I loved Danny's photography so I created a response but unfortunately there is very little information about him online. Danny is an Italy based photographer who also works as a creative director, graphic designer and a writer. He works free lance and is best known for his work on milk photography. He has a tutorial on his website on how to create such photos, first explaining his intrigue into the subject. He states that he thinks that the extent of what apps such as photoshop can do are incredible, there is something to be said for creating these effects in the real world. Being able to create these same images and moods without the use of editing apps and tools gifts the images a sincerity that it otherwise may not possess. Below is my method.
My method:First I bought 4 litres of milk, cheapest I could find and ran a hot bath for my subject Olive. She wore a strapless swimming costume so her shoulders could show uncovered. When the bath was run I poured in all the milk and it turned a yellow/ white colour which wasn't desired. I realised I should have bought much more milk as the water looked just a bit dirty but it still worked. I wanted a much more opaque look. At first I used the overhead light but it caused too many reflections so I experimented balancing my phone camera in different positions and seeing how the shadows formed and were affected. This isolation forced me to examine the different shapes and grooves of the face, appreciating the true shapes of the body.
|
To edit these photos, I used the adjust colour tool on the Apple Mac photo preview. I wanted to light the colour of the milk as it had quite a dark hue in the photos and emphasise her features and their fade into the milk. To do this, I first raised the light levels to overall make the photo brighter and all aspects clearer. In a further attempt to brighten it, I then raised the exposure and lessened the shadows. I also wanted to make her stand out against the plain background so I increased the contrast and sharpness.
|
Maria Konstanse Bruun is a Norwegian photographer based in the U.K. Bruun studied photography at The Arts University of Bournemouth and has a Masters Degree in Social Anthropology and a Bachelors degree in Psychology from the University of Oslo.
Bruun's work focuses on the nature of the limits of the physical and the mental self, and its surroundings. Her work ranges from constructed performance based photograpy and documentary photography, to constructions of images and objects. She is best known for her work combining mundane objects with physical bodies to create bizarre and uncanny scenes. I was inspired to respond to her work when I saw her photograph 'Then and Inbetween #sleeping in the mirror' at the Taylor Wessing Portrait prize 2019. This photo was of her mother who was very ill with cancer and paranoid schizophrenia, sleeping through the reflection of a mirror. This particular photo was very interesting to me as I like the isolation of the focus point, combining my favourite style, portraiture and my theme of space. I wanted to explore this with my study of 'spatial' as I love the atmosphere that a reflection brings. It doesn't portray the subject as being as observed or watched as a straight on portrait possibly would. |
|
Dora Maar, born in 1907, was raised between Argentina and France. Maar was well educated and supported by her family so was able to pursue a career in the Arts. She began studying applied arts and painting at one of the most progressive art schools in Paris, later studying photography. She followed in a career focusing on commercial photography quickly making a name for herself. She worked frequently in fashion and advertising commissions. She pioneered the breakdown of the photographic portrayal of a 'woman'. During the thirties, women began taking the commissions that had previously gone to men. Her photos were very modern for their time, bizarre and experimental. She made collages and photomontages, producing images that mirrored fantasy. This acknowledged that the image of a woman was merely fantasy and didn't represent reality.
I was inspired to explore ther work when I saw her images of film negatives of arms and hands at the Tate Modern Gallery. Her work on film negatives, shooting hands and arms inspired me to explore the same isolation of body parts. This particular style of photography has intruiged me as I like the isolation of the limbs and the colours that negatives create. I wanted to explore this within my study of 'spatial' as I think an unusual and unconventional portrayal of the body and their shadows offers the opportunity to fully appreciate the connections of our bodies and how they appear in isolation. |
To edit these photos, I used the adjust colour tool on the Apple Mac photo preview. I wanted to emphasise her features and their sharp lines. To do this, I first lowered the light levels to overall make the shadows more pronounced and all aspects more atmospheric. In a further attempt to sharpen it, I raised the exposure. I also wanted to make her features stand out against the plain background so I increased the contrast and sharpness. For my first edited responses, I tried cropping the images to make the figure less clear. In doing this, the lines and shadows further became the focus, isolting the body from its details.
|
In my other edited response, I again used the adjust colour tool on the Apple Mac photo preview. I wanted to emphasise her features and their sharp lines. To do this, I first lowered the light levels to overall make the shadows more pronounced and all aspects more atmospheric. In a further attempt to sharpen it, I raised the exposure. I also wanted to make her features stand out against the plain background so I increased the contrast and sharpness. However for this response, to respond more directly to the work of Dora Maar, I inverted the colours and lowered the saturation to zero so the photos were black and white. Below are both my responses.
|
My edited response:To edit these photos, I used the adjust colour tool on the Apple Mac photo preview. I wanted to decrease the exposure of the photo as they had quite a washed look in the final rsult and I wanted to emphasise her and her surroundings. To do this, I first lowered the light levels to overall make the photo darker and all aspects clearer. I then decreased the exposure for the same reason. I also wanted the photos to imitate those of a film camera so I increased the warmth and sepia balance. I wanted to make her the focus against the crowded background so I increased the sharpness.
|
Sophie Calle was bron on the 9th of October in 1953. She is a French writer, photographer and artist. Calle's work frequently focuses human vulnerability and exposure, it explores themes identity and closeness. She is bet known for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work was often displayed next to panels of text of her own writing. Since 2005, she has taught as a professor of film and photography at European Graduate School at Saas Fee, Switzerland. She has also lectured at the University of California in San Diego in the Visual Arts Department. Calle has had several exhibitions globally in several cities such as Paris, St Petersburg and new York. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Duetsche Borse Photography Prize for her piece 'My All'. In 2019 she recieved the Royal Photgraphy Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship. I am intruiged by her work as I like how she presents belongings as elements of the indivdual, a physical representation of character. I was also very drawn into her unsuaul detective-like behaviour of followings and investigating these residents of the hotel. Giving each shoot a room number disconnects the objects from the person and allows a construction of character seperate from the owner of the belongings. I want to represent Sally in a similar way, find out more about her by discovering and photographing her personal items. |
|
Lewis Khan is a London-based photographer and filmmaker who mainly focuses on documentary photography. Since graduating from the Univerty of the West of England where he studied photography, he won the 2014 Shuffle Film Festival Short Film Prize for his short film 'George', a film about a man living in South London. Khan’s photograph of subject 'Gina' was taken after she performed surgery in an operating theatre was chosen for Portrait of Britain 2017. This phot was taken when Khan was living as an Artist in Residence at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital. During this time, he created a photographic series called ‘Our NHS’, focusing on the activity within the hospital and all the people living and working within it. The images aim to show the emotional impact of working in the NHS. Gina’s portrait is particularly insightfull of the experiences of these doctors and nurses working within this environment and political age.
Lewis Khan created the short film 'Georgetown'. He made this captivating video about George, a Londoner. These are some of his comments about this work: "A friend, a neighbour, a familiar face in the street. Georgetown is a view into the life of south London resident, George. "During a period of my adolescence that saw playing football in the street as a daily ritual, George and myself often shared the same space. Frequently we would meet with a simple nod, more frequently a hello, and on occasion George would join in for a kick about. "Georgetown is informed by six years of these impromptu and informal meetings in the street, usually the same one." |
KayLynn Deveney was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the eldest of two children. Deveney grew up in Albuquerque and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of New Mexico. In 1999, she and her boyfriend moved so that she could attend graduate school in the UK. In 2001, she earned a master's degree in documentary photography at the University of Wales. She stayed on in Newport to earn a Ph.D. in photography, completing this degree in 2009. Her photographic work has been globally exhibited and is held in many permanent shows including those of The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the Portland Art Museum in Oregon.
I was drawn to Deveney's work as I enjoyed the loving portrayal of an elderly relationship. This photography however feels far more removed from the relationship than I wanted my photography to feel with Sally. Deveney almost feels like a fly on the wall in their home, documenting their everyday lives together. "I began photographing Edith and Leonard Crawshaw shortly after they moved from their flat into a Welsh nursing home. Following a broken hip and an extended hospital stay, Len required more care than than he had previously. That combined with problems such as negotiating stairs, the occasional burned saucepan and Edith's failing eyesight, finally led to the move. Len went from the hospital straight to the nursing home, and Edith went with him. At ages 93 and 92 respectively, Edith and Len then found themselves spending the vast majority of their day in their one room at the nursing home, where they would sit together, eat together and sleep together." |
|
McKenna is a New Zealander living in Melbourne, Australia. She started out her professional life as a primary school teacher. After she started a family, she stayed home and was a full time mum for a number of years. She then went on to study graphic design and freelanced as a graphic designer before moving her family between New Zealand and Australia multiple times for her husband’s career. After moving back to Australia, she started to paint again which gave her the inspiration to start the collages she ended up focusing her work on.
"My collage technique is simple and old-fashioned: I cut stuff up and glue it down. Sometimes I don’t even cut the paper; I just make layers and glue parts of them down, often with the edges still raised. I rearrange the pieces a lot before I glue a work, and sometimes I pull parts off or cover others over. Nothing is sacred or too precious." I am drawn to McKenna's work as I feel it tells a story. It is a full portrayal of the portrait focus's personality. Being not just a portrait, being all aspects of the being, you can see a full overview of their character. As I stated in my response to georgetown, I dont think Sally can be portrayed just through photography, her character is too big. I think through responding to such work and creating collages of her past, you can begin to understand the life she lived. |
Photo Collages |
The printer ink was low so the photos came out slightly bad quality but it gave them an old fashioned feel which I quite liked. The poem I used for this collage is 'Year by year the monkey's mask reveals the monkey'. I used this poem as I felt it really connected to my relationship with my grandma. I have always had quite a difficult relationship with her due to snarky or backhanded comments that were said to me when I was little, creating a bad image of her in my mind. Throughout her journey with dementia, I have formed a tight and very loving bond with her, I feel as though I really know her know, the soft parts of her and the afraid parts of her. I feel as though she did almost wear a mask all her life. She was very tough and not willing to show weakness, a side that I never see anymore. I feel as though with this poem, the mask in this sense is the barriers she puts up to shield herself from appearing weak however she now has revealed herself and fully softened. I do however think potentially one mask was replaced by another. I do feel as if I have formed a new bond with her, but this is also a childlike version of her. One that needs constant attention and has difficulty with everyday life. so in a sense, one mask has been replaced by another. |
I chose this poem for my second collage as I feel it effectively encompasses the experience of dementia. It states 'Journey's end - still alive, this autumn evening'.I used this poem as I feel the meaning ins similar to the life Sally leads now. The term journey's end suggests an era coming to end. In this context I feel it could represent the life Sally has previously led, her modelling, her life in India and many ventures coming to an end. Through dementia, she has aged quickly, she can't do anything alone. She isn't able to continue this life she led and continue to create the same experiences, signifying her journey's end in a way. The term still alive does resonate with the afore mentioned feeling. As I said, she has ended many of these spectacular experiences she created over her life time, leaving this younger self. in the past but she's still alive. Still leading an everyday life, just a new one. This poem, to me, signifies the end of an era not necessarily the end of everything. The phrase describing the autumn evening reminds me of warmth. There is a cosy nature to autumn, the season of red leaves and hot drinks, it ignites a feeling of home within. Due to her new way of life, she is inside her home all the time. The idea of being 'still alive, this autumn evening' signifies her slower, ore homebound life she has grown to live. |
This one had less underlying meaning for me, more of a face value meaning. The first one states, do not forget the plum, an obvious nod to dementia. It emphasises the forgetting that characterises this disorder. 'Alzheimer's disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and gradually worsens over time. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty remembering recent events.' The last point is a feature I have frequently noticed with Sally. With recent events such as my Aunt's death and her brother's death, for the most part she will forget the whole subject but occasionally she will ask about their whereabouts and want to see them. It is very upstting for ym dad who has to recount the events for her and she soon becomes distressed as well. She however has an impeccable memory for childhood events and moments from her younger life. She likes telling stories about what happened when she was little, recounting her adventures. She also has an incredible memory for pieces such as long poems and old songs she loved. She likes recounting them and singing songs as it keeps her connected to her past self. These memories she has almost set in stone, despite her inability to reinforce the new ones. |
|