Francesca Mari
ARTIST ANALYSIS.
The way Emilio Jimenez also combines nature with women bodies, also conveys the way he views nature as well. I believe that Jimenez is fascinated by nature as well, he views nature as beautiful and captivating. It is interesting to look inside the mind of Emilio Jimenez through his photography and see how he views women and how he interprets femininity. I was really captivated and amazed by Emilio's work and all the little details that he applied in his work to make his work extremely interesting to research or even look at. Once you start looking for his technique his work becomes so stunning to look at.
Emilio Jimenez is a Spanish photographer, who experiments with light and shadows. Emilio's photography is heavily inspired by In a project called “Anatomía Natural, Salvaje” which translates to “Natural and Wild Anatomy”, he combines the beauty of femininity and nature together. Emilio uses flowers and feather as the shadows on the women's bodies, I find this interesting because flowers and feathers are delicate and usually associated with women, femininity and being beautiful. The materials he uses are considered beautiful and delicate, it is clear why Emilio uses these object as it is a clear representation on how he views the female body. The use of black and white imagery illustrates a clear focal point of the image, which is the body that he is capturing, it also allows the image to remain simple as there is no distracting elements in the background. The simplicity of his work and how it is not overly edited, shows the raw image of the female body and nature itself. Everything about his work is very natural and I believe the way he presents his work is extremely clever and pays a lot of attention to detail. For example, the materials he uses are what he thinks about the female body, he didn't capture random images, he found images he believed to represent the female body. Although his pictures are of nude bodies, Emilio still managed to make the images still look innocent and not suggestive.
contact sheet.
contact sheet analysis.
For my photoshoot, I decided to experiment with light/shadows in the style of Emilio Jimenez. In order to capture the shadows, I decided to take pictures in a mostly dark room and I used a phone torch to then create the shadows. The first picture I took was not successful as the shadows did not transfer on the face. I used a female model to capture these images as I wanted to still express how he explores women and femininity. I used flowers to create the shadows to further emphasise the delicate and innocent stigma around women in society just like Emilio Jimenez does. I took my pictures close up because I wanted to capture all blemishes and "imperfects" of a woman's face, this allowed my pictures to appear more natural and shows the raw and unedited side of her face. I did this because Emilio Jimenez work illustrates this as well. I was extremely interested with how Emilio kept all this work simple so that the main focus would be on the body he captured and the flowers/feathers he used.
I used a black background to capture my images so that when I went to edit my images, there would be no distracting things in the background so that whoever would look at the image would not be focuses on what's in the background but all their attention would be on the person I captured and the flowers I used.
developments.
developments ANALYSIS.
For my developments, I decided that the best way to edit my pictures were to keep them extremely simplistic, this way I could keep displaying my idea of capturing the natural elements of the female face. To create these simple black and white developments, I edited my pictures on photoshop , however the only things I did in order to keep my edits simple were to make them black and white and make the background completely black so that the focal point of the image would be the face. To accomplish the black background, on photoshop I first decreased the curve so I could get the background as dark as possible, then I drew with the burn tool to ensure that the background wasn't just dark but it was completely black. I decided to experiment with the black and white filter as it highlights the simplicity and natural feeling of the photo, which is made more intense with the presence of the shades. The contrast between the monochrome shades allows the woman's face to take the main focus of the photograph, without any additional distracting elements, hence the completely black background. In addition to this, I further explored black and white imagery, to imitate Emilio Jimenez's work and also to, it further emphasise the simplicity of my images as there are no vibrant colours that might distract the person who is viewing the picture and then the face would no longer be the main part of the image. As I was working with minimal colour, I didn't want my pictures to appear dull, I still wanted my pictures to appear striking. To achieve this, I heavily contrasted the background with the face I was capturing.
further developments.
further developments ANALYSIS.
For my further developments, I decided to experiment with double exposure. To achieve this, I copied and pasted one of my developments onto one of my other developments. Then to blend them together I lowered the opacity. There wasn't a certain percentage I lowered the opacity to I did to whatever I believed look the most aesthetically pleasing. I wanted to make my images look abstract as well as still keeping a natural look to them. Also, I kept my developments black and white so I could heavily contrast the simplicity created by the monochrome imagery and the visually abstract look created by double exposing my developments together.
redraft contact sheet.
Again for my redraft photoshoot, I used a camera to capture pictures and I used an iPhone torch to create the shadows. Then I thought it would be best to use a black background and take my pictures in a dark room as for my first photoshoot I knew that this would give me the best outcome. I decided to further explore experimenting with shadows and lighting but in order, to make my work more interesting, I captured pictures using long exposure. I made sure that whoever was viewing the image was still able to see the shadows of the flowers despite using long exposure. In order to achieve this, I used slow and less erratic movements. Also, I experimented with different angles of her face, I did this because Emilio Jimenez likes to focus on the beauty and the natural aspect of the female body. I wanted to take pictures of different angles of the face so that I could display how a woman's face looks like from all angles and again show the "imperfects" of a females face. I also wanted to do this as my model doesn't fit stereotypical western beauty standards, I wanted to illustrate that beauty is subjective and you don't need to look like a certain "beauty standard" to be considered beautiful.
For my redraft photoshoot that are shown to the right, I captured pictures that showed the behind the scenes of my photoshoot. I thought it would be interesting to show how my photoshoot was achieved.
redraft developments.
redraft developments ANALYSIS.
For my redraft developments, I used the basic editing techniques of lowering the curve and using the burn tool to achieve the completely black background, Also, I increased the contrast so that the face I captured would stand out and appear more striking. I decided to keep focusing on black and white imagery as I wanted to keep my edits simple. Furthermore, I took pictures using long exposure because I wanted to experiment with slight movement and not necessarily fast movements.
further developments ANALYSIS.
For my further developments, I decided to image blend my first set of developments together so that I was able to create an abstract