A Vanitas photograph is symbolic of the idea of the mortality of people and how time in life is short. Props used for this kind of photography (or art style as a whole) usually involve skulls and hourglasses to represent those ideas in a way in which any viewer can get an idea for the symbolism of the image.

Mood Board

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Paulette Tavormina

Tavormina is a New-York based photographer who is inspired by the works of 17th Century Old Masters’ artwork, and creates a modern and almost playful twist (typically using bright flowers) on the Vanitas style. Photography had piqued her interest in the 1980’s, which motivated her to attend classes involving dark-room photography. She took several opportunities to use her skills during her career, starting as a commercial photographer, to even creating cookery books in a Vanitas-esque style. Since, she has continued to develop her ideas and style and has hosted several exhibitions of her work.

Image Analysis

Lighting in this image is the most important part of this image, it is harsh enough to not only light up the objects effectively, but also show great detail on the objects themselves, while also not being too harsh as to create dense shadows. I like the way colour is used in this image (specifically between the left and right of it): Colour on the left side of the image is fairly limited, being mainly grey with a touch of orange and green, giving it a more formal and serious look. On the right side, colour is very much diverse and bright, with the bright pink of the flower appearing in front of a dark, yet noticeable, green. The composition of the image also looks to be divided by the left and right sides of the image, with the left side once again appearing serious, with nothing appearing above the skull and candlestick, however, space is filled not only with the leaves and flower, but also the bubbles above them, which gives the left side a more playful and energetic look. The focal point of the image is the skull, likely because it looks as if it is looking at the viewer, attracting their attention, or because it is, of course, white. It is possible that the image could have been laid out this way to show that the person that was the skull (or at least the character created by Tavormina) had both a serious side and playful side to them, and were likely praised for this, with the wreath on their head.

Vanitas Photoshoot

Contact Sheet

This most of the images in this contact sheet have a cropped and un-cropped version. (I did this because Tavormina’s work is usually square).

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These are the edited versions. I edited these images by making the ones with the white background cooler and the ones with a black background warmer (I am particularly fond of the warmer images because they resemble paintings in this style)

Final Images

(*Notes* Colours behind the images do not represent a ranking or the like…
The uncropped versions of the images are on the left and cropped on the right)

I chose this as a final image because I liked how the colour palette is diverse, and the colours themselves are bright and contrast nicely with the brownish objects on the left of the skull. The focal point of this image is either the blue bottle or the pink flower, this is because they are bright and stand out in the white background, inversely, the skull’s eyes/nose could also be seen as a focal point as they are dark, which contrasts with the white background, and central. I think the way the objects are arranged in a line is also effective, as it allows a bit of space above and below them to let the image breathe. The leaves and flowers could represent nature and how death is something natural.

This image, to me, is the closest I got to a classic Vanitas painting/photograph (with the colours being dimmed yet noticeable and the skull being the main focal point), because of this I am very much fond of it and chose it as a final image. I also like how the bottle on the right reflects the light from the left, which reminds me of the image I have analyzed previously on this blog post, I think it gives the image an interesting look and gets the viewer to look a little closer. I think the composition of this image is very effective, the way it is laid out in a line, with a large open space above the objects that gives the image more space to breathe, but also make the objects seem small, which adds to the mysterious look vanitas art usually uses to great effect.

I chose this image because I liked it’s warm, pinkish tone, which gives all of the objects, even the brownish ones, an interesting and vibrant colour, which gives this image an energy the others lack. I also like how the skull is clearly the most noticeable part of the whole image, this is likely because not only does it look as if it is looking at the viewer, but also because it is the brightest part of the image, which contrasts especially with the pure black background. I angled the camera to look down on the objects to give this image a slight, yet noticeable change. Unlike the other final images I have chosen, this one doesn’t have much open space, which also helps to give it a unique and energetic look to it.

I chose this image because I liked how the mask has been positioned around the mouth of the skull and how it adds colour to the image. I decided to make this aperture of this image slightly darker because I wanted the mask and the skull to be the most noticeable part of the image and to give the shadows and darker parts of the image a greater emphasis, which I did not do as much in the other images because I felt brighter colours and highlights would better resemble Tavormina’s work, however the darker tones do remind me of the more grim tones of classic Vanitas work . I think that the way the mask is a formal shape and the other objects are rather irregular could not only create a contrast, but also be a way of clearly differentiating what is natural and what it man made.

Evaluation

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Overall, I am very pleased with the way this photoshoot turned out. I think I have followed the style of the artist I studied, as well as the theme of Vanitas, effectively. I think my favorite image from this photoshoot is the 3rd Final Image shown (the pink-toned one) as it has a nice amount of colour, while still resembling the classic Vanitas style. To improve this photoshoot I could have maybe changed the colours of the background slightly (perhaps to a dark red or blue for example) and changed the objects around a bit more, but I think those would be little improvements, rather than game-changers.

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Here is a selection of before and after photos taken of Hamptonne farms exterior on our trip there

TOM KENNEDY

Tom Kennedy is a local photographer, who is influenced by the Dutch Masters paintings of the 17th century, including Rembrandt and Vermeer. His photos with living history characters focuses on using natural lighting to stay within the time periods of the characters.

I believe my images below really make use of the natural lighting and are clearly influenced by Tom Kennedy’s work.

MY HAMPTONNE PORTRAITS

PLAN/FINAL OUTCOMES

I wanted my environmental portrait images to portray youth culture in Jersey so I decided to take photos of my friends where we usually hang out- specifically being Curiosity Coffee Shop, my house/roof and St Johns skatepark.

FIRST SHOOT

MULTIPLE PEOPLE- ON ROOF/IN CURI

For my first photoshoot, I have selected to photograph my friends in a coffee shop/on my roof. Above I have selected some of my best photographs to create a mini gallery to illustrate my images. Furthermore, I photographed them during the mid afternoon to attempt to get the best lighting despite it being an overcast day. I believe the bottom middle and the top right images have the potential to be the best after being edited in Lightroom Classic.

FINAL EDITED IMAGES

SECOND SHOOT

OUTSIDE-IN THE SKATEPARK

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For my second photoshoot, I have photographed my friend Bella skating. I photographed Bella just before sunset to get the best lighting. Some images are overexposed as my shutter speed and IOS was too high but I hope to fix these flaws in Lightroom.

FINAL EDITED IMAGES

THIRD SHOOT

INSIDE- IN HOUSE/ROOF/STAIRWELL/LIFT

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My third and final photoshoot includes images of Bella in my kitchen, sitting in my stairwell and in the lift. In my kitchen and the stairwell the lighting was mostly natural but in the lift the lighting was artificial, leading to a yellow ambient glow. My favourite images include the first two on the second row as I believe they look most inspired by Larry Clark (click here for blog post describing inspirations).

FINAL EDITED PICTURES

Throughout these photoshoots, the main goal was to keep the objects in centre frame and decently well lit with little to no shadows which ended up being quite a struggle when using the soft box lights as we were using 2 lights that created 2 different shadows, leading us to move them around in order to try minimize/redirect the shadows. I didn’t want many shadows so I wouldn’t have to edit them out later which would’ve made it more difficult to combine the photos together later on.

Editing My Photos: Harvey-Regan

These edits were inspired by Darren Harvey-Regan’s splicing project. I tried to use my photos in order to recreate Harvey-Regan’s work by choosing photos that I thought would work well together and used photoshop in order to edit them together.

——– Edit 1: ———————————–

In this edit, I tried to Harvey-Regan’s splices by including many elements of his work such as the sharp edges between the two different images, the white background and making the black and white image in order to get a deeper understanding of his work style.

——– Edit 2: ———————————–

In this edit, I decided that I wanted to try blend the two images together instead of keeping Harvey-Regan’s sharp edge as I wanted to experiment with what I could do in order to merge his editing style with my own. I like this edit more than the first as I think both images work well with each other and I’ve managed to get them to merge together without recreating Harvey-Regan’s style completely.

Editing My Photos:

After experimenting with Harvey-Regan’s style, I decided to use some elements of his work with my own style in order to create edits that loosely resembled his work.

——– Edit 3: ———————————–

I decided that I was going to start by experimenting with colour in order to see what I could do in order to manipulate the photo as there was a lot of objects in this photo, making it difficult to splice with another. Although it’s not my best edit, I think it still looks interesting as the blue tone from the right side of the image contrasts with the colours from the left side, creating two different moods in a single image.

——– Edit 4: ———————————–

For this image, I created 3 edits as I couldn’t decide which one I liked the most as I liked different aspects of each: the simplicity of the first, the business of the second and the blandness of the third. Overall, I liked having multiple colours in one photo rather than taking 2 different images and montaging them together into a single image.

——– Edit 5: ———————————–

Whilst editing this image, I knew I needed to make it busier as the whistle was quite small compared to the background so I started by cropping the image, making it easier to see the whistle then copy and pasted part of the whistle’s chain around the image in order to make the image look more interesting. I then added 2 squares as I wanted to add more colour and depth into the image, later adding some white to the edges to add texture to the edge of each box, making them look like torn paper. Finally, I added some subtle shadows by the squares edges to make the image look slightly more realistic and add depth.

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We used products given to us by Hamptonne which represented Jersey’s heritage in some way

Dada photomontage

Photomontage is often used as a means of expressing political dissent. It was first used as a technique by the Dadaists in 1915 in their protests against the First World War.

Photomontage first emerged in the mid-1850s as experimental photographers aspired to create images that could rank alongside fine art. The idea of the composite image was thought to have been first proposed by the French photographer Hippolyte Bayard who wanted to produce a balanced image in which the subject was superimposed on a background that brought the two together in an idealized setting. Since a photograph was regarded as the record of truth, however, his approach attracted controversy amongst the photographic community who did not warm to the blatant misrepresentation of reality.

The first commercial photomontages were produced during the mid-Victorian era when the practice was given the name “combination printing” by Oscar Gustave Rejlander, a self-appointed artist in this new field. Rejlander started working in portraiture, but he also created notorious “erotic” artworks featuring circus models and child prostitutes. His famous Two Ways of Life (1857) combined over thirty images in a single photograph to create a moralistic allegory contrasting a life of sin with one of virtue. Showing two boys being offered guidance by the patriarch, the print initially caused controversy for its partial nudity. That objection notwithstanding, the print was a success and helped secure Rejlander’s admission into the Royal Photographic Society of London.

Dada artists are usually credited with pioneering the use of “non-narrative” photomontage. (Not without a little conceit) George Grosz reflected that “When John Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my South End studio at five o’clock on a May morning in 1916, neither of us had any inkling of its great possibilities, nor of the thorny yet successful road it was to take”. Hannah Höch, meanwhile, explained how she and her partner Raoul Hausmann came to adopt the idea, not from Heartfield or Grosz, but “from a trick of the official photographers of the Prussian army regiments [who] used to have elaborate oleo-lithographed mounts, representing a group of uniformed men with a barracks or a landscape in the background then inserted photographic portraits of the faces of their customers, generally coloring them later by hand”. Though these commercial efforts were intended to create a seamless illusion, Höch used the technique rather to draw attention to the absurdities and inequalities of modern German society.

Photomontage would become a dominant technique within the Berlin Dada movement, redefining the very role of the modern artist (as the Dadaists saw it at least). As Raoul Hausmann said, “We called [the] process ‘photomontage,’ because it embodied our refusal to play the part of the artist. We regarded ourselves as engineers, and our work as construction: we assembled our work, like a fitter”. The art critic Brian Dillon added that the technique established “the aesthetic of liberation, revolution, protest And in the hands of these artists it became intensely ideological, a defence in times of tyranny and a weapon against injustice”.

Constructivism

The idea of photographic formalism was the central tenet of Constructivism, and as art historian Craig Buckley remarked, while the “beginnings of avant-garde photomontage are commonly traced back to the context of Berlin Dada after World War I the technique was adopted almost simultaneously by constructivist artists and filmmakers in the Soviet Union”.

El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, Gustav Klutis, Valentina Kulagina, and Varvara Stepanova (who defined photomontage in 1928 as “the assemblage of the expressive elements from individual photographs”) created photomontages that synthesized images with graphic design to support the Russian Revolution and the new Soviet Government. Constructivist works were inherently propagandist, as exemplified in Rodchenko’s posters which, with their bold colours and dynamic geometric design, transformed the art of graphic design into something revolutionary. El Lissitzky’s photomontages, which combined his photographs in multi-layered compositions, exemplified a more aesthetic Constructivist approach, while also influencing the New Vision movement, Bauhaus photography, and prominent artists such as László Moholy-Nagy.

Surrealism montage

Surrealism montage

Photomontage was valued amongst Surrealists for its ability to create uncanny scenarios that disturbed and provoked by probing the human subconscious. Former Dada artists, such as Max Ernst, carried the technique over into the new movement. Ernst described photomontage as “the systematic exploitation of the accidentally or artificially provoked encounter of two or more foreign realities on a seemingly incongruous level – and the spark of poetry that leaps across the gap as these two realities are brought together”. Surrealism also pioneered collaborative photomontage through the cadaver exquis (exquisite corpse) technique whereby the various participants contributed to the piece while remaining unaware of the origins of the previous contribution. Some Surrealists, such as Dora Maar, were known primarily for their photomontage, though many leading Surrealists, including René Magritte, Man Ray, and Salvador Dalí included the technique in their repertoire. Their works also exercised an important international influence, as seen, for instance, in Harue Koga’s Sea (1929) which helped pioneer Surrealism in Japan. He too used the collage technique to create what have been called “photomontage paintings”.

Between 1899 and 1909 the grammars of cinema entered a chaotic period of experimentation in which filmmakers hurried to test the possibilities of editing individual shots of film together into something more meaningful. Between 1909 and 1919 one D. W. Griffiths almost singlehandedly developed the method of montage that gave rise to the Classical Realist Narrative; known otherwise as the Classical Hollywood Film. A profoundly problematic figure for historians given his supremacist and pious worldview, through films like The Birth of a Nation (1915) he devised a system of montage that was so sophisticated he placed the spectator in the world of a feature length film.

first edits

final images

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I selected these images because I liked the depth and story that they created as each image has a subtle change to lighting and tone.

further experiments

first I uploaded a portrait and one of my final object shoot images to photoshop in order to create a collage.

final image