Carolle Benitah

French Moroccan photographer Carolle Bénitah, who worked for ten years as a fashion designer before turning to photography in 2001, explores memory, family and the passage of time.  Often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, Bénitah seeks to reinterpret her own history as daughter, wife, and mother.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Benitah has a series of photographs called “I Will Never Forget You”

Jamais je ne T’oublierai

She describes her family photographs as “Ghosts who follow me quietly, and I take them over to build an imaginary family album in order to repair oblivion.” …..”I am rebuilding the memory of my family that I missed, I am inventing another one made to measure where I resurrect all the ancestors who have disappeared, the territories that I did not know and that have been praised to me.”

My edits inspired by Benitah

• 

• 

• 

• 

Benitah repairs old family photos and rebuilds a memory that is missed, in her work she resurrects ancestors who have passed. I took inspiration from her work as I related to her loss of a loved one. Benitah covers the people in the pictures who will never be forgotten. She also covered parts of people related to the passed relatives to resemble that, because they died, they’ve lost a part of themselves as well.

Carolle often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, I took a technological approach when inspired by her work. I had my old family photograph as the background and the yellow background as another layer, used a lasso tool to select the part I wanted textured then replaced it with yellow to represent who had passed and how the family relatives notice they’re missing and the big gap in their family and their heart.

I chose to have my photo in black and white, partly to match Benitah’s work and to give it an old fashioned look, however I also chose to have it greyscale to represent the loss of brightness and colour that the passed relative gave the family’s life. She covers parts of her photos to identify absent memories, the image below was taken before i was born, therefore a time I cannot remember.

• 

• 

• 

I particularly liked this image of Benitah’s as she creates the sense that all family members of the passed lost their identities when someone significant died, like they’ve lost a part of themselves. Her project “jamais je ne t’oublierai” creates the feeling of despair and sorrow which her viewers can empathise towards. Benitah’s photos are a good way of bringing back happy memories of times when the family was unite. The use of black and white emphasises the way the families life has lost it’s colour now that they’ve lost that one person. The greyscale tones also vary from light to dark and the contrast emphasises the highlights and shadows in the photograph.

The distinguishing character or personality of an individual defines identity.  Identity is who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world and the characteristics that define you. How we define ourselves is a self-representation of our culture, interests, relationships and efficacy in doing the things that matter to us. Our sense of identity and belonging is impacted by various factors, including our experiences, community and our physical environment.

Identity also helps us to make decisions and to know how to behave. We’re constantly faced with complex decisions and circumstances. With no prior beliefs about what we should do, weighing all the options and making a decision would be near impossible. Having a sense of what kind of person you are makes it much easier to decide how you should behave, and to have confidence in your choice between options. This makes decisions that would otherwise be agonising virtually effortless. However, strong identities can also be dangerous. The drive to protect your identity can be overpowering. Sometimes we can get so caught up in this that we neglect other important things: like being open-minded, truth-seeking, and kind to others. It’s hard to think clearly and objectively about something that you identify strongly with, it is possible that this is the driving force behind a lot of conflict in the world.

Claude Cahun

• 

• 

• 

• 

Claude Cahun was a French lesbian photographer, sculptor and writer. She has attracted what amounts to a cult following among art historians and critics working from postmodern, feminist, and queer theoretical perspectives. She is most remembered for her highly staged self-portraits and tableaux that incorporated the visual aesthetics of surrealism. Many of Cahun’s portraits feature the artist looking directly at the viewer, head shaved, often revealing only head and shoulders (eliminating body from the view), and a blurring of gender indicators and behaviours. Cahun made work for herself and did not want to be famous. It wasn’t until 40 years after her death that her work became recognized. In many ways, Cahun’s life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and like many early queer pioneers, their public identity became a commentary upon the public’s notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Her adoption of a gender neutral name and her androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionary way of thinking and creating, experimenting with the audience’s understanding of photography as a documentation of reality

Laia Abril

• 

• 

• 

Abril takes photographs associated with eating disorders, rape, abortion and sexuality. Since 2010, Abril has been working on various projects exploring the subject of eating disorders. Abril is a thoughtful conceptualist who tells metaphorical stories about difficult subjects using a mixture of research and whatever raw material comes to hand: found photos, her own images, family photographs, personal testimonies, official archives, interviews and diaries. “There are so many stories,” says Abril, “and it was important to find ways of telling them visually. Her work typically studies hard , painful subjects that seem difficult to talk about.

Photographers Cahun and Abril both relate to the theme of identity. They send a strong message and address serious matters that should be publicly discussed and accepted. Both photographers express how people are worried about how others view you as a person. They both express sexuality in their work, Cahun’s work protested gender and sexual norms, Abril had a project that began with the intention of depicting notions of femininity of the young lesbian community in New York:

Henry Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. He would photograph Jersey political elite, mercantile families, military officers and professional classes. He would take multiple portraits of high class people, and narrow his portraits down into a set of 4 images cut into oval shapes, and placed into a diamond formation.

Henry Mullins uses 2-point-lighting in his portrait photographs to gently illuminate the face. He instructs the model to turn themselves at different angles in order to capture multiple perspectives of the face. Mullins uses a white background so that nothing is distracted from the face. 

From these photos I chose my favourites from different angles and then using Photoshop I edited them into diamond cameos by using the elliptical marquee tool.

I then opened an image of old paper from google, opened it in photoshop and copy and pasted my cut-outs onto the background.

A portrait photograph may be important for historic preservation, personal branding or for personal pleasure,  it is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. A portrait photograph may be artistic or clinical. Portrait photographers are able to capture the personality and emotion of people around them.

Portrait photos look best if the eyes are in sharp focus, this improves the sense of eye contact between the subject and viewer, creating a powerful and engaging photo. When shooting portraits with a shallow depth of field, it is important to set your focus point carefully.

Examples of Portrait Photography

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Contemporary Portrait Photography

Contemporary portrait photography could be described as a photograph from our own time, compared to an image from a much earlier period. Instead, it is a reference to an image created that reflects our values, challenges and perceptions today or, in reference to a contemporaneous period for that image.

Examining photographic portraits has been a way we practice critical thinking about identities, how images relate to social, historical and cultural contexts and how ideas, feelings and meanings are portrayed through portrait photography and ultimately how they shape our history.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Contemporary photography encapsulates or reflects back to us an opinion about our world today. Values, societies, philosophy, standards for living, technology, politics and geopolitical realities constantly change.

For the photograph to be “contemporary” it does not have to ignore a prior historical context, or that it is influenced by the work of others in the past, or by other current artists. The photographer may have combined previously taken images from any prior point in time giving that image a contemporary re-birth. 

Lee Jeffries

Lee Jeffries is a British street photographer, who resides near Manchester, England. He focuses on homeless people in England and all around the world. Lee‘s images were published in many prestigious magazines and newspapers, photography came into his life by accident when he was 35 years old.

Jeffries’ relationship with street portraits began in 2008 when he took his camera and went out. The main reason he went to shoot people out, was that he felt lonely inside and being surrounded by people helped to change that feeling. According to him, the more relationships he created with homeless people, the less lonely he felt, so his photographing activity at some point was not giving something away, but take something back too.

By making portraits of homeless persons, Lee wanted to dig a little bit deeper and get to know them at first, create a connection with them and maybe even help them to change their complicated situation. According to him, if you respect a person no matter what is his social status, he will respect you back and that is a key of trust with which you can create a certain atmosphere for making a good portrait.

What i like about Jeffries’ photographs is the deep emotion each picture presents. This photograph is filled with distress, trouble, sorrow and sadness, his images are very powerful and make the viewer feel sympathy towards the person in the photograph as the people in Jeffries’ images are homeless and express negative emotions, showing they aren’t happy with their lives.

What catches my eye the most about this photo is the deep contrast between the black and white tones and the detail in her skin, i like how the highlights bounce off of her skin from the natural light and instead of trying to hide her age, Jeffries expresses their age by capturing each small detail in her skin.

The surroundings of her face are dark and plain and all your focus gets taken to her detailed face and towards the emotions shes feeling.

The image has natural lighting coming from the windows above, the main points of the image are defined by the highlights, the photograph has many warm tones such as orange. His fingers are interlocked implying hes secretive which relates to the dark, mysterious lighting. A high depth of field was used as everything in the foreground and background is in focus. 

The way the man is dressed, smart and sophisticated, contrasts with the worn and ragged train station.

Alfred Krupp was  a key supplier of weapons and material to the Nazi regime and the Wehrmacht during World War II. He was later arrested for slave labour, which he served 3 years in prison. Arnold Newman was  known for his environmental portraits of artists and politicians. 

my black and white images

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

i selected these 6 images and grouped them together as they are all of natural forms. All of these photographs are black and white and all have deep and different tones. I selected these photos because of the small details in each picture.

In the first image i specifically like the water droplets and the sharpness of photo, i particularly like the way the natural sunlight reflects off of the droplets.

The second photograph of the icy leaves was taken on a cold morning, i like the layer of ice that coats the leaf making it abnormal to any picture of a normal leaf. The layers of leaves crate contrast and depth and the further down the leaves you look, the deeper the tones of grey get. I like the contrast between the white ice and the dark shadows that were created by the natural sunlight.

What i like about the third picture is the different sizes of each pettle of the flower, each one has a different shadow or highlight created by the light from the sun.

My fourth image is different from all the others, it isn’t a close up of a certain object, it is a wide image with repetition of trees. I like the way the bright sunlight bursts through the gaps in the branches and reflects off the lens.

I like my fifth photo is a silhouette, the leaf strongly contrasts against the clouds in the sky and the viewers attention is drawn to the shape of the leaf.

The sixth image has a strong focus on the main part of the image, it immediately draws your attention to the branch and states it is the only and most important thing in the photograph. I especially like the detail of the branch and the contrast between black and whites in the unfocused background.

my colour images

• 

• 

• 

I selected these 3 images as my final photographs and grouped them together as they are all filled with a range of bright and bold colours. The unusual shapes in these images catch the viewers eye compared to some of my other images.

My favourite image is the first picture from my surface and colour photo shoot, it is cool toned and i like the different shades of blues, purples and greens and how they blend and mix together, they are very vibrant and eye-catching . The second image is similar to the first, they are both photos of ice and both rich with colour.

What i like about the third image is the folds and creases in the paper, i used artificial lighting to make some creases darker than others, i reflected green and red lighting onto the paper so the cool tones of green contrast against the warm reds. The highlights are bold and sharp compared to the soft shadows created by folds in the paper, stopping some light hitting parts of the material.

Eileen Quinlan

Quinlan  is a self-described still-life photographer who shoots with medium format and large format cameras. She is often regarded as one of many contemporary artists revisiting late Modernism, Quinlan uses medium and large format analog cameras to create abstract photographs, and then agitates the film via steel wool or long chemical processing. Some of her photographs include smoke, mirrors, mylar and coloured lights. The result is photographic images that are reminiscent of color field painting and op art, furthering the contemporary conversation between photography and painting.

Photo shoot

My photos inspired by Quinlan

I liked the outcome of these images, I adjusted the exposure, brightness, contrast and saturation to match Quinlan’s work. The images i took have a good amount of depth and definition. The lighting i used to take these photographs was artificial, i reflected colour onto the ice cubes and water droplets to make the images eye-catching and vibrant.

Frank Hallam-Day

Frank Hallam Day’s work explores the impact of humanity’s footprint on the natural world. Day, who was trained as a painter, says his photographs owe more to the history of painting than photography. Day prefers digital photography to film because it allows him to adjust the image, both on the spot and on the computer. His background in painting allows him to “see the photographic image as a process” that can be continually modified.

Ernst Haas

Haas was an early innovator in color photography, Austrian-American photojournalist and color photographer. Haas bridged the gap between photojournalism and the use of photography as a medium for expression and creativity.  The use of colour in his images added a sense of joy and vibrancy to familiar, seemingly mundane moments of everyday life. His interest was very much based on the wonder and beauty of natural things, but he had no inhibitions about using photographic techniques to manipulate the image. 

My photo shoot

My photos inspired by Hass

Haas worked with colour and reflection in his photography so i took inspiration, these images were taken in natural lighting, in some images i adjusted the saturation to match Hass’ work, he says “the use of colour in his images added a sense of joy and vibrancy”. In some of my last images i didn’t edit as Haas had no inhibitions about using photographic techniques to manipulate the image. 

Martin Creed

Creed’s work takes everyday objects, throwaway materials and playful subversion of familiar spaces and asks its viewers to divine meaning through the experience of their viewing. He uses familiar objects, materials, or actions in unusual ways, this includes arranging objects by size, height or volume to create sculptural installations.

His work contains a crumpled piece of paper, tightly packed into a ball. The piece evokes the possibility and anxiety of a blank page.

contact sheets

final images

I experimented with paper, light and colour to capture these photographs. I folded, scrunched and tore paper in different ways and tested strong and weak lighting to create different shadows and I reflected colours onto the paper. I like how these images turned out as they have a variety of light and dark tones, colour and greyscale, I liked capturing the different shapes the paper created.

I particularly like this image due to the different tones of black and white and how they deeply contrast against each other. I used artificial lighting to achieve the shadows and highlights and positioned the lighting at different angles to create sharper or weaker shadows. There is repetition in this image in the folded parts of the paper between the lights and darks. The positioning of the paper combined with its folds could represent an architectural structure of a sky scraper, this relates to how Creed uses familiar, every day objects to create sculptural installations.