Self Evaluation



Self Evaluation

Exploring Photo Practice- Francesca Woodman

When completing the module exploring photo practice I have learnt to appreciate other photographers work more. At the beginning of the module we all got to pick a photographer out of a box that was on a folded piece of paper. The photographer I got was Francesca Woodman, I had never heard of her before so was interested to research more about her and her work. To begin with I didn't like her work and it took me a while to start to understand her work.
On this assignment I learnt more about using slow shutter speed settings on my camera. This was a very important part of my work and I hadn't really used it for a full project before just the odd photo experimenting so I was happy with how I learnt that and feel that you could tell that I had achieved this in my work.
I also gained knowledge of a new photographer and doing this project really helped me in researching and looking more into images to find what I can take from them to put into my own images. After researching this photographer for a few weeks I started to like her images more and understand them more than I did at the beginning.
When I started to take my own images in the style of Francesca Woodman's I decided that I didn't want to copy her work so it was exactly the same but take things from how which I thought was appropriate. While having this idea the thing I decided to take from her images was the way in which in some of her images her or her face is blurred. I also decided to take my images in a rural setting instead of urban, but within my setting I had parts of old fence and wire which added an urban effect to my images.
In Francesca Woodman's images the subject within all her images is herself so in my I used myself as the subject and put my camera on self timer. I think that most of my images worked really well and that I captured what I needed and wanted to within my images as a good response to Francesca Woodman.
I feel that I have gained a lot from this assignment. I now understand how to research photographers and appreciate them more. I have also learnt how to use my camera and create pictures with slow shutter speeds. I think the researching part will help me a lot more on my next assignments. It has also helped me gain confidence being in front and behind the camera.

Final Images

These are the images I chose for my final eight. I think these images show best what I was trying to create and are my best responce to Francesca Woodman's work. Click on the images to make them bigger.



Final Presentation

Francesca Woodman was born in 1958 in Denver, Colorado. She lived and worked in New York up until her death in 1981. Since 1986, her work has been exhibited widely 

At the age of thirteen Francesca Woodman took her first self portrait using a Yashica twin lens reflex camera given to her by her father. From then, up until her untimely death in 1981 where she committed suicide by jumping off a building in lower Manhattan age just 22.

Self portrait at thirteen, Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975

She produced an extraordinary body of work and left an archive of about 800 images, many of which have still not been seen. 

She studied at Rhode Island School of Design from 1975-1979, receiving a grant to spend a year in Rome to continue her studies. 

Whilst there she had her first solo exhibited at a bookshop and gallery specialising in Surrealism and Futurism. 

Woodman has had solo exhibitions shown all over the world from 1976-2009. She has also had shown a variety of group exhibitions from 1977-2008.

Francesca Woodman has been called a Modernist and a Surrealist. Her work shows both of these traditions. As a young woman she photographed herself obsessively but often in her pictures she appears as a blur of movement or a half hidden figure, someone who is constantly trying to escape or hide. 

The end result is not a self portrait but a series of stills from a performance in which she plays with the notion of the self, disguising, transforming and defacing her own body. 

In her work people think that she might be playing with themes of identity and with photography, and in particular portrait photography, can play in constructing a fixed and therefore false identity. 

From Angel Series, Italy, Rome, 1977

From Angel Series, Italy, Rome, 1997-1978

Eel Series, Italy, Rome, May 1977- August 1978

House #3, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976

Space2, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1978

Untitled, Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975

Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976

Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976

Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976

Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976

Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976

The time of her works production was in the 1970s, up until this point women were seen as objects. This was a time when women were beginning to express their own ideas and freedoms. Her images display her moving from adolescent to women-hood.

The camera she used while producing her work was a Yashica twin lens reflex camera. Francesca Woodman played complex games of hide and seek with her camera. In some of her images she shows herself fading into the background, merging with the wall under wallpaper, dissolving into the floor or flattening herself behind glass.

All her images are about women with the images being in a basic setting. Nearly all of her images are pictures with just her in them.

In her images there is very few where you see her as a whole person. Nearly always something is either covering her or she is blurred. 

Art critic Arther Danto said of Woodman's photographs, "It is impossible to view her work without being drawn into the vast questions it raises about life, art and the meaning and embodiment of sex..."

In Francesca Woodmans images the subject in nearly all of her images is herself. Sometimes in her images she also has some objects, for example a piece or mirror, glass or a door. 

She started taking her images at a young age and also died at a young age so all her photos are all of her in her youth. 

The locations that she uses in her images are set in a urban environment, looking at her images they look to be in a abandoned house.

In her images most of them look like they were took in the day because of all the natural light coming through the images. 

Looking at the technical side of her images and how she takes them you can see in all her images that there all in black and white, there are no coloured images. 

In her images the subject being herself looks like shes been lit using natural light only. By the look of her images there always seems to be a big window present that is letting all the natural light in. 

Francesca Woodman's images

In my images I tired to take my pictures in the style of Francesca Woodman and focusing on how in a lot of her images her body or face is blurred. 

Like Francesca Woodman who features in all of her images I used myself in all my images using a self timer on my camera.

Instead of copying exactly the same kind of location in my images I tried looking for somewhere which had the same effect but did not copy her work. 

My work is in a rural setting not a urban one but I used old fencing which connects my work with Francesca Woodman's. 

In my pictures I used a shutter speed of 1" and 1.3.

These are some of my favourite images and the images I am going to be using for my final eight. 

My images 2

These are images from my second shoot, I haven't put all of my images on here because quite a lot were blurry so I have just put the ones on that were in focus and okay to use. Click images to see them bigger. 

I am happy with all my images from both shoots and think that all my images worked well. I feel that I have captured in the images what I wanted to. In some of my images I also tried hiding behind things like Francesca Woodman does within some her images, I don't think these images worked as well but I thought that I would try them anyway.