For my final photoshoot I have been deeply inspired by the work of Rosanna Jones, who bleaches, burns, and rips up images for a fresh take on fashion photography.
The subjects of Rosanna Jones’s photographs are usually very obscured, with models faces covered by blotches of colour or torn out of the image altogether. The nature of Jones’s images holds personal meaning for herself as a photographer, who uses her work to explore notions of embodiment and visual identity. Some of her work includes:
During an interview Rosanna states: “It has become a hugely therapeutic process for me,” Jones says of her practice, especially the series Destroy, which prominently features ripped up portraiture. “The images I produce definitely reflect my own personal life. I guess you could say it’s a little sadistic to enjoy bleaching, tearing, scouring, and outright burning away the subject’s eyes, face, or other body parts, but there is definitely a close connection between Destroy and my relationship to my own body and mind.”
PHOTOGRAPH ANALYSIS:
CONTEXTAL/CONSEPTUAL:
Jones’s work brings attention to portrait photography’s central conflict—the idea that taking a person’s photo can immortalise them, by bestowing fame upon them, but it can also be an act of violence. Fashion photography, which frequently exploits the female body, is perhaps the most clear example of this defiance. The subjects in Jones’s photographs are beautiful, but her interventions make them aggressive in a way that portrays the potential violence of the camera.
TECHNICAL:
The lighting of this image is generally quite light, clearly taken with a soft studio lighting setup. You can see this orange sepia lighting could have due to a filter over the lights in the studio. The image looks to have been reasonably exposed, with a moderate contrast between the backdrop of the image and the model herself. The shadows in the image seem to be edited wit ha light haze, or as if the highlights and shallows have been edited with an orange hue.
The aperture of the photograph cannot be exactly determined as the background id barely visible, however the model is in focus. The shutter speed seems to be average, maybe 1/125 as the image seems to be regularly exposed, but also quite focused and sharp. The ISO also seems to be low as the image was taken in a studio, so probably around ISO200.
VISUAL:
The image shows woman wearing a black turtleneck with her hair up, looking into the camera. The colour of the image is tinted with a peach/orange filter. There seems to be a fade to the image that has an orange tint, as the shadows and highlights seem to have a sort of sepia glow. There seems to be some form in the photograph as there is some difference in shadows and highlights on the models body. The editing of the photograph is interesting as there seems to be cut outs of different positions of the model (almost same photograph) stuck back onto the original image, altering the composition of facial features. It explores the idea that the visual identity of someone can be altered.