Wednesday 20 October 2010

Self Portrait Photographers...

So now I've changed my proposed idea a few times I should really knuckle down and start looking into photographers to gain some knowledge into the world of taking a self-portrait. I think this is one of the many areas of photography that I have never covered so I'm hoping that I'm going to enjoy it... Back to research though and I found this article which gives me a bit of a solid start on portrait artists: http://listicles.thelmagazine.com/2009/06/20-famous-photographers-self-portraits/ Another person I plan on looking at is Camille Silvy.

Silvy was French photographer from the 19th century who photographed many people from a studio in London. I went and visited an exhibition on him at the National Portrait Gallery today which was curated by an old research lecturer at my university. The exhibition was named Camille Silvy: A Photographer of Modern Life. Overall it was very interesting, especially to see such old prints being compared and displayed together on a journey which offered a clear layout of his career. His self portraits were always to experiment with his studio and to gain ideas of what he could offer his clients.
What I find so fascinating about the exhibition and his work is that it describes his techniques used and explains why things are how they are in the images. For example if you look at all of his work his subjects (including himself) are always leaning against something, this was because the exposures at this time were still very long so to ensure that he didn't waste time and come out with blurry negatives he would have them lean on something and hold still. Another thing which amazed me was that all of his work was sets which were blended in with the 'anchor' prop. It wasn't until I heard this at the panel discussion I went to on his work that I realised. Once you do realise though you can't help but notice and want to find cracks and mistakes perhaps within his works.
What I was saying in the last paragraph is evident here about the prop as an anchor - in this one its the tree. The background in this one is not so realistic but that may have been because the lady in the picture is Adelina Patti a lady who was big in the theatre at the time. So by Silvy using the dramatic background it emphasises her theatrical background. I suppose in a way these are in fact environmental portraits. Simular to the works of Fenton etc.

Other works of Silvy which interested me at the exhibition was his still life images of which there were two exhibited. The first was called 'Trophees de chasse' which traslates to 'Spoil of the Hunt'. The image in a way is still a self-portrait as on the door in the image you can see his initials and the date of the image. Later on in the exhibition is another one of his still life images, this time on a larger scale and with more detail. In the later one he uses the stereotypical still life objects like the hare, pheasant, coin etc. but then has also included mass produced items like The Times, perhaps to show how times were changing.

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