Just Because
It is really important to me to grow as an artist and continually develop my skills. You can probably see by the range of images I take, that I like exploring. Different genres, different styles...
I have always loved Lori Chicchini's Work and when the opportunity came to do a workshop with her, I jumped at the chance. I love, how her images are artworks. They are not so much about the person or subject but more about the photographer. The artist.
Lori took us through her whole process from concept development through to shooting and editing the final result. This workshop couldn't have come at a better time for me as I felt I had all the skills, just not the knowledge of how to put it all together.
The following are a couple of images from the workshop to give you a feel...
One of the biggest things I got from Lori, was making art about something that is meaningful to you. And so I thought about what it was that I wanted to say. Then one day I said something that struck me. I was having a rather heated conversation with someone close to me and I said: "You're sitting behind a huge piece of perspex and you don't even know it!". It was quite a strong image. This person, trapped, unable to really feel or touch anything, but not knowing it.
I thought about the image. And then I built on it. I wanted water. Water dripping down the perspex to represent how I felt about them being behind the glass. Then I started thinking about where this all came from. About the root cause. And I thought of burnt roots. And then having the fire element, I decided I wanted to represent each element. Water, fire, earth (or roots/trees coming from the earth) and wind. I saw a feather. It was an easy jump to angel. Because this person is very beautiful to me... it took a couple of weeks, having all these ideas swimming around in my head. Figuring out how to make certain elements (like singeing parsnips to wrap around the foot as roots) and collecting everything I needed.
For the model, I chose my daughter. Not because the image is about her, but because using a child would bring a different quality to the image.
Here is what I ended up with.
