Photography Essay.

Photography Essay: 

  

The topic that I have chosen for my Photography investigation is 'photography of reflection' I have chosen this topic because I thought it would be interesting and it can be linked to loads of different other themes for example distortion using fish-eye lenses and many other interesting ideas ,you can also be extremely creative within the theme itself 'reflection'. I will research photography of 'reflection' through-out the years starting with photographers such as 'Vivian Maier' and also Daniel Kukla and Simon Bond. After researching these photographers work it gave me a lot of inspiration to try out some ideas similar to theirs. 

 Starting from my timeline I first researched into Vivian Maier's work from around 1954, her work was extremely interesting because in her Portfolio she has a folder which was named Self-Portrait and she has another folder which is also full of more of her discovered work where she has took photographs of her reflection in shop windows, mirrors and other different reflective objects such as household objects and outdoor objects that you can find out and about in the street, although they are simple pictures they are extremely interesting and unique, I have never seen work like hers before. The vintage effect that she has in her photographs really caught my eye because it is different and because the pictures are so old it gives the images an interesting feeling about them. Her work has inspired me to try out some of her techniques and make some of my photographs similar to hers. Also what I found very interesting was that Vivian Maier was just a normal women who took photographs in her spare time that nobody really knew about until when she died. Later on after a few years some of her valuables were auctioned and the person who actually purchased her old tapes developed them all and discovered all of her interesting work. One of my favorite photographs of Vivian's was this image, I find it especially interesting because it is such an old photograph but has a lot going on in it, the reflection of her in the shop window has being double exposed and the reflection of two women sitting on a bench has been exposed in the reflection of Vivian making it look as if it has been edited in, when it hasn’t it is just a mistake that she made with her camera which turned out to be extremely interesting and personally I think one of her best pieces of work. I will try out with taking images like Vivians and also try editing some images to give them more of a vintage and old effect to them. 

 I then went onto re-searching about some work by Daniel Kukla, in March 2012 he lived in a Cabin in Southern California's Joshua Tree National Park. He spent most of his time exploring the park especially the borderlands where low Sonoran desert met the Mojave desert. Whilst exploring he had an idea to hike down the desert with a large mirror and a painters easel to capture the opposing elements within the environment.  He thought the 

 

contrasts of colour and texture, and natural interactions of the environment itself made the photographs extremely interesting. This was my favorite work that I discovered because its really creative and interesting, has been thought out well and catches the eye straight away. Daniel Kukla took a number of different images of the reflection on the mirror which appeared to look like an art stand, with landscape in the background and the reflection of the landscape as-well making it appear to look like a painting. I like the way that he has created an illusion in his work. This is what makes it more interesting and unique, he has thought into it well. After looking and re-searching into Daniel Kuklas photography it has inspired me to try out some ideas of my own similar to this work, for example taking photographs of the reflections in a plain square mirror and also getting the setting in the background, I will try photograph these images in loads of different settings.  

 The next photographer that I researched into was Simon Bond, he is another artist that I thought had some very interesting work. He photographed landscape and different settings around the world through a glass ball. He has traveled all over the world to big cities etc to photograph some stunning images. After looking through all of Simon Bonds work it gave me a lot of inspiration to try this out myself so I ordered myself a Glass sphere and will be experimenting in different settings myself. One of my favorite photographs from Simon Bonds work is definitely this image where he has photographed city lights in the background and through the glass ball:  The reason I like this image the most is because it has a lot going on in it, the city lights are really eye-catching and interesting and adds a lot of detail into the image. I will definately be experimenting with some ideas of my own like this. 

 

 

Throughout this investigation I plan on using the inspiration I have got from all these artists especially Daniel Kukla and Vivian Maier and try them out. I will also come up with my own ideas similar to theirs but with more of a twist. I will also experiment with editing on Photoshop and using my iPhone to create different effects and use different cameras to take these images to make my work more interesting. I am going to create a pin-hole camera to experiment with to see how it turns out and if it does work, I will experiment with images similar to Vivian Maiers to give them that old and more vintage look that she created in her photographs. I am also interesting in trying out working with the glass sphere as I think that the outcome of it will look good if I go to a number of different settings and also come up with my own ideas like taking images of people through the sphere to create a fish-eye and distorted effect. and eye-catching.