Sam Taylor-Wood

I have recently fallen in love with Sam Taylor-Wood, when trying to get inspiration and ideas from some secondary research of portrait photography. The photos caught my eye; when I typed in: self portrait photography, I expected a bunch of pensive faces looking into the camera with an intense and frozen stare. Just one glance at her photos, and you can see why I was intrigued....

Sam Taylor-Wood, Self Portrait Photographs

The photos are all about shape... For me, anyway. Not only the shape of her, but the fact that it's being repeated by her shadow. I love the contortions of her body. I love that you can't see her face in these, because, honestly, I think it would take away from the photographs. Many people say that personality shows through your face; that eyes are the windows to the soul (blahblahblah), but I feel that's what makes these photos so interesting - they're brimming with personality and life, even though you can't see her face. 

In my opinion, these photos are compositionally incredible. Everything, from the shadow; to the directional lighting; to her face being hidden; to the tilt of the chair, clashing with the uniform planks of the hardwood floor, is perfect. The first three (including the one above^) give me a sense of danger (almost) as if she's falling and is about to get hurt, but is miraculously saved by a photo being taken, as if she's suspended in air, a moment in time. As if she is safe for now, but someday she might continue her fall to the unforgiving floor. (which is a strange sense to get when looking at a photo, as they don't move - they are captured forever... unless you're in Harry Potter, that is).

These next two photos below, I feel, are eerie. It looks as if she's being possessed... like she's unconscious and something else has taken over in her sleep. I love the mirroring effect that the floor has with the ceiling that these photos have, making your eye immediately focus on her, and, again, there's that element of simplicity, youthfulness and surprising life that is brought by the lack of a face.

The thing that I love most about these photos is that I can imagine floating in air (especially from the second one) so easily; these photos seem so real, yet so surreal at the same time.

Sam Taylor-Wood is also a film maker, making short, artistic films (and famed for her short film of David Beckham sleeping), some of which, I have to admit, are disturbing and almost all of which are confusing and representative of some deeper meaning. 

Since we are doing a few lessons on still-life photography, I thought that this next short film was not only relevant, but pretty funny in its own little ironic way. I see it as how our bodies decay but our thoughts endure. Pens are used to document our thoughts... And the impression we leave in this world is not by the physical presence of the body, but the thoughts we implant unto others. 

So, this pretty much concludes my rant about how great Sam Taylor-Wood is. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. It makes me want to whip out my camera and take pictures of things falling, but I don't know if something on the scale of the pictures would be possible as it seems like a kind of "don't try this at home, kids" type of dealio... I contemplated asking my friends to try and back flip off of the backs of chairs, and similarly to levitate five feet in the air, but alas, some things are just not possible without some sort of special equipment.