Luke Gram

Luke Gram is a Canadian Photographer who creates serene images by combining landscape imagery with silhouettes. His technique of editing his photographs is known as double exposure. Gram travels the world to take photos of landscape and portrait imagery and shares his story on Instagram.

Picasso

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker and theatre designer who spent most of his life in France. He is most famous as a painter because of his paintings such as the Weeping Woman, The Old Guitarist and Girl Before a Mirror.

Pablo Picasso began to experiment with new things such as light painting as you can see below which began in 1949.

Kensuke Koike

Kensuke Koike is a Japanese contemporary visual artist who buys images and then distorts them by cutting out sections and replacing, rotating and cutting our sections of the images.

My Ideas

I really like the idea of replacing the silhouette of a person with an image linking to personal identity. I also like the idea of Picasso’s light painting because it can be used to present personal identity using words or drawings that could be completely planned or random. Lastly, Kensuke Koike’s method of showing identity is very interesting and I want to attempt to recreate this using the images I will edit from Luke Gram.

Comparison

Luke Gram’s way of expressing identity is through linking people back to nature. He removes their features and replaces it with a scene that everyone can relate to and enjoy. However, Pablo Picasso shows his personal identity by drawing images with light which would not have been seen if he had not been using his camera. I also believe that Kensuke Koike’s method of representing identity is very unique and interesting because it shows a false identity and different emotions and ‘people’ in one persons identity. I believe Luke Gram is expressing the general link of humanity to nature but Picasso and Koike express personal identity and how it differs with everyone.

Who Was Claude Cahun?

Claude Cahun was a French, Lesbian Photographer who was born in 1894 and died in 1954. Cahun was born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob and was famous for her self portraits that showcased a variety of personalities and identities. Cahun moved to Jersey in 1937 with her partner and was on the island during the German Occupation when she and her partner produced anti-German propaganda.

PERSONAL RESPONSES TO FINAL IMAGES

My final images link to the concept of body image. These photographs act out what the typical stereotype teenage girl should be wearing. The baggy clothes express what the girl wants to look like, who she wants to show her identity as and what she wants to wear. But in todays society , people are so hung up on appearance and looks, outfits can define someone as a person. Wearing tight underwear and bras that fill out ladies breasts is what they are expected to wear , that’s what people (men or women) are happy and excited to see. There’s barely nothing on personality anymore. These problems all over the world lead to many issues such as eating disorders, anxiety, depression.

My images in colour represent anger, fear, hate as for the colour theme being red. My final image, a collab of three images, are changed to black and white to express the dullness and fear that this girl feels in herself for wearing somethings that she is tricked into having to wear by society. Her hands placed around her waist as if she isn’t happy with her body indicates that wearing this sort of clothing makes her unhappy.

Linking To A Photographer

Laia Abril’s photography links to my photo-shoot as part of her work she bases around body image and eating disorders. These people that are either underweight or have eating disorders reflects on their identity and how they see themselves differently to others. This image below I tried to recreate with my own photography…

Laia’s work being very colourless made me change my image into black and white for them to relate to each other better. A white background in both images and an unseen face of a figure of a lady makes the image more effective as we as viewers can only guess what the model feels judging off body gestures and colour.

Evaluate and Critique

If I was to do this photo-shoot again , I would firstly present my final outcome with a better presentation, for example … Laia Abril has shown her work in a book. If I had more time I would have taken images of a mirror and presented my images onto mirrors to replicate the unhappy body image of my models self.

Photo-Shoot Plan

Who – My female friend

What – Images of a girls body with underwear worn on the outside of clothing such as joggers and a jumper with pants and bra worn on top of them.

Why – This photo-shoot i took is to capture a female expressing her feelings about her body image to others. It also taken to show what society expect females should be wearing , how others (men or women) foresee what females look good in.

Where – In the schools photography studio.

How was the photo taken – A set up in the studio with two spot lights either side of my model , one slightly in front of the other and a main light 45 degrees from my model. The back drop was a white infinity backdrop. Camera settings were ….. 400 ISO…. 1/100 and 1/125 Exposure….. White balance – incandescent.

When – during school time (Thursday 21st January)

Contact Sheet

Editing Techniques Shown

To get rid of the logo that clearly stands out in the image , i used the spot healing brush tool, as well as turning the image into black and white in my final outcome. (Image , adjustments , black and white)

Most of my images had little editing such as changing the brightness and contrast levels. This gives a more effective glow to the highlights of the photograph.

Laia Abril was a Spanish photographer who was born in 1986. She studied on cases such as rape , abortion and eating disorders. Her work typically studies hard , painful subjects that seem difficult to talk about , therefore she photographed these tough times to record these events for either the person that is going through the situation or for her own work. She did this to spread the word about these tragic events that happen in day to day life.

Mood-Board

These images by Laia express difficulties in eating disorders that are found in many female and males around the world. 85% of the UK women agree that they are not happy about how the look body wise and how they feel uncomfortable with their physical state. As some of Laia’s work is hard to look at , these images above show only a few of what these issues look like. They are strong , powerful and sensitive photographs that some viewers may find disturbing. But that is the whole point of why Laia is expressing her work on these problems. They indicate someone’s identity , how they are known , how they are seen. Many people would ask why? Why do these horrible things to themselves? These images shows a physical state , but all have a story behind them. Fear, loneliness, anxiety , all link to these issues that people face. Capturing it in an image may help them understand what they need to overcome.

How Claude Cahun’s work And Laia’s work Link?

These two photographers have similarities such as how peoples appearance indicates how others think of them. An example of this would be a girl coming out as being gay, then hated by others for it. A man with an eating disorder and seen as stupid to others. They both link to the theme of identity as for how these choices they make are a part of their life. These images show a strong message to what these people think of themselves such as the right image by Laia. This image is seen as a women squeezing her waist and showing her rips. This indicates that she wants her body image to be different , maybe skinnier. As for the viewers we see someone already too skinny or perfect, but in their own mind they see someone different to that. This could come from bullying, abuse or life in general. Her body seems pale , bony and unwell. But having the confidence to be photographed for the world to see is a set to take to seeing what herself needs to overcome. These images relate to each other as for they show different identities. They suggest these people want to live a different life to what the first were born with as for the eating disorder and a man wanting to be a women.