Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman was an American photographer who lived from 1950 – 1981, known for her black and white self-portraits that were both theatrical and unique photos, Woodman’s work really gave the viewer an insight into her mind. I’ll be interpreting her work as I really admire how she used photography as an outlet for her emotions. But first I’m going to find out what exactly is Woodman’s overall style and how I could pay homage to it.
Woodman had quite a particular way of expressing herself, constantly using religious and apparition-like imagery with a dash of suicidal tendencies. She also delved into femininity and vulnerability through some photos.  I’ll be incorporating some aspects of Woodman’s work that I resonate with.
Here are some examples of Woodman’s work, as you can see she uses prolonged exposure accompanied by a black and white filter. Both of those elements combined make an overall ghostlike vibe throughout most of her photos. I’ll be experimenting with exposure to get some kind of understanding of what exactly Woodman wanted to show. I’m not very well versed in the whole deep and meaningful as I find it walks a fine line between deep and pretentious.

 

Space?, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1978 1975-8 Francesca Woodman 1958-1981 ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/AR00350
Untitled 1975-80 Francesca Woodman 1958-1981 ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/AR00351
Francesca Woodman, Untitled, 1977-1978 © Betty and George Woodman NB: No toning, cropping, enlarging, or overprinting with text allowed.

 

 Here are the photos I took inspired by the work of Francesca Woodman

 

 

How do they link to Woodman’s work?

For these interpretations, I wanted to make a clear representation of Woodman’s stylistic choices. I wanted to focus on connotations that are evident in her work. I alluded to the famous photo where she hung off a door frame through the second photo as it has obvious biblical connotations to crucifixion and suicide, I added in the grayscale as all of her work was black & white. This was helpful as it’s easier to edit black & white photos. For the first photo, I tried to call to Woodman’s photos that connotated to loneliness, Isolation and not being able to show how you feel inside; an overall façade. I then added grayscale for this photo and adjusted the exposure as I felt the photo didn’t need a lot of editing. I am pleased with how these turned out however if I was more confident with using cameras I would have tried to do some prolonged exposure shots. In the final photo, I am sitting in a bathtub in a contemplative manner. Once again the photo is in black & white. I edited in a ripple effect to illustrate the feeling of drowning as Woodman uses a lot of metaphors in her line of work. Overall I feel that interpreting Woodman’s work has aided me in getting in touch with a more in-depth and layered understanding of photography as I have really struggled with photography everytime I’ve approached it. At a later date, I’ll definitely incorporate what I’ve learnt and photography in general into my work. I’ll be taking a detour from this style of photography to look at the work of Cindy Sherman with her very gaudy and colourful photos.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is an American Photographer, was born on the 19th of January 1954, Sherman is known for her gaudy, colourful and eccentric self-portraits. Sherman’s work is out of the box and it is quite challenging to understand some of her work from a glance. For me, her work is meant to be representative of what it means to be feminine through the use of overly exaggerated almost clown-like makeup accompanied with a colourful psychedelic inspired background for her collaboration with Mac cosmetics to her own personal works with peculiar looks and styles. I’ll be interpreting Sherman’s work as the colours and themes are quite interesting; not to mention the contrast between her brightwork to Woodman’s dark work.

Here is a small collection of Sherman’s work, each photo is a headshot of Sherman in various costumes and makeup. The colours are vibrant and engaging, however the underlying connotations and social commentary on beauty and the beauty industry. As you can see, she is wearing makeup in all three however they all give off different moods and expressions, we can interpret this as her challenging beauty standards. I also would like to experiment with various looks to get a feel of what Sherman wanted to express and portray.

 

Here are the photos I took inspired by the work of Cindy Sherman

edited photogalaxy final

rainbow

How do they link to Sherman’s work?

Each photo that I took is reminiscent of Sherman’s work, I used colourful backgrounds and over the top makeup accompanied with a fur coat to imitate the photos, she took for her collaboration with MAC Cosmetics.

In the first photo, I wanted to imitate Sherman’s headshot, She wore a fur coat so I wore my own. I added some colourful makeup as I wanted to pay homage to her use of vibrancy, I did this further by editing in a colourful background of paint splats. I believe I did an accurate imitation of this photo with my own twist added in. I did have some difficulties with removing the green screen background from the photo of myself. I found myself meticulously using the magic wand tool, magnetised laso too and the quick selection tool in photoshop to removes specs of green that was showing through strands of hair.

In the second photo, I wanted to step up my game, I created a whole face paint look use UV Paint I had lying around. As I wanted an interpretation of her clown photo. I created a very tribal looking overall look. I then merged the photo in with a photo of a galaxy. The hardest part of this was trying to blend it, the photo was a very close shot so I couldn’t cut out anything. I relied on the galaxy photo and blending to hide the “boxy-ness” of the photo. Even though this was the most challenging it’s my favourite out of the three as it looks seamless and delicate.

In the final photo, I edited a full body photo of myself onto an image that had a Rainbow Waterful, this was once again reminiscent of Sherman’s Vibrant pieces. Editing out the green screen deemed quite the challenge. This is my least favourite photo in the set as it looks rather out of place, that may be due to it being a full body photo or the difficulty in blending due to my use of the magnetised laso not being as tidy as I thought. If I were to redo this I’d be more conscious of how I’m standing to make the cutout as seamless as I can, maybe even use the pen tool if I’m feeling confident.

Overall I believe I have gained a lot of knowledge in both the symbolic and creative sides of photography thanks to these interpretations, I will definitely be mindful of what connotations I want to portray in my photos moving forewards.