I was looking on Pinterest when I came across this artist. I looked more into her work and found some interesting pieces however, I couldn’t find much information on her and her work.
I really like her work as it focuses on women which is the subject of my project for unit 7. I find these images delicate and quite haunting also, the silhouettes are a key element which I find interesting and which I would like to incorporate into my work.
Polina Washington lives in Saint-Petersburg, Russia and shoots analog photography using multiexposure method and soaking. Similar to me, she likes to photograph people and nature; because as she says “I found my inspiration in the woods and realized the lost connection between people and nature”.
Taken from http://polinawashington.com/about
“In 1975, Kodak created the first digital camera, but never put it into production for fear that it would impact their film sales. In 2012, Kodak is gone and digital photography is an established medium, but there is a virtuosity to film photography that draws me in. Polina Washington, a photographer in St. Petersburg, Russia, captures her images to this elusive cellulose surface, layering and splicing in the old way. The result is a story told in forest and face, images that haunt and enchant the viewer with their fog and texture. Human faces overlay their natural habitat, visages and hands emerging from tree bark, tangled branches and snowy floors. There is a strong element of nature worship and occult power in her images, a reminder that we will soon return to the dark earth and share our molecules with the universe. After the jump, check out a gallery of Polina Washington’s handcrafted pictures, and think of the patience and delicate handling that each of these images needed to exist…” -Meghan MacRae
I found her flickr website which displays her work and which I found influence from; https://www.flickr.com/photos/polina_washington
David Galstyan was born in Armenia in 1986. He entered the theatre institution in the faculty of actor’s skills where he graduated in 2007. Galstyan now studies photographic art, trying to avoid the commercial aspect.
I find this website interesting for looking at all of his work; https://www.behance.net/galstyan
Female photographer born 1989, based in Norway
I have been looking at the process behind her work however, there isn’t much about her and how she produced these images so I have emailed her asking her about how she came to produced images like these.
Taken from http://katybarker.com/artists/michal-pudelka/
Michal Pudelka (b. Bratislava) recreates his own strange and beautiful universe in front of the camera for the likes of Valentino, H&M, Vogue Italia, Vogue Japan, and Numero. Coming to photography after studying fashion design at Parsons in Paris, Michal is one of the most exciting new talents in the industry and his unique approach to colour and form coupled with his imagination create a humorous but surreal view of the world. Michal lives and works in London.
I find Pudelka’s work very interesting and the colours similar to Elena Oganesyan’s images. His work is quite electric and seems more futuristic as oppose to the other artists which had looked at however, I still like the aesthetics of his work.
Here is an interview with Pudelka about Analogue photography which I found of interest; http://www.lomography.com/magazine/218330-12-analogue-questions-with-michal-pudelka
Taken from http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/saul-leiter-2
It seems remarkable that Saul Leiter (1923-2013) is only just beginning to acquire significant mainstream recognition for his pioneering role in the emergence of colour photography.
He moved to New York intent on becoming a painter, which he continued in parallel with his photography, yet ended up working for magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and British Vogue and became known for his fashion work.
As early as 1946, and thus two decades before the 1970s new colour photography school (William Eggleston, Stephen Shore et al), Leiter was using Kodachrome colour slide film for his free artistic shots, despite it being despised by artists of the day. Instinctively for him, colour was the picture.
“I don’t have a philosophy, I have a camera.” Saul Leiter
An iconoclast who pursued his vision through signature framing devices, bold hues and relective surfaces, Leiter manages to transform seemingly ordinary street scenes in close proximity to his New York apartment into visual poetry.
Leiter’s work resembles some work that I have previously produced for Unit 6 and of which I found interesting as it was something of interest to me. His work is fine art based photography which is what I am looking at so his work is quite influential.
Taken from http://www.tichyocean.com
This last master of the 20th century photography was only discovered some 6 years ago and left a radical and unorthodox body of photography focussed on the female figure. After studying at the Academy of Arts in Prague, Miroslav Tichý withdrew to a life in isolation in his hometown of Kyjov, Moravia, Czech Republic. In the late 1950s he quitted painting and became a distinctive Diogenes-like figure. From the end of the 1960s he began to take photographs mainly of local women, in part with cameras he made by hand. He later mounted them on hand-made frames, added finishing touches with pencil, and thus moved them from photography in the direction of drawing. The result are works of strikingly unusual formal qualities, which disregard the rules of conventional photography. They constitute a large oeuvre of poetic, dreamlike views of feminine beauty in a small town under the Czechoslovak Communist régime.
Tichý’s work is very influential to me and resembles Elena Oganesyan’s work which is who I particularly find inspiring.
Taken from http://www.icp.org/exhibitions/miroslav-tichý
Now over eighty years old, Tichý is a stubbornly eccentric artist, known as much for his makeshift cardboard cameras as for his haunting and distorted images of women and landscapes, many of them taken surreptitiously. Tichý began photographing in the 1950s, in part as a political response to the social repressions of Czech communism. However, it is only in the past five years that his intensely private work has gained public attention. The exhibition, organized by ICP Chief Curator Brian Wallis, includes a number of Tichý’s homemade cameras as well as approximately 100 of his photographs.
I have found some more artists that I find influential and appropriate for my FMP. There have been some particular artists that I have found that I like which I am going into further detail about in other posts.
Screenshots taken from Pitch Powerpoint
I was looking on Pinterest for artist influence and came across this artist; Elena Oganesyan whose work I instantly fell in love with. I wanted to experiment with traditional photography and create abstract pieces of photography. When I saw her images, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I chose the concept of femininity and what people view femininity as, which I would portray in my experimental images.
I went onto a website called http://www.artlimited.net/4693?tabid=0 which showed Elena’s work with her personal details on which people could contact her on with any queries.
I decided to contact Elena on her gmail account as there isn’t much information about Elena and her artwork. I sent her an email asking her about the processes she uses to produce her work and asked about why she chose photography as a profession.
Now I am just waiting for a reply from her.
I have also found her site which gives me more images that I can take influence from; https://500px.com/elena_oganesyan
Over the half term, I researched ideas for my Unit 7 FMP. I used Pinterest as a source (as shown below) for help with research. I have an interest for black and white photography so used this as a starting point.
I found quite a lot of photographers who used long exposure to display movement which I found inspirational. I had also found some images by Nico Nordstrom whose work I found particularly interesting as they were quite haunting pieces.
I then found another artist, Elena Oganesyan whose work was very inspiring and which I want to use as artist influence.
I produced a powerpoint to pitch my ideas to my tutors. I discussed these ideas and they approved the ideas. They said that I needed a narrative however, and I discussed how it would be about women and femininity. Shaun, my tutor suggested that I should ask some of the students in my course about what femininity means to them and portray it with my photography.
Powerpoint below:
chloeoliverfmp 