Homage to Polixeni Papapetrou /  by Claudia Phares

My homage to Polixeni Papapetrou

The players, 2009 by Polixeni Papapetrou

Fake it ‘til you make it - Project 5: Australian photographer

I chose the Melbourne-based photographer Polixeni Papapetrou. I saw her series ‘Between Worlds’ in Paris last year. It was quite amazing to see the actual large-sized colour prints. I was drawn to the element of staged performance with the animal masks set against Australian landscapes. For my project, I used myself as the subject. It turned out I used the wrong lens for this project; it was too wide. I cropped the image so the figure appears bigger. I used Portra 400 NC film whereas Papapetrou works with Portra 160 NC.

5 elements used:

  1. colour 120mm film
  2. props
  3. performance
  4. local flora backdrop
  5. square final print

Red light darkroom /  by Claudia Phares

My classmate, Grace Wood, invited me to yesterday’s book launch and opening of the exhibition 'Red light darkroom'  held at the Alliance Française.

Grace was the assistant of Gemma-Rose Turnbull who did a residency with St Kilda Gatehouse to teach, photograph and interview street sex workers. This exhibition includes a video and photographs of the day-to-day lives of street sex workers. The colour photographs spoke for themselves; they were graphic and powerful. At times, I found the accompanying text lengthy. Overall, I would recommend the exhibition to anyone interested in documentary-style photography.

Sam Taylor Wood's 'Bram Stoker's Chair' - revisited /  by Claudia Phares

Sam Taylor Wood 

Fake it ‘til you make it - project 4: Sam Taylor-Wood

I was interested in taking up the challenge of creating a ‘suspended’ effect, minus the harnesses. Getting a nice shadow was pretty difficult to start with. Let’s just say I spent more time editing than shooting.

5 elements used:

  1. colour
  2. self-portraiture
  3. hidden face
  4. shadow of the chair is ‘missing’
  5. mid-air effect

/  by Claudia Phares

“When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. - Haruki Murakami”
— from 99percent

'The future is analogue' /  by Claudia Phares

New addition to the camera collection: Polaroid 600 (Barbie edition). I found it at a garage sale. It came with 5 packs of expired polaroid film. Tried a whole pack dated ‘2000’. The emulsion was quasi inexistant on the sides of the frame, yet the centre turned out with a soft and yellow-tinged effect.

You can buy expired Polaroid instant film and newly manufactured Impossible film on the Impossible Project website. The Impossible Project is a team of former Polaroid employees who got together to keep the production of instant film going. The Impossible Project isn’t quite impossible anymore. There are talks of an 8x10 in instant film coming out this year.

The nightmare /  by Claudia Phares

I’m working on a project involving fear. I decided to re-enact the scene in Fuseli’s painting ‘The nightmare’. For the project, I created an evil-looking incubus (creature) out of papier mâché. Not sure if I succeeded in making it look fierce enough. Someone thought he looked like a cross between a koala and a Gremlin.

The nightmareThe original scene, see below, has a horse’s head poking out the curtains. I settled for what was available at the school prop store: a rhino’s head. The bed was set up on a table which may not have been the best OH & S scenario. It was worth the risk anyway. I tried imitating the posture of the woman, and nearly fell off the bed/table.  Since a long exposure (1s) was required,  I chose a more stable position. This project is only the beginning of a series exploring angst, fear, and repulsion.

/  by Claudia Phares

“

I don’t think of my life as a career. I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That’s not a career – it’s a life!



— Steve Jobs

”

/  by Claudia Phares

Kitchen sink was recommended to me by one of my uni tutors, following a discussion about my next project involving the idea of repulsion. Naked Lunch from David Cronenberg is also on the list. Watching movies for the sake of research & education is something I’ll never get tired of! This week, we watched The Five Obstructions (2005) from Lars Von Trier. It’s an interesting documentary exploring how obstructions influence our ability to create a project. It ties in well with our weekly assignments for a class in which we get to choose one photographer from a given set and ‘make a fake’.  This week, the choice was either Nan Goldin or Ryan McGinley. I chose to re-create a Nan Goldin black-and-white portrait. On the same topic of obstructions, we were given last week less than 48h to shoot a roll of black-and-white film in which the following elements had to appear: cat, carpark and kitchen. Plus, we needed to include a self-portrait on the same roll. The goal was to challenge our imagination and to process our own film before the end of the week. Since the last time I set foot in a dark room was 6 years ago, I had forgotten how tricky loading film in pitch black was. Everything that could have gone wrong did: film was stuck in canister, fingers touched the film, etc. Practice makes perfect. Overall, the film turned out well i.e. good tonality and contrast on inspection. I’m printing this week; I’ll get a better idea on the actual shots.

I haven’t used my dad’s trusty old Nikon F3 for a while and it was nice rekindling with it again.