Cindy Sherman has been a huge inspiration to my photography and some of my video work in the past couple of years. She was one of the first photographers that I felt didn't have to pretend to understand. There are a lot of artists and photographer that I could stare at for hours and not know what I'm looking at, although this may be considered charming, as a freshman in college, I was fed up. I first found out about her work in an Avant-Garde film studies course, I was shown multiple photos and no information; I thought they were all different people. When the professor explain how they all the same person in different 'personas' I was hooked.
I've tried to explore more of her photography before, by recreating some of her earlier work. Retaking some of her work, pushed me a bit out of my comfort zone, because I'm not used to being front of the camera as myself, let alone me in a different persona. In the picture above I took her Untitled Film Still #12 (1978), of a woman in distress packing a suitcase, and did my take on it. Showing me, with an open suitcase in front of me with clothes strung about, also in distress. Both photos have a black and white filter to signify that it could be an aged photo.
When I saw the original photograph by Cindy Sherman, I created an entire backstory for the photo, where a woman was the mistress to the husband, and the wife was away for the weekend. She then decided she was gonna stay with the man, but then the wife came home early and now she's crying and packing. I liked that story so I put myself in that mindset, putting on heels and little shorts, maybe to signify that I was a party-loving, wild child. I was holding up the shirt to show fear, I was hearing the couple argue from outside the door. In the end, I was happy with the result of my photograph, and want to further experiment with self-portraits and putting myself in front of the camera, as opposed to being behind it.
Links:
-https://www.moma.org/collection/works/56571?classifications=any&date_begin=Pre-1850&date_end=2019&locale=en&page=1&q=cindy+sherman&with_images=1
- https://www.thoughtco.com/cindy-sherman-biography-4174868
No comments:
Post a Comment