Research & Inspirations

Photographers/ Painters

Lee Jeffries                  

Lee Jeffries is a freelance photographer based in Manchester. At the beginning of his photographic career he started off photographing sporting events until he had a chance meeting with a young homeless girl on the streets of London. After this his artistic approach was changed forever, he made the homeless the subjects of his art. 

His work consists of square format close-up portraits of homeless people that he has met around Europe and the United States. Before taking his shots he makes an effort to get to know his subjects. By doing this it helps him to empathise with these people and allows him to better portray their stories through these haunting portraits.

Lee Jeffries also always offers these people money or food to thank them for what they have done. He works full time as an accountant but hopes to become a war photographer/photojournalist.

Lee Jeffries work inspired me for my project by how he has managed to capture this striking portraits that really encase each individual story. Looking through his images is like reading a book, each page adds something else to the tale.

I would love to recreate Lee Jeffries style into my own work because it is exactly how I hope to lay out my portraits. However, I do not want to entirely copy him as I intend on incorporating my own style within, to make it unique. 

Unlike Lee's work I intend to include a journalistic piece alongside my portraits to educate the viewers to the issue and add a little background to my project and the subjects I have photographed. 

Upon doing a little research into how Lee Jeffries' work I deduced that he shoots on digital. The reason for this being that in an article he states that he never has a great deal of time to capture their portrait and adds in all the effects after taking the picture. Nevertheless, I intend to undergo two shoots, one film and one digital so that I can determine which is best suited for this project. 

Andreas Poupoutsis

Andreas Poupoutsis is a Greek Cypriot conceptual photographer/graphic designer. His work explores graphics, shapes and elements as well as odd and mysterious portraiture. He heavily works with identity, as it is a reoccurring theme within his imagery. He is strongly influenced by cubism, shapes, shadows and textures.

His work with portraiture focuses on transforming people's faces into these surreal images. For instance, his body of work entitled 'Hidden Identities' is one that I have marveled over and has really helped to give me some exciting and experimental ideas. The element of this work that inspired me the most was how he has hidden the identity of the model yet still kept a few essential features and a slight outline of their face. For my previous project 'Images and Dreams' I took inspiration from Ralph Meatyard in how I planned on removing the identity of the model's. Meatyard uses long exposures and obscure masks to remove the identities completely. I feel his method for removing the identities of the models is effective, however, in the case of this project I do not feel it is right.

Whereas, I believe Andreas' method is just right. The reason being that not only does he remove the identity he maintains a slight presence of life and being, which I believe could help to enhance the feeling of not knowing who I was.

You can see that in these images how he as maintained some of the details of the model's facial features is by using very tight fitting materials. How I could replicate this is by either using a bed sheet and tightly pinning it around the model or, buying a costume called a morph suit which is designed to be extremely tight fitting. Personally, I am more drawn towards the morph suit as I could make it a reoccurring theme within my work and draw different meanings from it as if it were a symbol of being encased in a different skin.

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter whose imagery was regarded as intensely evocative in his treatment of psychological themes, and built upon some of the main doctrines of late 19th Century symbolism. His work also influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th Century. 

Munch's most famous painting is "The Scream". This painting was one of four that had been created, as both paintings and pastels, between 1893 and 1910. They were named 'Der Schrei der Natur' (The Scream of Nature). 

With the pastel version in 1895, Edvard created a poem to accompany this work. The poem was an artistic interpretation of his inspiration for this image. The poem goes;

"I was walking along the road with two friends

the sun was setting

suddenly the sky turned blood red

I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence

there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city

my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety

and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

Personally, I love this painting there is a strong sense of madness that encompasses it, from the horrified expression to the warped background, this painting, in my eyes, 'screams' insanity. I have loved this painting for sometime and feel I can relate it to my work as it helped to inspire me for one of my images. For my third image I am hoping to create a strong sense of being lost in my mind and unaware of my surroundings and this painting says just that. For instance, the expression on the persons face, to me, denotes emotions of fear, anxiety and complexity, all of which I was experiencing during that time. The background is also disfigured, enhancing that feeling of being lost and isolated as the character is the main focus point, even though he is quite low down in the frame. 

This image inspired me to play around with Photoshop and see what effects I could get from different filters, in an attempt to isolate the main character from everything else in the picture. 

Yuri Dojc

Yuri Dojc is a Czechoslovakian fine art and commercial photographer whose work includes; black and white nude studies, portraits of Canadian World War II veterans and projects, such as, American Dreams, Marble Women and his Last Folio exhibit.

I was quite drawn to Yuri's work with portraiture and anatomy. The reason for this being, a selection of them had this slight feeling of loneliness to them. For example, in this image here the man looks rather solemn and, to some extent, bored, empty and unfulfilled.  The majority of these feelings are ones I wish to convey within two or more of my images. However, Yuri's images are extremely open ended, they allow for a lot more thought to go into what is actually going on in the frame. For instance, in this picture the man could simply be waiting for someone, he could have had bad news and is mulling over and contemplating things. Whereas, I want my work to be slightly clearer. My intention is to portray the emotions that I want clearly, yet leave the interpretation of the entire story, as a whole, up to the viewer's.

My other favourite image is this image to the left, which is from Yuri's work on anatomies. Like the other photo I believe it denotes feelings of loneliness. However, contrary to the other image I feel there is a greater sense of madness involved. Personally, I believe that the woman is toiling over her appearance so much that it has become an obsession, intently overlooking every minor detail. How I came to this conclusion was simply from how she is on the floor, naked, transfixed by her own reflection, not the actions of a sane human. 

Upon seeing this image it has given me a few ideas for a couple of my shoots. One of which is to incorporate mirrors into the shot symbolising anger and paranoia, as I feel it will further enhance the presence of paranoia within the picture.  

Inspirations

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a sci-fi, drama about a couple that undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories when their relationship turns sour, but it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.

Although the plot-line does not sound like it fits in with my project, the main character and some of the editing techniques used within the motion picture have been great influences to my ideas. The character played by Jim Carrey (Joel Barish) is a very reserved and lonely character, whose main company is his own thoughts. He over-thinks situations and feels isolated from society.  I remember watching this film around the same time I was feeling like that, and to some extent empathised with his character. At the time I too felt isolated from society, not fitting in and keeping myself to myself. In a way the plot did somehow link in with my situation. For instance, when their relationship goes sour they both escape reality and take the quick way out, which in a sense is exactly what I did.

This film also inspired me for how I intended to shoot and edit some of my images. For example, during the film there are a number of scenes where Joel (Jim Carrey) is the only thing in focus, while the everything else is blurred out. To me this symbolised being isolated and losing the grip on reality, not knowing whats going on.

Another aspect of this film that I hope to incorporate into my work is the use of removing someone's identity. Within the film there are a few separate scenes where someone's identity has been altered to make it look as if their face is either all skin, hair or has been morphed to look illusory.

Charities

Shelter

Shelter is a charity organisation set up to help find those without a home a place to stay and live. Shelter is a lifeline for anyone who is homeless or suffering in bad housing. The organisation was founded in England in 1966 by the Reverend Bruce Kenrick. The slums had proliferated in the inner cities, meaning homeless families were forced into overcrowded hostels, and notorious landlords, like Peter Rachman, made the headlines. Kenrick saw the need for a national campaigning body to complement the work of charities providing housing and from this Shelter was born.

Since Shelter's foundation, the United Kingdom has undergone a long period of affluence and economic growth. However, housing has slipped down the public and political agendas, due to a mass complacency.

Shelter has pressured the government into making some key changes to policy and legislation through over four decades of constant lobbying. They have made some serious inroads, for example, the introduction of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme in England. The Tenancy Deposit Scheme ensures that deposits paid to landlords are kept safe and that a tenant gets their deposit back at the end of the tenancy.

There has also been the groundbreaking commitment in Scotland, where in 2012 it was made that every homeless person had the right to a home. Nonetheless, there is still more to be done. Because of the 'Right to Buy' and a lot of new building, 1.8 million households in England languish on council waiting lists, and the numbers stuck in temporary accommodation have soared.

I intend on partaking in some work experience with Shelter to, not only help out, but to experience first hand what is actually being done to help the homeless and how people can get involved and hopefully meet some homeless people along the way. I have already emailed Shelter and received a relatively prompt response asking me to call in to arrange and discuss my volunteering, I have yet to phone but I shall in the next couple of days.