Jules Marey (1830-1904) created an invention using simple but elegant addition to the use of his camera that allowed him to record the flow of animal and human movement on one single photographic plate; a rotating disk with small slots cut into it at regular intervals was spun in front of an open camera lens. A person walking in front of this apparatus would be in a different position each time the open slot on the disk allowed an image to register. the results showed human movement in time and space. Marey called this new type fo photography chronophotography which in terms means ‘time photography’. When looking at his work it is visually aesthetic along side puzzling however, Marey always stated that he was not focusing on the aesthetic view; he said that he was focusing on the way in which they isolated the imperceptible phrases of movement. He went on to aim to continue improving this process to begin to avoid and eliminate overlays of the moving figures. In technical terms he created a camera in which light-sensitive materials moved with each exposure. Below is an image produced by Jules Marey:
Now that I have investigated the contextual understanding of Gjon Mili’s work it is essential to begin to compare and analysis differences and comparisons of the two pieces. The two pieces definitely show a close comparison in terms of the idea of representing each different movement and seeing the idea of a movement in one whole image, much like Marey’s, Mili shows the overall dance movement and each position creating and overall picture through the genre of dancing. However one difference between the two pieces of photography is the technique used to create the illusion of the overall movement of the image, Gjon uses stroboscopic light to create this interpretation of the original work, when comparing with Marey who used a rotating disk with small slots cut into it at regular intervals was spun in front of an open camera lens to form a movement picture.