To what extent have Anna Gaskell and Duane Michals explored narrative in their work. 

“Trying to combine fiction, fact and my own personal mishmash of life into something new is how I make my work. . .. I try to insert a degree of mystery that ensures that the dots may not connect in the same way every time.”—Anna Gaskell, in NMWA’s See for Yourself card  

Both Anna Gaskell and Duane Michal’s explore storytelling and narrative through the medium of photography. I intend to compare, analyse and explore the differing ways they both accomplish coherent and clear narrative through aesthetically interesting images and sequences in hopes to better understand the art of storytelling. and what makes a narrative recognizable in a selection of images. 
I have chosen Anna Gaskell as a primary focus because of her alternative and dynamic photography focusing on retelling darker and more uncomfortable side of childhood children’s stories, for example her re-telling of Alice in Wonderland. Her images are disturbing and beautiful on their own but combined tell chilling interpretations of recognizable childhood favorites. 
The reasoning behind My interest in Duane Michals is similar as his work relies on a sequence of many images, that appear inconspicuous but when put together create a sense of alienation and disequilibrium. He uses the philosophy that audiences will ‘see what they want to see’ (reference source) and believes that literal appearances are unimportant in comparison to the portrayal of the narrative he is trying to convey. This is important for me to understand to create a well-established re telling re-interpretation of Jersey urban legends that is disturbing, beautiful and clear in its intentions. 

To better understand these concepts I will be first explore when people first began using photography as an expression of the self rather than a scientific means of recording a moment in time. This leads me to tableaux photography – a style of photography where people are posed in a constructed environment in order to convey a pictorial narrative through a single image, in contrast to photojournalism and documentary photography that make use of series of images in telling stories. Tableaux Photography often refers to fables, fairy tales, myths and real-life events as inspiration for recreation, and in this aspect Anna Gaskell draws strongly from the original tableaux photography in her own more modern interpretation. However, tableaux photography depends greatly on the interpretation of the viewer and is often very ambiguous and open-ended recreations of subjective themes. this concept aligns seamlessly with Duane Michal’s focus on ambiguity.