Laurence Demaison

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Bill Brandt was a British photographer (born in Germany) who was most famously known for capturing British life in the 20th century. Brandt's work stood out to me, by the way he manipulates the a section of the body, to link with the location the image was taken. From these images of his below, I realise that many of his images are taken from a low angle, sometimes floor level. I'm interested that he decided to take the majority of these images outside, using natural light and a wide-angled camera. This would be quite technically difficult as most of these pictures at the beach were taken whilst it was raining and windy, however it looks as though, they were taken during sunny weather, because of the high contrasts in the images. I think I will find it harder to rely on natural light, as the weather is mostly cloudy. I would like to experiment using both natural and artificial light, to refine down my ideas and style of images. A solution to the weather problem would be to just use the flash, to really emphasise the tones, textures and shapes of the body. From the 1940's Brandt completely changed his style of photography, from capturing post-WW2 to the female body. Her work with self-portraits originated from her dislike of using models and that she could never get them to follow out her directions to her satisfaction. So she decided that it would be much easier to cut out the communication and use herself as the model so that she could achieve exactly what she intended. Demaison’s distortions are not simply a way to hide herself, but more a way for her to experiment with different techniques and to broaden our way of seeing. During the summer holidays I went up to Belford with a couple of my friends. I had originally planned to capture some more long exposure images with a variety of landscape settings, however I found that the majority of images I took were of landscapes, or nature using a normal shutter speed. Once I started getting drawn to these types of images, as I liked the stillness of the image and the calm feeling that came across when I looked through a few pictures. Overall, I chose the exam question human figure but dived in deeper by choosing the theme of 'distortion'. I have taken five shoots but three mini shoots in one. I liked my theme because it allowed me to improve my photo shop skills as it is computer based. However, I had taken my initiative and researched five photographers to take inspiration from and expand my ideas. When looking at the photographer,Brno Del Zou; I had noticed that they had printed out their images and manipulated it in person, possibly so they have a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve. I have taken this idea and was inspired by their work and their take on distortion. So I was encouraged to take on the challenge too.

Although Demaison’s work differs to mine in the sense that I want to focus on distorting my images after they have been taken, I do agree with her approach to her work. Each time she creates a new method of manipulation for her portraits; everything is thought out and planned meticulously, but once she starts taking the image; it is left up to chance what they will turn out like, as the methods she uses are normally hard to control precisely, for example moving water or smoke. (Casper, n.d.) So this gives an element of chance and accidental beauty. Proving that the greatest art should not be controlled but instead explored. (Sparrow, 2009) Son travail photographique en noir et blanc reflète l'angoisse, la destruction et la question de l'identité. Il n'est pas question d'approcher le réel mais de l'interroger, et l'artiste réalise de véritables performances afin d'aboutir au cliché voulu (transformations corporelles, installations, durées de pose inhabituelles…).Autodidacte, Marc Sommer élabore depuis de nombreuses années, sans jamais la montrer, une oeuvre d’une grande cohérence, au fil de l’absurde. Dans ce travail photographique où la réalité est inventée de toutes pièces et orchestrée avec ses proches, des objets surréalistes côtoient des personnages mis en scènes. Complètement inédit, ce travail remarquable décrit un univers paradoxal, où une grande fantaisie accompagne un humour cruel et inattendu. Originally, Demaison worked with a model, but she eventually began taking photos only of herself, partly to limit expenses. “She doesn’t feel that they’re self-portraits at all,” notes Bernard Gerson, director of Galerie BMG. “They’re not about her. She’s using the reflecting and distorting qualities of the water or the glossy paper to make phantoms, ghosts of herself. She disappears from the image.” Laurence Demaison is a French photographer and artist. In many of the photographs above she uses a combination of her drawings in her photography to manipulate it. An aim of hers is to capture what a camera can see, which can't be seen with the human eye. Therefore in many of her photographs, she exposes the photograph over a period of time, creatinga ghostly effect.During her early career, Demaison wasparticularly interested in the female portrait and nude, but found it difficult to convey her 'mental images into words and direction', soon after she gave up on models and began to use herself as the subject of her photographs. However Demaison soon found out she struggled using her physical body to photograph, so she started experimenting destroyingher bodyand recreating it, leaving the outcome of mostly, dark sinister ghostly photographs.

I believe the majority of my work below shows the extent of my improvement with image analysis etc so this is the only thing i will be adding on to. There are many things i love about the pieces i have displayed above, in this mini paragraph i am going to go into some detail about the techniques this artist uses and how and what techniques i am trying to have as inspiration and will attempt to use within my shoot. For example, I would want to use a wide range of expertise within my composition ranges and style to create differentiation, I would only slightly alter my angles and perspectives just like laurence does as it distorts the image enough without unusual camera perspectives. Just above i will be taking and using multiple photos so i can see if any happy accidents occur or to have a wide scope of images of all variety so i can further edit them which leads well to concluding images and for me to know what worked well and what became faliures.

As a result, her photographs seem to bend light and time, distort the appearance of her own human body, and hold secret coded messages in their multiple reflections, refractions, visual repetitions, and semaphore-like gestures that become smears of light in darkness. I took these images in different locations. I first took images in my garden in the evening, whilst it was raining. For these images I used the flash on my DSLR camera, because of this, it also captures the rain falling, which I think made the images more interesting, as it's not obvious that it was rain. The next location I photographed in, was in my local area, using my friends as models for the pictures. These images gave me more flexibility as I wasn't trying to photograph myself, so I could get my friends to pose in a wider variety of positions, than I could whilst photographing it. Photographing the body felt more as though I was creating a sculpture. Photographe autodidacte, Marc Sommer élabore ainsi depuis plusieurs années et sans la montrer jusqu’à présent, une oeuvre où les objets inventés côtoient les mises en scènes de personnages, souvent ses proches mis à contribution. Complètement inédit, ce travail étonnant décrit un univers paradoxal, d’une grande fantaisie mais à l’humour cruel et inattendu.

The image I am going to annotate is the one on the right. These series of photographs known as the Petites Bulles are eye capturing. Though particularly the photo on the right I am drawn to. This photographshows a portrait of a person that is distortional with water. My eye is specially drawn to the many bubbles that frame the image. Furthermore I really enjoy that the base image of the photo is still visible. He uses many composition styles, one I really like is that the bubbles are acting as many irregular frames. They have focused the camera in the middle. But what I do love is the different shapes and looks of texture on the bubbles; which causes your eye to never stop in one place for to long. As the viewer would want to take in the whole photo by Laurence. Brno Del Zou is a photographer who takes distortion photography to another level. By not only taking the perfectly exposed and professionally taken images, Zou has taken photography to a further outcome by printing, cutting and distorting these models faces. However, from a far these masterpieces could potentially look normal to the naked eye but as you come further in, you almost feel the discomfort on the models faces by the neutral grins portraying through the last outcome. I decided to edit my images even more, as I realised that the formal elements I wanted to show in my images could be emphasised even more with heavier editing. Using iPhoto again, I turned my brightness down more on the images and exaggerated the contrast even more. I think this helped blend the body with the location together, as well as emphasising the tones and textures in the images, which I have always liked about the effect.I followed Brandt's theme, by photographing the body and also the location of the photographI aim to produce portraits that are elegant, beautiful, mysterious and sometimes strange.To show development, I must be able to purvey photos in a high quality standard. To begin my journey, I will consider a plan containing my key ideas such as what facial feature I would to cover with the mirror. I will then begin my in depth research on my artist research and give a detailed analysis as I would like to come up with multiple ideas for my final outcomes. My next steps: I want to create my own box construction or experiment more with the one I have already used. I don't want as much materials included in the box, to make it less busy. But the materials I do use, I would like to use different ones, to see how they look all together. I will also focus on taking my images from more of a variety of angles and close-ups, as my previous images were mostly taken from the same face on, eye level angle. The title of this image is 'A Jewish giant at home with his parents', I think her attraction to this subject, was to focus on 'outsiders' and to focus on their abnormalities. I think Arbus takes a photograph to how the world is and just captures things in the moment, but with this image the body language of the parents and their positioning feels quite staged. This is why I dislike the image, I think Arbus purposefully photographed this way, so it wouldn't come across as though she was exploiting her subjects. Another thing I don't really like about these images, is that they don't fit with the abstract style of work that I have been focusing on in my project. I would like to follow on from this, by taking a second set of images using

One set of images is composed of time exposures registering carefully orchestrated performances for the camera, during which Demaison creates representations of the outlines and surface of her body with layered, multiple exposures of her own hands. These read as both traces of a performance and the sort of simultaneous fluid yet frozen moments to which Butoh dance aspires. Since the 1990s, the photographs of Laurence Demaison have gone beyond the genre of self-portrait to offer a deeply original vision that is at once multi-faceted and coherent. Although for many artists the representation of the self remains a sublime reflection of the author, here Demaison deforms her body and face, creating an otherness that conceals her true image. There’s a Surrealist touch to these series, which bear comic titles reminding the viewer that it’s all an invention. The representation of the body is the source of a long process of experimentation. Demaison draws on the technical possibilities of film, playing with exposure times, the focus, the contrast and the negative to create fascinating and singular images.The complexity and ambiguity of Laurence Demaison’s work intrigues me. Her work is made up of self portraits, all of which her identity is stripped. She tells stories, evokes emotion, and forms an image of a being that is distorted, beautiful, repulsed, praised, and everything in between. She has the ability to make many out of one form, which is an idea I would like to continue with. A lot of the ideas that I wish to work with are personal, and yet I have not been able to find a way to make it objective. Demaison has successfully removed her personal identity from her work, while still allowing her ideas to flow through. Some of her work is beautiful, while other pieces are frightful, and evocative. I would like to experiment with creating images in a way that Demaison does, and possibly solidifying them on metal to tell a story that what has been done cannot be changed, yet all emotions and events create the being that you are today. LODLP : Apart from the monograph, what impact did the prize have on your career? And what is your relationship like with HSBC today ? My favourite images are the top and bottom right photos. This is because tey are the most simplistic out of the set, but still get through the textures and tones I was focusing for. Furthermore because of this, the original pictures are still unrecognisable. This experiment has made me want to layer my images in different ways, such as double exposure, or layering the images by printing images on top of each other.