Francesca Mari
ELENA OGANESYAN.
"People tend to hide their innermost feelings. We don’t like to discuss them or express them in daily life. Through photography I connect with my own hidden fears and desires – I can fix my inner chaos." - Elena Oganesyan.
ARTIST ANALYSIS.
Elena Oganesyan is a Russian photographer, who was born in Moscow, Russia in 1979. Oganesyan states how she became interested in photography in 2008, and how photography was a spontaneous thing for her and she expresses how it still is. However, despite it being a spontaneous thing, it has become a very big part of her life and feels that she can express herself and ideas through her work. It suggests that most maybe all of her work is really personal to her. She explains how it allows her to express herself "by moving through the senses rather than telling stories".
Looking at Elena Oganesyan work, it is evident hat she uses long exposure to capture her work. She uses this technique because she explains that using this technique allows "energy to literally enter the process, every second of it". Elena further explains how it feels like "catching a moment and "being in contact with light and human body", she finds watching the light and the human body transform in an "incredible" way and the fact that you're not in control of the transformation. Elena Oganesyan uses a digital camera and uses natural daylight to capture her images.
I found it interesting how Elena was able to capture the very essence of human life. Her long exposure technique she uses perfectly blends the human desire to constantly move and grow.
photoshoot plan.
My idea for my photoshoot is to capture photos in the style of Elena Oganesyan. I will achieve this by capturing the images in the dark, while using a flashlight from my phone, in order to create shadows. I will create the shadows using flowers. I plan to capture pictures Canon camera, as I believe this is the best way to make my images successful.
I will capture my images using an eye level angle, in order to capture my images in the style of Elena Oganesyan.
contact sheet.
contact sheet analysis.
For my photoshoot, I decided to experiment with different hand movements that would make the images look abstract, I did this by making my model move the hands in a quite slow pace as in front of her face as I took pictures. I decided to focus on movement and fluidity. I believe the variety of the hand movements made my photos appear more interesting and abstract. I also, experimented with different compositions, I first took pictures more closeup and then I captured images that were more full body. However, I wish I had capture more images that were close up as Elena Oganseyan focuses less on full body.
I wanted my pictures to depict frantic and erratic movements to experiment with fast movements.
developments.
DEVELOPMENT ANALYSIS.
For my developments, I decided to experiment with movement a lot. I did this because Elena Oganesyan's photography is mainly based on capturing movement, so in order to replicate her work, I made sure to capture different movements as much I could to create quite abstract and surreal images. Then, I made my edits black and white, I did this so there would be no distracting elements in the picture, and to display a clear focal point of in the image. Also, I made my images black and white because Oganesyan's focuses on telling a story in her work, and I wanted to make sure I did that too. The black and white imagery creates and serious and intense look to my pictures. However, It could also be interpreted as quite somber and sad emotions to the picture.
further developments.
DEVELOPMENT ANALYSIS.
For my further developments, I double exposed my images, in order to create the surreal imagery that Elena Oganesyan creates in her work. Also, I used this technique so my images would illustrate more movement and fluidity. Double exposing my images allowed me to create a chaotic and erratic feeling to my developments and also the movements I captured were quite frantic, which further emphasises the chaos I depicted in my developments. Also, double exposing my developments, allowed me to experiment with erratic imagery and frantic movements which is heavily contrasted with the simplicity of the monochrome colour palette I decided to use. I believe that this made my pictures to look confusing but also aesthetically pleasing, the fact that my images may be confusing to look at further emphasises the chaos in my developments.
