I will start this blog with some research into artists to help me make my own work
As narrative within photography is quite broad, with most
photographers and photographs showing narrative of some form within the
pictures, I must be careful with my research and apply rules to define what
about the work is relative and specific to this brief, how it influences me and
what about it I like.
Alec Soth
I found re-found Alec Soth’s images from him being
recommended as a related artist from Paul Graham. I was looking at Graham as
one of the photographers from the introduction lecture on Monday. I had looked
at Soth’s images previously on the project called Vision and Knowledge where I had to present photographs representing truth for the viewer to find knowledge within the images, and they hadn't
grabbed my attention much and I found them fairly unmemorable at that time, I re-looked at them in relation for this project and found them very interesting
How are the images relative to the brief? They are relevant
to the brief as they show a little a bout the people in them as they are
photographed in a comfortable location for the people, it seems like they are
in their homes, and it has a picture next to it of an outside location seems to
be the place where the people live, they are naked and their characters are
shown by their poses and looks on their faces, I fins this interesting as they
look some comfortable and these pictures show little, but at the same time show
so much by leaving a lot to one’s imagination.
This influences me as it is something I could emulate in my
own work, by following a person or people and getting to know that person in
their own surroundings like in the Stranger project in 1st year of my degree, where I had to find a stranger to follow and get to know and present a narrative of 8-10 photographs on this person. I would
love to get in and photograph people who are different to me and have different
interests and jobs, and to show what it is about that person that makes them
tick, but at the same time leave much for the viewer to wonder and yet still be
interesting for someone who doesn't know what is going on behind each image.
I like these images for their simple beauty, they look so
simply set up, not basic snapshots and at the same time not studio settings that
seem forced, they are relaxed. I also like the locations that to me are
different that I have seen before – I looked at specifically Soth’s NIAGARA and
Sleeping by the Mississippi projects. And even though I am vaguely familiar
with American things as America is often in tv shows I watch and in films, indeed
I am listening to an American band as I write this, but I have never been there
and to me all these pictures are strange places.
Alec Soth images:
