User:Thy/ 3 projects
3 Projects
1. Body Landscape I.
The Body Landscape I series depicts my mother's body being abtracted into lines and uneven surfaces. They are close-up images created by the play between light and my mom's skin surfaces, her stretch marks and her body's curves. The series comprises of 6 images displayed on a 2.5x1 meter green background. The images are printed on C Type Fuji Matt 231 GSM paper and mounted on foam board with identicals distance in between.
When I lied next to my mom and observed her body in a close distance, I saw her curves and skin surfaces as landscape views of nature, I imagined it as sane dunes in desert. Therefore to archive that dessert look in the images, I used orange filter to cover srtobe lights in my studio alongside with smoke machine to create a thick mist, which restricts visibility to just a few inches. To further explain, I created such restricted viewing effect to make my mom feel comfortable of being naked, which allows me to investigate her body for an extended period of time. My camera is a digital full frame Sony A7rIII, which was hand held to allow flexible movements during the photoshoot. When taking photographs, I paused several times to show my mom what I was capturing and I listened to her thoughts about it. Sometimes I asked my mom to do a specific pose and she would also examine her body to give me suggestions. Then, in the post-production editing stage, the chosen images were cropped, resized to fit with layout dimensions and edited to achieve a unified colour look.
Vietnam is a heavily censored country where most artistic works containing nudity are prohibited. It was a surprise to know my mom would only have sex when all lights are off. Therefore, I made Body Landscape I to embrace the beauty of women bodies and to suggest a different way of looking at it. Additionally, my mom's decision to participate in this shoot is also a moment of self-acceptance when all veneers of external meaning are stripped away. Last but not least, the series printed in moderate paper size (A3) and unframe with the intention to to let viewers step closer to the images, to engage with the surfaces in order to make sense of the landscape views.
2. Body Landscape II
Body Landscape II is the expanded work of the first series. It also comprises of 6 images but these images are printed in A1 matt papers and hung on a larger 5x2 meters white wall by anchor screw. The photographs are mostly landscapes, only one square image. As my grandmom is 86 years old, her wrinkles and aging skin creates more textures and depth of field in the images. The photographs suggest a variety of landscapes: a gradual incline hill, a sand cliff, a dusty desert, all of which are arranged sequencetially like an excursion through desert.
My working method of Body Landscape II is similar to the first series. However, working with my grandmom required more patient and time to get her comfortable with the setting. Therefore I splitted this project into sessions, each one only lasts for 1 and a half hour. After each session, I also printed out contact sheets to show and discuss with my grandmom about it.
For this extended project, I addresses the unchanged beauty of our body across the passage of time by embracing wrinkles and aging skin - archive of our lived experiences and memories, rather than stigmatising it. As a result, the second series of Body Landscape is displayed in larger scale, each photo has its depth and richer in textures, suggests viewers to look at body surfaces as interface - a surface on which events are written, which beautifully shows the marks of time.
3.Untitled
The Untitled are images of a dancer captured in movements in a white, empty space. Using long exposure technique, her body movements are made visible and therefore has its layering effects. The series comprises of 2 portraits, a medium shot and a full body one. Throughout the images, the model's body movements are seen as an orange aura field surrounding her body suggesting an out of body state of being. In one of her portraits, the visible movement of pulling her head back makes it look like she is wearing a mask on her face, and this mask is also her skin surface. She is wearing a long silk dress revealing her body bones and her face void of emotions as she is sleepwalking. The photographs are C Type Fuji Matt photographic prints in A1 paper size.
I chose to photograph in a white studio space without any props. Therefore, and the model body wearing a silk dress is the only medium used to express herself. Before getting to the shoot, the instruction I gave was that the model doesn't have to pose or perform a complete performance. She can do whatever that makes she feels comfortable in that space and can ask me to stop whenever she wants. I played her music to get the vibe right, to have fun and not to be afraid of getting weird. To capture the movement, I used a combination of studio strobe lights, continuous lighting with long shutter speed settings in my camera.
The body is the tangible form of how we express ourselves and how we are being seen by others. Our bodies are always in motion, even when we sleep, we are still breathing. As photography is claimed to freeze movements, in this project, I want to challenge that idea by making the body movements visible. As dancers are known best at controlling their bodies, I chose to photograph a ballet dancer in this project and gave her a silk costume to embrace her body special bone structure, which are exposed through rymithic movements. In addition, the visual effects I achieved in this shoot is also to illustrate for the energy field surounding the dancer's body.