Narratives and the Body

My photography project is centralized around cinematography, where I am looking at having groups of images become chapters in a photo series. Each series is centralized on a woman, is personable, and has a theme. My project is looking at moments; utilizing the space, surroundings, and individuals to look at a narrative of each chapter. This catalog of images is best visualized as a curated book, where you can physically turn the pages of each photo series. Each photo group will be titled as opposed to each image, and each title is one part of the whole book. I am creating an artist photo website, where I am displaying these images in a digital format.

I create images that are timely and seem as if they were from another era. Not all but many of my series have a classical spin to them, for I want the viewer to see photographs as archives. Having a narrative with the sequences of photographs conveys a story that is vital for this concept. Being able to explore this project by creating a lot of staged settings and selected clothing attire is important for me to take very selective images. The photographs themselves each serve a purpose in a series of events over a time frame. I see this subject matter functioning profoundly in a photo project versus a videography project because it needs to be selective in terms of choosing which photos to shoot and present to people. Photography allows me to select what I want to showcase to the audience. When limiting the project to 15 final photos the real challenge is figuring out how to convey the message with little context and a few images. This differs from a film where you can see all angles and get a 2-hour long montage of scenes and graphics. Since this proposal is presented in still pictures, creating chapters breaks up the different people/places I shoot into individual sections.

I have been inspired by many photographers and have done extensive research on them to support my proposal. Lauren Naylor and Gillian Hylands are two photographers I have found to be extremely fascinating. Their use of color, setting, and woman subjects are stunning to me. Gillian Hyland's work is vulnerable and beautiful, where she creates supernatural staged images, presented as dramatized moments. The composition of each image suggests a larger narrative within a single moment. Her work is focused both on film and stills, and that is what I am so interested in, the line between film and photography. Lauren Naylor's work is more moody, where her images have undertones and otherworldly terrains that make fashion photography completely reinvented. Her images induce curiosity and are alluring, using creative set design and cinematic motifs to curate a landscape for her subject matter that is unattainable. She is a visual creator with a strong base on human emotion and expressive storytelling which I tend to use countless times in my photographs. Beyond these photographers, my research for this project also pulls from artist Sophie Calle. Sophie Calle’s work is referenced to be seen as “Chapters”, and although her images arent parallels to mine, her concepts of where the work lives and is shown are similar to what I am doing.

I feel very connected to this topic, where each chapter is a piece of myself. I am the girl who is at the bottom of the shower drowning in my emotions. I am the girl who strolls through the park in obscure clothing and looks into the eyes of the camera. Im also the girl in lingerie, the one who wants to be seen and pose with confidence.. Each of these chapters are vibrant with color and complete this cinematic story that can be placed in multiple films and scenes. I found that the contrast of color allow to create themes and moods that build these narratives that I’m creating. When I was younger I always pictured my life in the eyes of a movie, something that was maybe all a dream or pushing against whats real and whats constructed. The images in this series speak for themselves. They have a conversation and a narrative. These moments in time stem from familiar locations and poses, and are reflected through models that know me personally and are open to do whatever it takes to create an image that is comfortable in front of the lens and can push the boundaries through it.

This project is something I plan to continue until the end of the school year in june. I will be creating the images of the chapters into a physical book that I make myself. This will be the second phase of this project, where I use the images I have taken already and work with them to curate the way they are displayed and perceived beyond a digital website format. Overall my photography project is well researched, and thoroughly conceptualized to show an entire body of work. Although it isn’t entirely completed, this series is in a very progressive state. I have a clear direction of what I plan to do to finalize the way the world can see the work I am doing, and I am excited to see where it eventually takes me when I get to the finalized state.