2 sisters who have a strong connection with one another. The eldest is 17 and the youngest is 7. The eldest is growing up and moving away so she slowly fades out of the pictures with her younger sister. To make it less repetitive I will also add studio portraits of the eldest sister.
NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?
Images > photo shoots / studio photos
Texts > Poems / quotes / single words about moving on / away
AUDIENCE: Who is it for?
Most image makers tend to overlook the experience of the viewer. Considering who your audience is and how they may engage with your photo-zine is important factor when you are designing/ making it.
Teenagers / young adults who are moving on with their lives will be able to understand the effects of them leaving upon loved ones especially younger siblings.
A Russian artist who primarily focused in photography, topography, design and architecture.
He helped develop suprematism, an art movement focused on basic geometric forms painted in a limited range of colours, for the soviet union.
He greatly influenced the constructivist movement which was abstract and austere art, aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space.
El Lissitzky began his career illustrating Yiddish children’s books in an attempt to promote Jewish culture in Russia
In 1921 when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany.
On his deathbed in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet Propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany.
Racism : Prejudice / discrimination against a person or people of a certain ethnic background.
Black Lives Matter is an organized movement advocating for non-violent civil disobedience in protest against incidents of police brutality against African-American people. The official movement started in 2013, however major black rights protests have been dated back to 1955 with the Rosa Parks incident where she refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person. Also the “I Have a Dream” public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States.
Colonialism
Colonialism: A country looking to extend its reign over other people and territories with Economic, political and cultural dominance.
Portuguese mariners began to ferry African slaves from 1500s onwards until the abolition of slavery by the British in 1833 somewhere close to 12 – 15 million black people had been trafficked. However, before Britain abolished slavery, by the early 18th century, they became the world’s leading slave trading nation. It’s estimated that British ships were responsible for the forced transportation of at least 2-3 million Africans in that century.
Patzsch was a German photographer who worked mainly on The New Objectivity. The New Objectivity was a movement in German art that began during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. Patzsch was born in 1897 and by 1928, he had published his most famous book ‘Die Welt ist schön‘ (The world is beautiful). The work of New objectivity art showed an unsentimental reality and focussed on the objective world. Patzsch’ work followed these trends as seen below. He also uses heavy tones and contrast in his photos all often with natural light.
This image is an example of Patzsch use of light to create an interesting shadow from each of these different glasses. As apparent with his other images the subject in this image is place in front of a plain, light background and the contrast is high drawing attention to the shadows. This image contrasts the white sky with the dark industrial structure. It also shows different tones with darker shadowed parts of the structure and lighter areas. This image shows very high contrast to the point where these flowers appear to be alone or even floating as you cannot see any thing holding them up. I also believe it is strange to put a photo of flowers in black and white as they are known for their colour and beauty. I believe this is a perfect example of what The New Objective stood for.
I cut equal squares out of charlies face using grid-lines on Photoshop. I cut enough squares to still have a clear original image and create a new mixed image.
Next time i will use smaller squares to make the original image even clearer and use a lighter image as the light/dark contrast makes the new image difficult to see.
Another style similar to Kensuke Koike is the cutting up and replacing / moving of parts of the face. To put my own twist on this style i have looked at the idea of split identities. I have shown this with the lighter and darker sides of these photos and by cutting and flipping parts of the face so that they are on the wrong side. However, of all my work this is the most personal and the furthest from Koike’s work whilst maintaing his style.
This idea of split identities has a duplicitous meaning. The more obvious one is the idea that everyone has a light and a dark side, positive and negative. However the more hidden meaning is the idea that one person can have multiple personalities, a disorder related with memory loss. I used ordinary people who are not officially diagnosed with this disorder as it can be very hard to tell if someone has it or not especially to them selves. Having two or more personalities ties in with identity as you could theoretically then have two or more identities within the same culture, group or society. I used simple 1 point lighting to get a fine distinction from light and dark.
Loss of Identity
I then decided to use Koike’s loss of identity style by deforming and distorting people’s faces to the point where you can see there was a face there but it looks completely different and surreal. I started with my friend in his room at home to give a sense of his identity within his own house. I included certain decorations from his room that mean a lot to him but wouldn’t mean anything to most other people.
Final Image
Kensuke Koike
With my final image I cut out equal rectangles from charlies face and flipped them horizontally to distort his face. I also noticed his face now appears as if he could be frowning which in actual fact is not the case. I also used this effect on the drawing in the left of the photo to make a distinct connection between charlie and the drawing. I made sure that the letters on his wall were visible but not readable to emphasise the importance of them but only to him. Personally I like the idea that this image is subjective to the viewer as it could have multiple meanings. He could be a young teenager who is yet to develop his true identity or maybe a young adult who has lost his identity.
Finally, I used Koike’s found imagery technique to create my final three images. I looked through books and photos in my house and found multiple portraits and headshots to use. I distorted their faces by creating 3 dimensional shapes out of their eyes, mouth’s and noses and then placed these new shapes back over their faces.
3D shapes
Two images i created that i will not be using are:
I will not be using the first image as i feel it doesn’t quite depict the meaning of losing your identity as well as my other images did. I do not think the shape i created worked very well and overall he appears happy and i struggled to hide that as i believe a loss of identity is not a happy thing.
I was happy with my second image as i used lights and darks and shadows to create the 3d object. However, once again i do not feel that it truly depicts a sense of loss of identity.
Final Images
These are my final three images i created for the identity project. These images are similar to Koike’s but also have a historical reference to Hannah Hoch. This is because unlike Koike I have re positioned the 3d shapes so that they appear to be matched up with where they were originally from. For example with my triangular shape I have matched the eye line again but flipped the eyes vertically so that at a glance the image appears normal but with a further look you see that it is distorted. This is similar to Hoch’s work using other faces or objects the appear similar to body features. Originally i did not intend for this as I was going to make a separate shoot in the style of Hoch’s work, however i preferred this mashup of both their works. I also chose these images based on the time period they were taken from and the subjects themselves. All of these images are of white women from the 60’s to 80’s. The idea behind the loss of their identity is that the view of women between the time these photos were taken and present day has changed drastically. During the time period these photos were taken it is likely that these women faced strong sexism towards them, effecting their jobs, salaries, politics, culture and much more. Whereas, today women have much more equal rights allowing them to develop an identity true to them selves.
Kensuke Koike is a Japanese Modern & Contemporary artist who was born in 1980. His work was featured in several exhibitions at key galleries and museums. He looks at the idea of identity, primarily using portraits. Koike uses found imagery from shops, archives and books. He edits these images analogue and is known for distorting bodies and faces in simplistic but effective ways.
Eg.
I like his style of work as it has a message that one photo can have multiple meanings. His work conveys this message as most of his images he has created have been all from one single photo. I especially like his 3 dimensional cube photo (second down) as it is made all from 2 dimensional shapes he has cut yet effectively distorts the face.
Image analysis
Technical – There appears to be a single point of light in this image creating a shadow on the left of the face. This would make the creation of the cube easier as you already have some natural shadows to give it depth. Visual – This is a flat 2 dimensional black and white image with an illusion of a 3 dimensional cube in the middle. This effect creates a very confusing image especially when viewing it printed out in 2d. Conceptual – This photo is meant to emphasise the idea of loss of identity. Koike has done this by distorting this mans face the perfect amount to make him un recognisable but still able to see his facial features
the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.
Gender identity
personal sense of one’s own gender. Gender identity can correlate with assigned sex at birth or can differ from it.
Social identity
a person’s sense of who they are based on different groups such as social class, family, friends or even groups like sports teams.
Cultural identity
feeling of belonging to certain groups such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture.
Geographical identity
An individual or group’s sense of attachment to the country, region, city, or village in which they live.
Political identity
Race and economic class can effect political identity. For many people supporting a political party isn’t simply a voting decision.
