Virtual Gallery

Final Images

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Links to Laura Williams

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These final images are direct responses to a series of images by Laura Williams where the effect is that the mirror being held makes that subject seem invisible, creating a sense of a lack of identity.

In final image 1, the female subject is in a similar position to the subject in Laura Williams’ image, where the subject has a serious expression and is looking directly into the camera. The colours are also vibrant in both of the images and the mirror covers up part of the subject.

In final image 2, the concepts and contents of the image is the same, but it is in black and white, enhancing the contract in tones between the highlights and the shadows.

Final image 3 is a mix of the two, where the main image is in colour, but the ‘reflection’ in the mirror is in black and white, indicating that maybe the subject may not know her identity because the ‘reflection’ has a lack of colour, indicating a lack of identity.

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These final images link to an image by Laura Williams where the image that has been taken, is repeated within the mirror being held by the subject, which gives a sense of confusion as this seems impossible, which links to not knowing your identity or confused about identity.

Both final image 4 and 5 are in this style by Laura Williams, the female subject is looking directly at the camera with the mirror covering her torso. The subject is also wearing a white, loose and wavy style top which, along with the edited mirror, adds a surreal feeling to the image.

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These images are influenced by Laura Williams mirror portraits, but also Bobby Becker’s surrealism images.

Bobby Becker creates a surreal effect by creating an impossible image with mirrors. The reflections in the mirrors are different from what they should be, creating an eerie, surreal effect.

Final image 6 symbolises a lack of reality as what is inside the mirror lacks colour, but what is outside of the mirror doesn’t.

Final image 7 and 8 link to Bobby Becker’s surrealism mirror images because of the un-real reflections in the mirror, creating a surreal, eerie feeling.

Surrealism

‘Photography’s connection with surrealism lies in its ability to represent the material world in strange and abstract ways. Surrealist photographer Man Ray used double exposure, solarisation and reversed tonality to disturb the viewer’s recognition of things and to suggest the overlapping of dream and reality.’

Bobby Becker creates eerie surreal photography, sometimes using mirrors to do so.

Bobby Becker’s images link to identity because what you are seeing in the image is not true to real life. Linking to how people may have an altered perception to their identity.

Bobby Becker, Laura Williams and Claude Cahun – Identity

Bobby Becker, laura Williams and Claud Cahun all explore identity in some way, but some more than others.

Claude Cahun explores ideas of identity the deepest out of the three photographers. She expecially explored gender identity and how smeone saw their own identity.

Laura Williams, similarly to Claude Cahun, explores how people see their own identity and lack of or multiple identities. This links to the Claude Cahun image above, which symbolises the subject having multiple identities and how they view their own identity.

Laura Williams explored lack of identity and identity as a whole through the use of mirrors. and reflections.

Some of Laura Williams photographs are impossible looking images, such as making the subject appear invisible and epeating images within the mirrors. These give a sense of surrealism.

This links to Bobby Becker, who is a surrealist photographer. And also links to Claude Cahun and identity because of the eerie confusing images. This shows the subject being confused about their identity. Bobby Becker also has a few images with mirrors creating a reflection that doesn’t make sense within the image, such as the subject facing the wrong way in the mirror, eerily plain rooms and other images that dont make sense and make the viewer feel somewhat uneasy.

Links to Gender

Lots of Claude Cahun’s images link to gender identity. In her images she tackles the problem with gender norms and stereotypes by going against the way people would expect a woman in her time to dress/act.

The image above shows an image of Claude Cahun in a shirt. This would stereotypically for the 1900’s be mens clothing. Claude Cahun taking images going against these stereotypes was important to let people know that they can be free to wear and act how they want no matter their gender.

There are lots of other images by Claude Cahun that address gender norms/stereotypes such as the ones below.

This idea of gender identity is reflected in Laura Wiliams work and my final images because all of the subjects are female, only showing the identity and thoughts of a female subject.

• When shooting, i took multiple photos of the subject facing in different positions with the framing being the exact same in each image.

• In photoshop i cut out the interior of the mirror in one of the images. I then put the other image i took of the subject facing a different way behind the first image, creating the effect that it is the reflection in the mirror. I then repeated this for another image of the subject facing the opposite way.

This photo shoot used ideas of Laura Williams and her mirror portraits to create an idea of loss of identity.

My plan for this shoot was to take multiple images of the same subject facing different directions. My plan was to then edit the images in photoshow to create an un-realistic image where the reflection does not reflect what should be being seen in the mirror.

A lot of Laura Williams mirror portraits are edited in photoshop to create the funal product.

Editing process 1

• When shooting i took images of the subject and images of the same frame without the subject in.

• In Photoshop i then cut out the interior of the mirror and layer the other image behind so that the mirror seems to see through the subject by lining up the image behind with the image in front.

Editing Process 2

• In Photoshop i duplicate the original image once
• I then cut out the interior of the mirror in one of the images
• I duplicate this edited image, layer it behind the first edited image and resize it within the frame of the mirror.
• I then resize the original image into the mirror of the smaller image.

For this shoot i took photos in the style of Laura Williams’ mirror portraits.

My plan for this shoot was to go to one of my relatives garden because has many possible backgrounds similar to Laura Williams mirror portraits. I also did the shoot n a clear bright day naturally light the shot well.

Contact Sheets

Claude Cahun

Intro – ‘Claude Cahun, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, was a French lesbian photographer, sculptor and writer. Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1917 and is best known for self-portraits, in which Cahun assumed a variety of personae.’ – Wikipedia

Claude Cahun explored the idea of identity within lots of her portraits, such as gender/sexuality identity and self identity.

Here is one image that explores self identity and how Claude Cahun felt about her own identity.

This image by Claude Cahun is a double exposure portrait. (Double exposure – the repeated exposure of a photographic plate or film to light, often producing ghost images.) This would have been created by taking an original photograph, then taking another image using the same film that was just used to take the previous image. This creates the effect of the same person having multiple identities as the same subject appears twice in the image. The image is in black and white which creates a strong contrast between the lights and the shadows, adding depth to the image. The use of an un-detailed background also keeps the focus on the subject in the middle of the image.

Laura Williams

Intro – ‘My name is Laura and I’m a 24 year photographer and designer from a village in Suffolk, UK. I specialize in fine art portraits and natural, documentary style wedding photography.

I’m a storyteller. I use the art of photography to blur the lines between real life and fantasy to create unusual artworks and surreal worlds.’ – https://laurawilliamsphotography.co.uk/

Laura Williams also has a range of images portraying lack of/loss of identity. These images involve a mirror and a subject, and has been edited to symbolize the lack of the subjects identity –

This image by Laura Williams is of a girl holding a mirror sitting in a garden. This image has a shallow depth of field, created by having a wide aperture and focusing on the subject. Similarly to Claude Cahun. this draws attention to the subject in the centre of the image by having the edges out of focus and the centre sharp and in focus. The image has been edited in post to make the mirror being held to have a deeper meaning. Prior to taking the image with the subject in, an image was taken with the same framing but without the subject. This image was used to edit inside of the mirror, creating the effect that the mirror allows the viewer to see through the subject and all the way to the background. This links to the loss/lack of identity as it makes the subject seem as is shes not there. This contrasts to Claude Cahun’s meaning in the previous image becuase her image reflected the idea of having more than one identity, where as Laura Williams created the idea of not having an identity at all.

Identity – ‘the distinguishing character or personality of an individual : individuality : the relation established by psychological identification.’

Identity of a person or group can be influenced by their location, relationships with other, relations with themselves, things that are important to them, your environment or upbringing, gender identity, cultural identity, social identity, geographical identity, political identity, lack of or loss of identity

Lack of or loss of identity is what i am most interested in as i feel i can create photographs with deep meanings and metaphors to do with this type of identity.