JUSTIN QUINNELL-ANALYSIS

Justin Quinnell

Justin Quinnell lives and works in Bristol. He holds his own workshops and lectures in which he tries to inspire others to have a go at pinhole photography and make their own photographs more unique and contemporary.

The piece of work I have choose is this called 'Brushing my teeth with a dead spider' which is a piece of photography. I choose this piece of his work because I love how different and quirky it is. The fact that you get the view from inside his mouth makes it seems more personal and more life everyday life.
ARTICLE ON JUSTIN QUINNELL
JUSTIN QUINNEL WEBSITE


To better understand why he does this I read an interview he did all about his mouthpiece photographs, and also his own website which you can find all of his photographs, how to make your pinhole camera out of objects you can find in your home among other things. "So I took one of my 110 cartridge pinhole cameras, which was designed to be thrown off a building or attached to a shuttle cock and put it in my mouth,It fitted right at the back perfectly." I would say that the theme for Quinnell's mouthpieces  can come under many things, such weird, quirky,different, but I think that main one may have to be everyday life. This is because this collection of work are pictures from the inside looking out which makes it more personal for the viewer, (some may say a little too personal). I don't think anything inspired Quinnell for these wacky photographs, I believe that he, himself is his own inspiration, the idea of taking photographs with his mouth simply just came to him, " I was sitting there one day with my pinhole camera and I thought, I wonder if this fits in my mouth" 
The material Quinnell uses is a simple pinhole camera, which made by placing aluminum foil over a tiny hole one fifth of a milimetre wide on the film cartridge. Some of the colours in his work seem to be over saturated, so they look more exaggerated. Also the view looks like a fish eye effect. The size of his photographs are also not that big, in fact they are rather smaller and I think by having them being small it makes the eye focus on just the image and the meaning, whereas if it were larger it could be a bit much to look for . I think the most important formal element in Justin Quinnells work is colour, because they just make his work even more exciting, because they are over saturated and exaggerated they just make everything in the image stand out, and also the background in his mouthpieces are sometimes dark make the image itself stand out. 

I have choosen to look at Quinnells mouthpiece photographs, because they are unlike anything I have ever seen before, the perspective is different and amazing at the same time. My first reaction to his mouthpiece work was that it looked revolting only because all I was seeing was his teeth in the image, however once I over looked that I found that his work is in effect very creative and very interesting to look at. I mainly like the fact that he could have choosen to just placed the pinhole camera on the floor and take the image, but to go that extra step and put it in your mouth and capture the world from your own point of view makes the whole thing just even more amazing. I don't think there is an artist out there that has work even close to look like Justin Quinnell's just because its so unique. His work has inspired me to be more creative with my photograph taking, pay more attention to colour and also think about perspective and how you would want others to see your world through their eyes.