ANALYSIS: SOPHIE CALLE

Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, conceptual artist and installation artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of irrational sets of constraints and it also evokes the French literary movement of the 60's known as Oulipo. Calle's work often depicts human vulnerability and explores identity and intimacy. She is most famously recognised by her 'detective-like' ability to peruse strangers and take a look in on their private life. Her photography work usually includes small panels of text written by Calle herself. Calle also imposes elements of her own life onto public places creating a personal narrative where she is both the character and narrator. Her pieces include serious investigations as well as natural curiosity. 

The piece I've chosen to analyse is 'The Hotel, Room 47' which is part of Calle's Hotel series. Calle was offered a temporary job as a chambermaid in Venice. She created a piece of work of who she imagined the hotel guests to be, based on their personal belongings. 
The whole piece is made up of a two part frame. The first frame consists of a colour photograph of a expertly craved wooden bed, covered in brown satin sheets. Below the photograph are three columns of text, which are diary entries describing Calle's findings in the room. In the frame below it is is a grid made up on nine black and white images showing the things Called listed in her text. "On Monday, February 16, 1981, I was hired as a temporary chambermaid for three weeks in a Venetian hotel. I was assigned twelve bedrooms on the fourth floor. In the course of my cleaning duties, I examined the personal belongings of the hotel guests and observed through details lives which remained unknown to me."
I really liked this series by Calle. It's very intrusive and very personal as she is essentially invading these people's rooms and documenting their personal belongings. Although she does have authority to be there,it's not as if she is an ordinary maid who simply does her job absent-mindedly and leaves not thinking twice about who occupies these rooms. However Calle took the time to examine these people's belongings, their environment and tried to come up with some form of idea as to who these people where and what they did.
I find the concept so simple, yet it reveals so much. The absent occupants who are described in Room 47 are a family of four, two and parents and their two children as is shown by their four pairs of slippers. From their passports, she discovered that the parents were a married couple from Geneva and she copied out four postcards one of them has written. The words on one of the postcard suggested that perhaps there were problems within the family. It's amazing how much she managed to find out about this family by simply rummaging through their belongings and not once having to speak to a member of the family. 
Calle's descriptions of the rooms and their contents are a combination of factual documentation and her own personal response to the people whose lives she peeked. Each of the texts begins with the artist's first entry into the room and a note on which bed/beds have been slept in along with a description of the nightwear the guests left. A list of objects usually followed. Calle had no shame in reading diaries, letters, postcards and notes written or kept by the room's occupiers, looking into wardrobes and drawers. She sprayed herself with their perfume, used their makeup, ate food left behind and she even salvaged a pair of women's shoes left in a bin. Outside these rooms she listened at behind the doors, recording the guests conversations or any other sounds she may overhear and even glanced into the room when the floor-waiter would open the door in an attempt to cash a glimpse of the unknown guests.
Calle is unashamedly voyeuristic with her approach to some of her photographs and this is what I really enjoy about her photography. She gets so involved with her photographs they become very personal and I find these photographs to have the biggest impact.

ANALYSIS: EDWARD BURTYNSKY

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and is most formally known for his large format photograph of industrial landscapes. 

Burtynsky's work depict how nature has been transformed through industry. He gives a contemporary view of the 'great ages of man' from stone,to minerals oil transpiration, mine and things of that nature. To make these ideas known to the audience Burtynsky states that "I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis."

One of the many photographs which stood out to me in Burtynsky's 'Oil' series was this photograph titled 'Breezewood' taken in 
Pennsylvania, USA. I was instantly drawn to this photograph as it was sort of the 'odd one out' amongst the other photographs in the series. The others were very industrial, consisting of mainly of colours such as browns,greens,greys and blues. However this was the most colourful with all its contrasting colours.
At first I could not actually believe that the photograph was real because of the mass amount of gas stations, shops and restaurants all crammed together along this one road. This photograph single-handedly shows how much we have evolved from having one little corner shop which sold everything from, your daily butter and bread to socks. Now we have massive franchises and everything is very fast paced. I feel very overwhelmed by on looking at this image, there is so much choice and variety that we tend to get in over our heads and this photograph demonstrates that perfectly.
The whole series 'Oil' is about one of man's most significant invention, the car. Burtynsky states, "The auto-mobile is the main basis for our modern industrial world, giving us a certain freedom and changing our world dramatically. The automobile was made possible because of the invention of the internal combustion engine and its utilization of both oil and gasoline. The raw material and the refining process contained both the idea and an interesting visual component for me." 
These are very clear ideas which are found in his work. The photograph depicts around 5 gas stations all within seconds of driving distance between them. 
What I get from this series is that as humans once we find something that essentially works or does really well we tend to over do things. We create replicates of these things in mass amounts (which in this case is the excessive amounts of gas stations) because we are either fear of them running out or there not being enough. There's a great sense of repetition in Burtynsky's work and I think that is one of the main themes across his whole body of work.
I found Burtynsky's work very interesting, and is a different and refreshing outlook on our world as it is today. His work give a real sense of perspective and quantity and they contain some sense of pattern throughout. What draws my attention the most about his work is the scale, this a quite large photographs ranging from 18 X 22 inches to 60 X 80 inches,allowing the viewer to see every small detail and I think this allows you to put yourself into the actual photograph and experience it for yourself.

ANALYSIS: JOHN STEZAKER

John Stezaker is a British conceptual artist. In the early 70's  Stezaker was among the first of many British conceptual artists to rebel against what was then the predominance of Pop art. Stezaker's work is very surreal in tone and is most often created using collage and the juxtaposition of pre-existing photographs such as postcards, film stills and other forms of photographs. Using these, Stezaker creates collages to give old photographs a whole new meaning. By inverting, adjusting, slicing and compositing different images together to create new unique pieces. 

The photograph I chose to analyse is named 'Bridge' and is part of Stezaker's Masks series. Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous sitters with caves, hamlets, or waterfalls, making for images of 'eerie beauty.'

Whilst looking at Stezaker's work, my most preferred pieces where the ones which created metaphors, due to the composition of the collage. This is why I chose 'Bridge'. 

The photograph seems to depict the relationship between the child and the man, whom I assume to be the boy's father; as the boy seems to be demonstrating something and he attentively watches. I instantly make the assumption that the boy and the man are related due to their positioning- the boy sitting on the bed whilst the father sits on a stool, their proximity towards one another, as they are quite close and also because they seem to be in the little boys room; due to the leaf printed matters on the bed and also perhaps the fact that the room contains small chairs. Stezaker's placement of the bridge just reinforces this assumption.

I think that Stezaker's choice of using this particular bridge image for this specific photograph work really well, and the images play off each other. The photograph is very appealing and it's colours very vibrant but I think there is a much deeper meaning behind the choice of this photograph.

 The end of the bridge which points to the father is a little more complex in structure, maybe more for safety reasons rather than aesthetic ones. However I think it could also be a reflection of the father's or just fathers in general, as they are very complex creatures and have possibly had to endure a lot and therefore have built more of a foundation. in turn, the bridge going in the sons direction is a lot simpler, as he has yet to face these hardships as he is only a child. He does not yet have any responsibilities and therefore does not need this extra support. 

The photograph could also represent a shared memory between father and son, a holiday perhaps. They seem to be from quite wealthy family as both a dressed very formally and appear to live in a nice home. A bond between a father and his son is something quite strong and usually starts from an early age. The bond one would have with their father would be completely different to the one had with a mother. And I feel the photograph touches on that subject of bonding and appreciating time together. 

I also thought the choice of using a bridge to represent the relationship between father and son is very unexpected. As bridges tend to remind us of horrific accidents, countless hours stuck in traffic, but Stezaker took this pretty mundane concept and turned it into something completely different. 

The two images work really well with each other as if they were some form of a lost piece from a puzzle. The contrast between the black and white image and the coloured photograph which adds a pop of colour really helps to make the piece stand out as a whole.

When I first explored his work I thought he simply placed one image on top of the other and was done. However upon looking at the photographs more closely I found that was not the case at all. I enjoy the way in which he represents his point of view, and the way in which he has chosen to combine old, perhaps even forgotten images with different aspects of nature, or architecture. Though at first glance it seems like they are just two separate images, you come to realise that the images fit together perfectly.