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.

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. For the 7th installment in this series, we’re presenting you with the 2002 edition of the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie (then known as the Prix de la Fondation CCF pour la Photographie). Famous French publisher Robert Delpire was appointed its artistic advisor. The winning photographers were Rip Hopkins (UK) and Laurence Demaison (FR). We spoke with Laurence Demaison about her experience with the prize and the effect it had on her career. Laurence Demaison, currently living and working in Strasbourg (France), started out as a self portrait photographer. All of her earlier work, starting in 1993 up to 2009, consists of self portraits. While browsing through the series you’d never suspect all these images show the same person, it’s like every series shows something new about her personality. To make it even more special none of these images are (digitally) manipulated aftwerwards, except for the chemical treatment of some negatives. I’m amazed by how much diversity can be found in Lauence’s portfolio. Some images are beautiful, some are sad. Some seem to tell a story, while others are straight out terrifying. In her latest work Laurence expanded the range of her models from just herself to dolls and mannequins as well, yet still succeeds in capturing haunting, conceptual portraits. I took these set of images each time I gave one of my dogs a treat. I think that these images are quite amusing mainly from the angle at which all the images were taken. From the high birds eye angle each time my dogs would wait for their treat, they would look up at the treat, which meant that the artificial lighting in the room would create a reflection in their eyes. From this and the way the dogs were sitting, it created a very innocent feeling towards the dogs. One way I could have improved these images, would have been by including the food for the dogs in the image, to make it more obvious what the dogs were looking at, as well as this I think by including the dog food it would've made the images more comedic as the viewers would be able to see what the dogs were staring at. The body, given its formidable expressive power and unending versatility, is an inexhaustible and deeply engaging subject. And when we use our own body, it is capable of responding instantaneously and with minute accuracy to the ever-changing action/reaction that modulates the flow of conception, without the losses in transmission inherent in the use of a model." - Miguel Ribeiro ( http://www.miguelribeirophoto.com/video.html )

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Apal'kin's work has a direct view on to the model. The shots were taken with a studio lighting as it can be more controlled than natural lighting. Using studio lighting is perfect to use as you can place it anywhere and make shadows to create a contrast between light and dark. However, I do believe the final shots does have a soft affect left by the studio lighting. Arms and hands can create leading lines which this photographer used to make the mirror the focus point. The mirror is on a rule of third which catches the viewers attention further. I believe that Apal'kin's work is usually taken with a large depth of field. I purvey that the photographer did not use a tripod and had taken this image with an f stop of 8. The photo was taken at a middle point, only revealing the upper half. 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 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. 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.

Throughout this course we have been given a chance to add on coursework we may have missed. For me, I thought that it would be good to revisit some of my writing a year later and date it here, which will further show my improvement within this course. However, on saying this, i am going to leave my year ten coursework due to the reasoning my writing has improved. So below is a short write up continuing from my artist investigation - Laurence Demaision. 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. Following on from the previous set of images, I decided to change my idea to fit my theme of photo manipulation and distortion. One other thing I could've captured more obviously in my previous set of images, would be the dogs tails wagging whilst waiting for their food. I wanted to experiment following on from my work using a long shutter speed to photograph the movement in the dogs tails. 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. Expositions [ modifier | modifier le code ] Expositions personnelles [ modifier | modifier le code ]Laurence Demaison is a French experimental photographer and visual artist who works mostly with self-portraits. She has a particular interest in the female portrait and body. (Galerie BMG, 2009) 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. La sua opera presenta fugaci richiami ad artisti come Etienne Marey, Andre Kertesz, John Heartfield e Francis Bacon. 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) Sometimes strange ways lead you to great art. I came across the works of French photographer Laurence Demaison by accident, as I was listening to music and found myself amazed by the beautiful cover of the latest IAMX single Happiness. I traced the artist down and found an impressive photography portfolio of which I’d like to share some images with you today.

LODLP : Apart from the monograph, what impact did the prize have on your career? And what is your relationship like with HSBC today ?

Acrophobia (fear of heights)

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 photograph Laurence Demaison : It was a magical experience! From the very first moment, when Robert Delpire called me in person. (I still haven’t recovered!) Her photographs really stood out to me because she doesn't digitally manipulate the images, before or after they have been shot. Apart from using chemical inversion for some series, as an exception. I really want to try experimenting using long exposures and strobe lighting to create ghostly effects, also like some of Harold Edgerton's work. I wouldalso like experimenting with portraiture and manipulating the images as well. The ghostly effects capture my eye, as there aren't opaque sections in the image, unless that object or body part was held there for a longer time. But mostly the images are quite patchy which I really like. As well as this the images feel quite gloomy from this effect and the darker tones. Refusant la facilité de Photoshop, le photographe construit patiemment ses mises en scènes, avec une grande exigence formelle. Dotées d’une forte charge symbolique, ses photographies sont autant de paraboles - volontiers dérangeantes - sur la condition humaine, nourries d’empathie et d’ironie. Usually once images are developed and printed, when people try photographing them, there is usually always a reflection in them from a light source which majority of people find annoying. This task was set, to manipulate the reflections, by photographing the printed images under different types of light sources. The first row of images were taken under artificial lighting in the classroom as I held the images up to the light it created a square looking shape. The second row of images were taken using natural light, however half of the image was placed behind an object, creating a shadow over half the image. For the third row of images, I was focusing more on the shadows rather than the actual light. The source light used was natural, but I places the photograph behind some railing, to create the stripped effect. I think these vertical lines created by the railing worked well with the image as it divided up the image into equal sections as the glass balls are also equally split up and equally distributed through the image.