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.
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 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. 
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-interpretation of Jersey urban legends that is disturbing, beautiful and clear in its intentions. 

To better understand the concepts of how narrative was explored historically I will explore when people who 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. Its origin began with Pictorialism, developed first in the 1870’s. ‘the pictorial image aims to render the real as an ideal; composition should have an idea; meaning’.

early pictorialist photographers set off through international competitions, exhibitions and publications modelled after the art salon system, often using established painters among the judges

when considering my favourite image from my rear screen experimentation I noticed I could create a similar effect with studio lights and coloured gels

photoshoot

studio set up

using two flash lights with varying different coloured gels, with the intention of creating harsh shadows and interesting lighting combinations. this photo is less about story telling and more aimed to present a clear and impactful image of the creature

editing process

favourites

Concept

The original idea was to use projection to create silhouette images of my sculpture with landscape backgrounds to create the perception of a large creature when in-fact my sculpture was about the size of a doll

Inspiration

for this idea I drew inspiration from Cindy Sherman’s rear screen projection

Studio Set Up

Using a projector and a my sculpture propped up i began this process, at first I was manually taking the photos but after experimentation I discovered a low shutter speed would create the highest quality images, in light of this I began using a tripod to prevent image blur and in order to capture the highest quality image I was able too

Photoshoot

favourite images focussing on silhouette

next steps

After experimenting with silhouettes I next began projecting onto the sculpture instead of behind and I found this far more successful

these images will be fundamental story telling images in my picture book, in order to portray the size and supernatural nature of the creature.

photoshop experimentation

using photoshop i then began to experiment with the camouflage effect i was able to create through projecting onto to sculpture with higher quality photos of local woods.

Results

Concept

when looking at developing photos to tell the crooked fairies story through photos my first concern was how I would depict the ‘crooked fairy’ how was I going to photograph something that had nothing with its likeness and didn’t exist?
when looking at the illustrations in the original material I figured my only option was to create a sculpture.
in light of this I figured the most effective option was to create e a small doll sized figure of the ‘crooked fairy’ and play with perspective and lighting to make it appear ‘larger than life’

Constructing The Crooked Fairy

when creating my crooked fairy i used only cardboard, mud rock, tinfoil, wire and water.

original inspiration of design

raw creation

i used wire as support for the two back legs and secured them too and piece of cardboard to give provide support, in order to create the signature arching back in detail i used tin foil to create a base frame for the torso and draped mud-rock over the legs and torso to attach and shape the fairy further, then using mud-rock alone I created the arms shoulders head and horns, shaping with my hands and water as I went.

Although a good start this sculpture didn’t yet have the detail it needed, both for up close images but with sharp enough details that they would been seen in its silhouette.

refinement

i began the process of refining my sculpture with a box knife and sand paper,
first focusing on the face and horns.
then the arched back, thin frame and ribbed back.
defining leg shape
carving strong shoulders and back detail

final result

Duane Michal’s is an American photographer, whose work makes innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy.

Michal’s first made significant, creative strides in the field of photography during the 1960s. In an era heavily influenced by photojournalism, Michal’s manipulated the medium to communicate narratives. The sequences, for which he is widely known, appropriate cinema’s frame-by-frame format. Michal’s has also incorporated text as a key component in his works. Rather than serving a didactic or explanatory function, his handwritten text adds another dimension to the images’ meaning and gives voice to Michal’s singular musings, which are poetic, tragic, and humorous, often all at once.

Story Telling

‘I’ve always told stories. And it’s all about language and ideas rather than something, some description.’

– Duane Michal’s

Psychical Adaptation of Images

Michal’s (b. 1932) has continually rebelled against and expanded the documentary and fine art traditions. At the onset, he baffled critics who knew not what to say of his work, rejecting the notion of the “decisive movement,” the supremacy of the sensational singular image, and the glorification of the perfect print. As an expressionist, rather than going out into the world to collect impressions of the eye, he looked inward to construct the images of his mind, exploring the unseen themes of life, death, sensuality, and innocence.

How then do you feel about the presentation of your pictures on the internet?

‘It’s okay. I don’t think much about it. I do like the work to unfold. At an exhibit I would stand and read the whole series. But I like the punchline to be something else. On the internet, you see the picture sequentially, you can’t see them all at once, because they’re presented one by one [in a slideshow or on a scroll]. So that works.

For me I enjoy seeing an exhibit, but the book with remain for a long time and that’s important to me. I don’t think about an audience. I’ve always just worked in terms of myself. I don’t really realize there are people out there that see this work. I live very quietly. My tastes and the way I set up my life is really turn-of-the-century. I love books, I like reading, I like poetry. I have nothing to do with contemporary tastes, what’s hot and what’s not hot. I’m in my little time capsule, which is very cosy. It suits me.’

Duane Michal’s

Michal’s interest in narrative and story telling with his photography very much aligns with mine and has inspired me to primarily format my work in a book.

his words have really made me consider captions and written word on my photographs and how I will sequence my images to tell the story’s/ legends I am trying to portray.

next steps

My next steps after reviewing how Michal’s portrays a story through his photography is to story boards and chunk the legends will be working from into recognisable and destiny important areas of the story before I begin photographing.

‘Anna Gaskell is an American art photographer and artist from Des Moines, Iowa. She is best known for her photographic series that she calls “elliptical narratives” which are similar to the works produced by Cindy Sherman.‘

Anna Gaskell (born October 22, 1969) is an American art photographer and artist from Des Moines, Iowa.

Known for her haunting depictions of young women in ambiguous scenes, Anna Gaskell began casting girls—specifically identical twins—to reinterpret scenarios from Alice in Wonderland. As the Serpent is from a series of photographs that shows the girls in close-up, extracted from the bright backgrounds that mark her other photographs related to this theme. Here, we see Gaskell’s model facing forward, yet the work’s title suggests that she is not posed as herself but is rather playing a role, namely the serpent of the image’s title. Discussing her interest in the Alice books, Gaskell suggests a enigmatic connection between their author Charles Dodgson (whose pseudonym was Lewis Carroll) and his inspiration, a young girl named Alice Liddell. Their relationship was “so complicated and mysterious,” Gaskell stated. “We don’t really know anything about it, but we know enough. There is the possibility of child abuse. His longing for her. I like the danger about it—at some point, being unable to explain it. I like the world that she lived in.”

Gaskell focuses on re telling traditional fairy tales and childhood stories through photography often capturing the story’s in a violent and disturbing light, when drawing inspiration from Gaskell I am most interested in her ability to create narratives through still photography and capture the essence of a story.

Book layout

Anna Gaskell does not only use photography to contribute to her story telling she also utilised simple drawings to chapter her images which I intend to imitate in my own work

‘Widely recognized as one of the most important American artists of her generation, Cindy Sherman revolutionized the role of the camera in artistic practice and opened the door for generations of artists and critics to rethink photography as a medium.’

This series of photos created by Cindy Sherman in her exploration of film and caricatures pushed into women in Hollywood.
my interest in these images is not the themes they surround but instead the may they are made utilising projected backgrounds that create a rustic and film like appeal.

I believe using the technique of projecting the background in some of my images will create a sense that the image is just a screenshot from a film, contributing to the story’s I intend to tell throughout my photography.

In 1980 Sherman stopped working on ‘The Untitled Film stills’ and began working in colour with the Rear screen projection series, she continued to create self portraits using only herself as a model and transforming her appearance with many varying wigs, makeup, outfits, leaving the narrative of her scenes deliberately vague.
However instead of using pre existing scenery and lighting she created a manufactured environment for her photography using specific lighting and projected scenery in the controlled environment of the studio.
‘Unlike the Untitled Film Stills, with their artificial narratives set in real locations, this series presents women no longer bound by their physical surroundings.’

Photo analysis

Jersey Legends – Erren Michaels

Jersey Legends- Erren Michaels

+Jersey Legends by Erren Michaels