Tuesday, 14 June 2011

friends & fam

i have also decided to "create" old friends and family of the late paul allen to appear in this book. i wanted these images to be reminiscent of those talking head shots they have on documentaries about famous people where they sit there and talk about how they knew the protagonist and all the "crazy" stuff that they either used to do together, or that he has been a witness to. to add to the documentary feel of these images i decided to turn them in to black and white images (this was done afterwards) and i also felt it necessary to use a studio for these images. i feel that by taking these steps it all adds to the sense of realism that i am trying to portray. i was able to find some very kind people who were willing to model for me. to make it look like they were talking naturally in the images i wrote a short script for each model to read, and i asked them to read numerous times in varying emotions. this way (i hope) it looks like these people are sincerely giving us the "information" that we require. these images (like the rest in the book) shall be accompanied by some text.

this was the final chosen image.....i photoshopped a beard in to age him up abit. this character is called Gaz....he is loosely based on bez, the guy who played the maracas in the early 90's band "happy mondays".




this is chuck wazowski. he is based on no one. he was the ex gallery director of the MoMA in new york and an old friend of paul allen. 




this is was the final image that i  have used. the characters name is kate nemi...she is loosely based on tracey emin. she is another one of paul's old friends.





this is lydsey allen, the wife of the late paul allen.








...more influences

martin parr







martin parr is famed for his highly saturated photographs which often depict aspects of social life in a bleak and deadpan way. there tends to be something very cynical about his images in the way that it feels that he is poking fun out of the people in the pictures. even though (unlike my images) these arnt staged he is still managed to gain this deadpan feel to the images which is something that i also aim to achive.