ARTIST STATEMENT:
I am interested in abstraction - occurring naturally in the outside world. I am interested in disguise. I am inspired by my mother - ordered and organised, linear. I am an 'outsider'. I would describe myself as a 'window' photographer - exploring landscapes and architecture with a camera. However, my objective view of things shifts more towards a combination of 'windows' and 'mirrors' because I take pictures in a very specific way, when not in a rush. I love architectural and industrial places, however I can also appreciate nature in its physical form. I love interiors and exteriors. I love flamboyancy just as much as I love minimalism. I appreciate comfortable and uncomfortable situations. They teach me how to adapt. I am confident and persistent when taking images. I love shadows, reflections, distortions, abstractions, simplicity and images with the least subjects possible (human and architectural subjects). I seek colours that match - so that they emphasise each other and protrude off the surface eloquently to the viewer. I love form, structure, linearity, pattern and composition which already exists without my intervention. I love to document my surroundings in an artful and tasteful way. I love to document my images and share them with the world in the hope that people will then find beauty in the everyday objects and landscapes which surrounds them. I care very much about the photos that I produce and the way in which they're presented. I am interested in everything - knowledge is power. I find that I am not very drawn to portraiture because I feel that it is easy to take an interesting image of a person - you can ask them to pose in a certain way, make a scene etc. I find that portraiture is an artificial way of documenting the world around us, however I can appreciate the beauty and structure of the human form. |
Denotation
The hippo (subject) is slumped horizontally on a hard floor at the zoo in Regent's Park. There is some kind of pond/water source for the hippo to swim in. This is all in the foreground of the photograph. In the background of the image, smartly dressed humans stand vertically behind metal bars. Some have their attention focused on the animal and some have their attention diverted - in conversation with one another. The image has a shallow depth of field - the hippo is therefore the main focus. My attention is grabbed by the reflection of the animal in the water because it separates the real subject and the superimposed 'fake' subject. |
Connotation
What I find most interesting about the composition of this photograph is that the humans are the ones behind the bars - not the animal. This concept of an inverted role is interesting to me as it begs the question of; 'are the bars protecting the people from the animal, or are they protecting the animal from the people?'. The way that there are no bars across the image implies that the photographer (and therefore the viewer) is inside the enclosure with the hippo. A privileged point of view. The image is framed so that the hippo is almost touching both edges of the image. This conveys to me the unethical entrapment of this wild animal - and how little space it really has to move around. The framing also emphasises the huge size and grandeur of the hippo and how enclosed it is. |
Studium
The mixture of hostility and humour seems all too familiar for these young Italian immigrants. The children clearly trust the elder enough to not shoot the child - she is playing up to the photographer. They are evidently from a working class neighbourhood due to the state of their clothes and the boys teeth. |
Punctum
There is something very uncomfortable about this image - the young boy, smiling in the face of adversity. The stature of the boy implies to me that he is hesitant and anxious, yet the smile alone tells us the opposite. The partial squint of his eyes connotes that the woman (holding gun) had made a quick and heedless decision to make a 'funny' scene for the photographer to capture. The fact that the elder made a conscious decision to pull out a gun on the young boy in the middle of a busy street notifies me of the day-to-day violence occurring in the 1950s - a normality. |
Studium
The girls stature is lulled and tired. She looks as if she has been there for a while and could no longer stand straight. She looks uncomfortable and sad. The angle the photograph is taken from is belittling and patronising. But the little girl doesn't seem to care, almost as if she's used to it. |
Punctum
The bird and the girl are in the same situation - caged and bored. This is striking to me as they should really both be set free from captivity. I feel that this image implies; 'we are all the same' and that no living thing deserves to be caged and bored. |
Dadaists and Surrealists embraced chance as a new principle. For Surrealists, "chance provided a series of creative strategies that offer to liberate the unconscious and create convulsive beauty". Synonyms for convulsive include; violent, uncontrollable, jerky and irregular.
"A combination of attraction and repulsion can be found in many surrealist photographs. They experimented with scale, compositions and low angles." I feel that CHANCE has an odd relationship to photography because essentially, when we click the shutter, we have no control over the [digital] image produced. However, we do often choose the subject ourselves - so this aspect of a photo is not left chance. John Berger once said; "Photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph, we are aware, however slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights." I think that Berger is right in the sense that we choose the sights in which to photograph. However I do believe that 'mechanics' have a lot to do with the outcome - as I have explored when covering the viewfinder with tape (below). Letting the camera decide the outcome is daunting yet thrilling. |
John Szarkowski once said; "Photography is a system of visual editing. At bottom, it is a matter of surrounding with a frame a portion of one's cone of vision, while standing in the right place at the right time. Like chess, or writing, it is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite." This quote
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