Eleanor Farmer: Blood
Eleanor Farmers work is so inspirational to this project as it sums up my process of image making, and the subject idea, linking broad work towards a specific subject.
Farmers project ‘Blood’ sums this up perfectly. She focuses on one subject – blood – and then uses this one subject to explore all the different photographic possibilities surrounding blood, from heart surgery still lives, to macro shots of blood under a microscope. Farmer states that ‘by virtue of its subject, the book is not a comprehensive account, but rather an exploration of some of its rich veins.’ The book comprises of images of an exploration of a strong, deep subject, looking into how blood represents life and death, and how it repels and intrigues. It is a broad study of blood, a collection of images all relating to this subject, but all looking so different, with this one common subject that brings them together as a collection. For this reason, I am so intrigued by her work, because my work is a study of hair, a study of one specific subject with a variety of visual outcomes, an index of the subject, with this one subject linking all the work together. Her work has given me hope in the fact that projects can be broad, you don’t always have to specify the type of creative work you’re making. As a student, I’m told to make sure my work is specific and be careful how each image relates to the other, but with Farmers work, I have realised that if you have a strong underlying subject, any image can link to another, if there’s a connection for you. Because Farmers work also goes across different genres within photography, I feel more comfortable creating still life’s that will be seen next to portraits and then next to landscapes.
After viewing Farmers work, I have become really inspired by this broad subject matter and am looking forward to creating this work, exploring all these different areas I can, creating visual work around the subject of hair, relating back to the challenge to provide links between what Michel Foucault states as 'the spontaneous link between what one can see and what one can say' (The Order of Things).
The images themselves are all beautifully thought out, considered and produced in line with the focus of the project. Her studio skills jump out of most images as she considers composition, allowing the subject to have enough space within the image, and also lights it so the prominent features stand out. This is also inspiration for me as I can use her studio skills within my work, practicing with lighting to try and illuminate the focus of my images, which is obviously the hair on peoples heads. Each image hair (bar one) includes the colour red, which coincides with the colour of blood once out of the body. This, I see, as the link between each image, as well as the contextual link. The red allows the viewers to link all the images together visually, even when they are all taken within different genres of photography, from still life to landscape images. This is a skill I need to try to reiterate within my work, focusing on how I bring my work together as a whole, and for now Farmers work is very inspirational in that. I will try to incorporate similar colour tones and lighting styles, possibly similar backgrounds within the still life images and portraits, so that my images sit together visually as well as contextually. I am particularly intrigued by one of her images, bottom left on this page, of the zoomed in blood cells. Obviously her interest and background within science allowed her to take this image, but I still believe I can find a way of doing it with hair. I am going to try and contact the science body within UWE and try to screenshot images of the hair proteins within the microscope. I feel like this for now may deter off of my portraits and still life ideas, and so I will look at this after creating them so I can develop my understanding in constructing hair before looking at the hair so close itself.
Farmers project ‘Blood’ sums this up perfectly. She focuses on one subject – blood – and then uses this one subject to explore all the different photographic possibilities surrounding blood, from heart surgery still lives, to macro shots of blood under a microscope. Farmer states that ‘by virtue of its subject, the book is not a comprehensive account, but rather an exploration of some of its rich veins.’ The book comprises of images of an exploration of a strong, deep subject, looking into how blood represents life and death, and how it repels and intrigues. It is a broad study of blood, a collection of images all relating to this subject, but all looking so different, with this one common subject that brings them together as a collection. For this reason, I am so intrigued by her work, because my work is a study of hair, a study of one specific subject with a variety of visual outcomes, an index of the subject, with this one subject linking all the work together. Her work has given me hope in the fact that projects can be broad, you don’t always have to specify the type of creative work you’re making. As a student, I’m told to make sure my work is specific and be careful how each image relates to the other, but with Farmers work, I have realised that if you have a strong underlying subject, any image can link to another, if there’s a connection for you. Because Farmers work also goes across different genres within photography, I feel more comfortable creating still life’s that will be seen next to portraits and then next to landscapes.
After viewing Farmers work, I have become really inspired by this broad subject matter and am looking forward to creating this work, exploring all these different areas I can, creating visual work around the subject of hair, relating back to the challenge to provide links between what Michel Foucault states as 'the spontaneous link between what one can see and what one can say' (The Order of Things).
The images themselves are all beautifully thought out, considered and produced in line with the focus of the project. Her studio skills jump out of most images as she considers composition, allowing the subject to have enough space within the image, and also lights it so the prominent features stand out. This is also inspiration for me as I can use her studio skills within my work, practicing with lighting to try and illuminate the focus of my images, which is obviously the hair on peoples heads. Each image hair (bar one) includes the colour red, which coincides with the colour of blood once out of the body. This, I see, as the link between each image, as well as the contextual link. The red allows the viewers to link all the images together visually, even when they are all taken within different genres of photography, from still life to landscape images. This is a skill I need to try to reiterate within my work, focusing on how I bring my work together as a whole, and for now Farmers work is very inspirational in that. I will try to incorporate similar colour tones and lighting styles, possibly similar backgrounds within the still life images and portraits, so that my images sit together visually as well as contextually. I am particularly intrigued by one of her images, bottom left on this page, of the zoomed in blood cells. Obviously her interest and background within science allowed her to take this image, but I still believe I can find a way of doing it with hair. I am going to try and contact the science body within UWE and try to screenshot images of the hair proteins within the microscope. I feel like this for now may deter off of my portraits and still life ideas, and so I will look at this after creating them so I can develop my understanding in constructing hair before looking at the hair so close itself.