Identity
Elena Kulikova
Artist Analysis
Elena Kulikova is a spectacular self-taught photographer based on the idea of “Identity”. All of her photographs are fascinating because of her unusual and unique style. All of the images are really colourful and vibrant. Her eccentric ideas for the photoshoots attract many people and helped Elena to become really popular.
Elena Kulikova was born on July 11th 1982, in Alma-Ata, Russia. She loved travelling her whole life and at the age of ten, Elena moved to San Francisco. This experience changed her life completely. At the age of seventeen, Elena Kulikova started modelling and started to be attracted by photography. Later she moved to Vancouver and started creating her first photoshoots. Most of the time she captured different railroads, buildings and sunsets. When Elena was nineteen years old, she moved to Los Angeles. There she started to take portrait photography images. Elena also tried to use double exposure. This interesting technique makes her photoshoots look really interesting.
Elena Kulikova had a lot of exhibitions all around the world, here are some of them: 2009 Paris Collette Boutique Exhibition ‘Through a Women’s Lens’, 2009 Haleiwa North Shore Art Gallery 'The Vivid and Colorful Exhibition', 2013 Cars West Gallery 'Into a Billion Pieces'.
Elena’s style is unique and all of her ideas are really impressive. Looking through this photographer’s portfolio we can notice several basic concepts that she is following in the majority of her images. Firstly, it must be said that Elena Kulikova mainly photographs people and parts of their bodies. This suggests that she is a Portrait and Human Identity-based photographer. This photographer captures close-up images as well.
When we look at Elena’s photographs we can notice that all of them are really precise. They are
not blurry or grainy. This fact suggests that she is capturing her images using digital camera and
the aperture is really sharp. The majority of her images are really bright and colorful. This means
that Elena captures photographs using a lot of light. This light is not natural but artificial. Artificial
light makes the photographs look really exciting and alsosuggests that they were captured in a
studio. To create exciting photoshoots this photographeruses a lot of media. For example, Elena
uses water and colourful lights. Some of Elena Kulikova’simages are related to nature so she uses
plants to capture inimitable images.
If we look at Elena Kulikova’s portfolio we can notice that all of the colour are really bright and
vivid. We can also see that some of her images were captured using such techniques as long
exposure, mirroring and double exposure. All these facts suggest that Elena is doing a lot of
editing. For example, to make all the colours look more saturated you can use such techniques
as “Hue/Saturation” and “Brightness/Contrast” in photoshop. To make the elements of the photoshoot stand out more you can burn out or blur the background. This will bring people’s attention to the actual composition and not on the background. To create double exposure you can layer one image on another. All these techniques will make your photoshoot look really exciting.
Elena Kulikova’s became really popular due to her unusual style. Her images are really colourful, bright and interesting. She already had a lot of exhibitions all around the world and I think she will have even more in the future.
Photoshoot Plan
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To create an exciting photoshoot inspired by the talented photographer Elena Kulikova we need to consider some basic concepts. For example, we need to capture images using digital camera. This will help us not to capture blurry and grainy photos. We should also use a lot of artificial light. This concept will make our photographs look much more professional. All of the colors need to be bright and vibrant. This is one of the most important concepts of Elena Kulikova's works. We can also capture several images under the water. This will create an interesting effect of rippled surface. We can put some colorful bath bombs into the water so the compositions will become much more interesting.
Concepts
1. Lighting
To create this photoshoot we will need to use a lot of artificial light. This will help us to capture exciting and professional-looking images.
2. Camera angle
If we look through Elena Kulikova's portfolio we can notice that she is capturing her images from different angles. This means that we can use any of these camera angles: the bird's-eye view, eye level or low angle.
3. Shot length
To capture images inspired by Elena Kulikova's works we can use any of these framings: long shot, medium shot, close-up or extreme close-up.
4. Media
To create an exciting photoshoot we can use a lot of interesting media. For example, we can use water, bath bombs, plants and a lot of other things.
Photoshoot
Captured with a camera:
Captured with an Iphone 11 camera:
Contact Sheet
Creating a contact sheet is one of the best ways to choose the most successful images out of the whole photoshoot. When I captured these photographs I followed several concepts. This helped me to make my photoshoot look like Elena Kulikova's works. One of the most important concepts was the artificial lighting. This kind of lighting helps to create really bright and vivid images. If you take a quick look at DSC_4209.JPG - DSC_4220.JPG you can notice that all those images seem very boring, faded and pale. This is the result of the wrong lighting.
To create an interesting effect of liquifying I decided to capture several images using a piece of colored glass. I placed the glass in front of the
model's eye and then captured interesting photographs. To develop my idea I tried to use a glass of water. Unfortunately, this did not work well. The composition looked really abnormal and liquified. This suggested that all of the images captured using a glass of water are unsuccessful. On the other hand, the idea of using colored glass helped me to create several really exciting photographs. The glass created unusual shadows and tones. All these links to Elena Kulikova's works. Also, if you take a quick look through Elena's portfolio you might find several
images created using almost the same techniques, media and lighting as I used when created my first photoshoot. As well as portrait photographs, I captured several close-ups. Later, when I start editing my images, I can use them as new layers for double exposure. This technique will help me to create fascinating, vivid and absolutely beautiful development for my photoshoot in the style of Elena Kulikova.
Developments
Experiments with hue and saturation:
Experiments with double exposure:
Experiments with the liquify tool:
Further Developments
To create my further developments I decided to use a lot of different techniques. I think that using multiplicity of interesting techniques will make my images look really exciting and unusual. For example, I tried to use double exposure. If we look at Elena Kulikova's portfolio we can find images created using this technique. I used Hue/Saturation and Liquify tools on photoshop as well. I used Hue/Saturation tool to make my images very colorful and vivid. Liquifying tool is an interesting filter on photoshop. It lets you change the shape, pull, rotate, reflect and bloat certain areas of the image.
Process
To make the editing part even more clearer I decided to add the process of editing. In my opinion, these screenshots will make the process of using different techniques easier. For example, here I made my image black and white and after that I erased several areas. I also used the tool called "Hue/Saturation" to make the colors vivid and bright.
On my second screenshot I decided to show the technique called Double Exposure. This includes layering images one on another, increasing or decreasing the Fill and the Opacity, using eraser and Black and White filter. I think that this technique is really interesting and will make your photoshoot inimitable.
Creating GIF Image
To explore new interesting techniques I decided to create a GIF image. To create it I chose one of my best edited photographs from the photoshoot in the style of Elena Kulikova. Every time I changed the color of the image using "Hue/Saturation" technique on Photoshop, I saved it as a new document. Every time I changed the hue just a little bit. This helped to create a gentle switching of the colors. After that I visited a website called "gifmaker.me" and created an animation there.
Redraft Photoshoot
To create my redraft photoshoot I decided to focus on eyes. I used the glass dish and poured some water there. I also added some food coloring there. After that I placed the dish above the model's eye and captured photographs. I also tried to create ripples and bubbles to show the water surface. I believe that this made my photoshoot much more exciting.
Contact Sheet
Now you can see several contact sheets for my redraft photoshoot. As I already said, I captured the photographs through the glass dish full of water. As a result,
some of the images came out blurry and grainy. That's why I only have some images circled (which means that they came out quite well and later I will edit them).
I believe that the rippled surface of water will help me to create an unusual photoshoot related to Elena Kulikova's artworks. If you look through her portfolio you can notice that she has a lot of unusual and even strange photographs. I am also thinking about using the
liquifying tool to edit my photographs to make my images much more exciting.
Developments
Here you can see several developments for my redraft photoshoot. To create this series of images I used the tool called "Hue/Saturation" on Photoshop. This tool changes the color of the image completely and makes it much more unusual. I also used the tool called "Color Balance". This tool takes away some colors or replaces those with other shades. This tool also creates balance between various colors (red, green, blue).
Experiments with Double Exposure
To make my portfolio much more exciting I decided to create another series of developments. Here I decided to focus on the technique called "Double Exposure". To create this kind of edits I had to layer one image several times. To make them more surreal I changed the opacity and the position. I also used the "Eraser" tool to get rid of some areas of the layered images.
3D Effect
To expand my portfolio and experiment with the technique called "Double Exposure" even more I decided to create a series of 3D images. Here I just layered the background layer two times and then moved it. I also used such tools as "Color Balance" and "Brightness/Contrast" to make the images look more interesting. I also believe that this technique relates to my first artist because if you take a look at her portfolio you can find a lot of surreal images which she created using this unusual technique.
Creating More GIFs
To finish off, I decided to create several GIFs using my developments from my second photoshoot. To create these I chose one of my developments, opened it on Photoshop and then saved it each time after I changed the hue. To create the GIF I went on the website called gifmaker.me. Here I uploaded all of those images and then changed the speed to make the image more smooth. After that I saved those GIFs.
