Analysis of Practitioner

Introduction
In this essay i plan on exploring different photographers and their backgrounds to explore the images in detail to go with my project unit. The photographers Ralph Eugene Meatyard and The family Album of Lucybelle Carter, Alessandro Mitola and Susan Seubert.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard
“the idea of a person, a photograph, say, of a young girl with a title ‘Rose Taylor’ or the title ‘Rose’ or no title at all becomes an entirely different thing,” Meatyard once said. “ ‘Rose Taylor’ is a specific person, whether you know her nor not. ‘Rose’ is more generalised and could be one of many Roses—many people. No title, it could be anybody.” And in the same way, a mask “serves as non-personalising a person.”

Ralph Eugene Meatyard uses masks to erase the differences between people also to withhold the emotions of the models faces this associates to my theme as the emotions that are going to be shown on the faces of my models will be fear and disgust and to link with Meatyard, I will use a mask to hide the faces of the models because the face doesn't abolish all the sense of personhood and individuality as your body language give you your uniqueness too, so even though the mask is there the person is still revealed.

Meatyard was originally an optician, so he wasn't a professional photographer. He joined a camera club and became interested in experimental work like multiple exposure and motion blur.
Meatyard mainly focuses on children with spine twisting dolls and masks often photographed in abandoned houses and landscapes. These photographs put a spin on the ordinary images of a family portrait and photographs, it explores the contrast between adolescence, aged, childhood, unknowability, sharing and hiding. Dolls are human like and may represent a human presence as the mask to hide the models face so that it wouldn't look like the ordinary portrait.

The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater

This project of Meatyard’s, is based on a common family album, but featuring friends and family all wearing ‘older’ masks hiding the differences between the children and the parents. * This image depicts a woman and a child with a mask on the concrete steps in a front garden. The woman, whose body appears young, but wears a mask of a old woman. The appearance of a ‘old hag’, absolutely covers the typical face of the woman as does the ‘old mans’ mask of the child. The masks both completely conceals the child’s and woman’s identity.

There are two masks that appear more than once that suppresses the faces of each of its subjects, in all of the black and white images in the ‘The Family Album Of Lucybelle Crater’. The preponderance of these pictures take place in middle-class, suburban, outdoor gardens or porches, and in all but in the last image, the wearer of the ‘hag’ mask, Lucybelle Crater, stays the same in the photographers. You could argue that the true face is hidden and an alternative is shown in its place, still and unnatural.
It seems magnified due to the intimacy in which the woman looks to be attempting with the child; like an artificial image, or as if the woman and child are posing in the face of the camera and freezing into something dead or rigid.
I find that Meatyard’s work shows a narrative, the images seem to make up a ‘symbolic drama’ of the life of Meatyard.

‘In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art. In other words, a strange action: I do not stop imitating myself, and because of this, each time I am (or let myself be) photographed, I invariably suffer from a sensation of inauthenticity, sometimes of imposture (comparable to certain nightmares).’ (Roland Barthes)

Without the masks, there would still be a sense of the subject ‘acting’ their roles. Meatyard did The Lucybelle Carter series of images when suffering from terminal cancer and most of the images were made whilst he was going through the illness. Meatyard poses in the first and last images, as the male relative Lucybelle at the start and at the end. By this time of the last photograph he is thin with illness. Meatyard and his wife both swap roles as Meatyard plays the ‘hag’ in a woman’s dress and his wife in man’s trousers and shirt, she plays the ‘old man’. This could link with what Meatyard said about his photographs that behind the mask it could be anyone, “No title, it could be anybody”. (See Page 1)

‘Billboards in any art are the first things that one sees—the masks might be interpreted as billboards. Once you get past the billboard then you can see into the past (forest, etc.), the present, & the future. I feel that because of the “strange” that more attention is paid to backgrounds & that has been the essence of my photography forever.’ (Meatyard)

Alessandro Mitola

The photographer Alessandro Mitola images show vulnerability through his models. He captures them at their most vulnerable time. His work is expressive and links to my proposal Phobia because fear causes a person to feel and be vulnerable.

‘If they describe my work in that way it means that it provokes emotion in the viewer, that’s great isn’t it? Anyway in my photographs I can see elegance, darkness and honesty’ (Alessandro Mitola)

The links between vulnerability, fear and darkness is what I am going to show in my images. This image in my opinion link to the theme Phobia because of the model being behind glass which reminds me of Agoraphobia the fear of leaving the house or going outside.
The image includes geometric shapes that capture the viewer attention because they are representational and familiar. The main focus and the place which has the most contrast is the faces and the rest of the image seem to be blurred to make the focus much more sharp and visible. The value ranges from light to dark tones. The similarities of Mitola and Meatyard is that they both create black and white images with high contrast to show all details in the focus of the photographs. The images look like Mitola has used a low ISO sensitivity to give the image that soft touch to it.

Meatyard uses a mask to hide the faces of the models because the face doesn't abolish all the sense of personhood and individuality whereas Mitola doesn't cover the face and uses his images to provoke emotions in the viewer in the way of elegance ,but also darkness.
‘I like to observe and I am always searching for beauty. I’m sort of obsessed with beauty, not as image or appearance but as a true and sincere expression of human nature.’ (Alessandro Mitola)

His main model is his girlfriend and uses his photography to express the beauty, elegance and emotions like fear and pain. Mitola doesn't suppress the faces of his models but expresses them instead because without the masks, there would still be a sense of the subject ‘acting’ their roles, instead Mitola uses his photography to capture everyday life whereas Meatyard’s is almost staged or a performance put on by his family to create a narrative of his life.

Susan Seubert

I decided to do a shoot on Susan Seubert’s phobia collection. I used the idea of fear of insects (Entomophobia) so taking literal photos of places where they would be and photos of spiders, of the insects themselves. This way can hopefully also play with perspectives when you look at phobias in a not-so-scary way. I felt taking these pictures of literal fears, but in such a way allowed the viewer to sympathise with those to have these fears. Shooting literally also somewhat makes it more creative because you’re shooting what’s unexpected and the viewer can express what they want to express instead of looking to actors to play out the emotions for them.

"I am exploring how imagery can affect you on an emotional level but have absolutely nothing to do with anything,” (Susan Seubert).

I used the idea of showing just the object in the photographs and the place where you would find this object/creature. These places show a range of different textures like the logs and the wood panels with the cobwebs hanging from it, the texture looks quite rough and sharp in some places as these are where you would probably get a splinter. In this shoot I think the technique of camera shake worked well as the image looks as if there is a bigger cobweb than there actually is making the subject bigger, I also find that the lighting worked well as it showed a lot of detail in the images. I liked the shadows in the photographs that create a eerie dark feeling to the viewer. I was interested in her work more for the way in which they were created rather than their visual quality. Phobias are all treated the same way in terms of help and therapy, Seubert took this fact and made sure she treated each of the images in the same way.

Conclusion
Overall my final images worked well and looks good in the entomology case. I chose to do the case of i wanted to express and show how phobias can be overcome so I have used a range of my images linking to phobias confined like framed insects (entomology) in glass. My images were supposed to be only in black and white and high contrasted to show the detail and make the focus more sharp and visible, but i found that colour images worked better.

Bibliography * http://www.believermag.com/issues/200612/?read=article_mcdermott * http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ralph-eugene-meatyard-the-man-behind-the-masks-106625198/?no-ist=&page=1 * http://www.so-rimlee.com/literature-supernova/2011/5/10/roland-barthes-camera-lucida-excerpts.html * http://www.utata.org/sundaysalon/ralph-meatyard/ * http://www.ganzomag.com/young-italian-photographer-mitola.html