Kayla Varley is a fashion/editorial/advertising photographer working between London, NYC and LA. Having started her career by taking photos at 13 to tap into her emotions. Her work hasn’t strayed far from the captivating emotion filled shots, throughout her career. As she grew up using photography to document her life, it ended up becoming all she wanted to do, resulting in her attending in her moving to LA in 2010 to attend the Art Centre Collage of Design. Her more recent work focuses on fashion but she never strays too far from her roots of capturing the joy and kidlike playfulness of connecting with another person whether that be another person in the shot or the photographer, Varley, herself. I have done additional research on Varley as I love her work and my inspiration stems from a mix of her work and the absurdism movement as well of other photographers work and my own imagination.
Analysis of one of Varley’s Photos
This is the photo I picked as it is great example of Varley’s work (beauty) it also has elements within it that I love and want to include in my own work. The cropping of the image is rather unusual as it isn’t centred or following any of the typical rules like the rule of thirds instead it is close to the camera and is an angle that wold normally be considered bad or at the least conventual which it is, however this angle draws the focus to the model and nothing else. While this is a cool shot it is also an advertisement for the eyeshadow so the blank white background, well lit and the fact the only bit in full focus is the eyeshadow is a purposeful move from Varley. However I think it’s a great way of getting peoples attention and still being playful and creative while creating an advertisement. Varley has also made sure the photo is well lit which is how all of her work is, bright, airy and cheery, in fact she has been quoted to say ‘Your dream location to shoot?’ – ‘A giant empty space with tons of light and shadows. It could be anywhere.’ I think this shows in the photo above that unlike many photographers she actually draws complete inspiration and results for the photo from the model in front of her and wants to show the model as a happy character and a person as themselves and not what is around them, influencing them. I love the idea of drawing from a person themselves to portray an idea or a situation from daily life and Varley does this incredibly well in all of her work not just the photo above.
I would love to mix this style of playfulness and unique angles with the style of absurdism . I think they would complement each other very well and will create some strong images for femininity and how different it can look.