The Poetics Of Space

Maurizio Di Iorio 

High saturation and bright primary colours are what I think of when someone mentions Maurizio di Iorio. His ability to capture such bright images really interests me and is really why I’m looking at him for this project. Mixing everyday objects with a “dose of ambiguity”, di Iorio has a talent for taking images that are eye catching and yet have a hidden meaning or a hidden way angle of looking at his images. 

Maurizio Di iodio originally studied law at university in Italy before working as a copywriter in advertising, it is here he discovered his love for photography and swiftly changed professions. It is now clear his work is very bold, stylised mixing realism with a certain dose of ambivalence. It is said that Di iorio believes strongly in the possibility of using photography to match the commercial side of photography with art itself and this is evident in his work. 

Di Iorio is completely self-taught and has only been a photoghrapher full time circa 2011. Despite his short time in the photographic world he has a seriously impressive body of work behind him and has already worked for massive clients such as Playboy, GQ, Elle, Vogue, Marc Jacobs, VICE and NEON Magazine. In 2015 he was selected by PDN as on of their thirty emerging photographers and has also had work exhibited in LA, London, Milan and Bologna in recent years. 

Stephanie Gonot 

Stephanie Gonot creates scrumptiously colourful and fun foodie photography which I am honestly obsessed with. Her humorous talent results in flat lays freselbling pop art, contractions of shapes with food, layering, repetition and even cheeky messages all through the art of food photography. Her quirkinesses really set her out in the food photography world and it is her unique way of making such a statement to the eyes that really captured my attention. 

The Los Angeles based photographer and curator sparked her interest in food as a young girl when she would log all the items that she ate in a day as a way to alter her eating habbits. Looking back Gonot thought it may have been better to visually document what she ate. This is where some of Stephanie Gonot’s original worked sparked from, she photographed fad diets in a quirky way. She documented the Pea diet, the orange food diet, the baby food diet and many others but it is not only her message that resonates with me it is her ability to make these matters visually pleasing and enjoyable. 

It is clear from Gonot’s photography that she has a background in commercial photography. I think it is this background that aids Gonot in achieving a high quality technical approach to colour, texture, placement of food and layouts. "I realised that with food you not only get colour, texture and a cultural context but that you get the thought of a flavour and how that food makes you feel when you eat it," Gonot says. "So food can be a powerful object in a composition”.

Annabelle Breakey

“I like the pretty stuff. Who doesn’t? Well, rather, I really love pretty light on pretty stuff. I love food, I love finely made merchandise, I love how humans can be captured in a moment that transcends time.”

Annabelle Breakey is a commercial, food, still life and lifestyle photographer. Her career revolves around working for clients and producing images for advertising something I aspire to one day do. Her work has appeared in advertising, editorial, cookbooks and web campaigns. Breakey has worked with clients such as Starbucks, McDonalds, Ebay, Sharpie, Playboy, Sephora, Lays, Kelloggs, Burger King and many other.

Breakeys photography ranges from natural light food photography to very technical, high saturated product photography however no matter what kind of her photography you see it is clear is is hers through her recognisably clean and fresh style.

Arvida Byström 

Arvida Bysröm is a swedish artists and model based in Los Angeles, London and Stockholm. Byström works with many magazines and brands such as Nasty Gal, Monki, Wonderland magazine, Lula magazine, Vice and Baby Baby Baby magazine. She is a bright coloured and often censored artists who explores themes such a femininity in a new light.

Byström started taking photos age 12 and took a large amount of selfies as a way to discover how other people view her. Originally inspired by Tumblr she began posting photos on her account and joined groups of female artists questioning their femininity and gender standards using a so-called “girly” aesthetic. This is where Arvida Byström found her niché, her passion and her creative purpose.

What first drew me to Byström’s work was when I purchased one of her books called ‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ whilst the book itself explores banned pictures from Instagram containing graffic subjects it is the front cover in this case that I am looking at. The front cover depicts a peach wearing a thong... yes a peach wearing a thong. I love this image as to me it is a very cheeky photograph exploring a way of imitating a rather naughty image which would otherwise not be allowed to be printed. I hope to also take this cheeky approach to my photography throughout the project.

I was also inspired by Arvida Byström when I came across a few of her images in a book called Babe which is a book full of photography and art exploring feminism and femininity collated by Petra Collins. In this book the two pictures that caught my eye were portraits paired with food that look rather repulsing. The portraits had strong colour themes as did the food. The food was stale looking, covered in hair and look like something half eaten and then left to be discovered underneath a bed. I loved these images for several reasons. I love the strong colour themes, as someone who is obsessed with colour I hope to imitate Byström’s technical ability. I am also fascinated by the meaning behind the photographs and the pairing. Finally I love the detail in the photographs and this is something I am inspired by.

Vanessa McKeown 

Maisie Cousins 

“Nature is always beautiful and also disgusting. Even the most beautiful people leak, bleed and shit”, Maisie Cousins concludes when exploring the relationship between the beautiful and the grim themes of her super saturated, sticky photographs.

Cousins approaches the female body with a unique honesty, combining nature, food and distinctly disgusting objects to capture the reality of the human form in her own perspective. The London-based artist portrays models in a way that undermines the ideas of perfection, asking “what is the point of taking a nice picture?”. Cousins’s brightly coloured images appeal to some of our deepest disgusting thoughts, a Dazed and Confused article describes her images as, “appealing to basic human impulses - namely the ones that make you want to pick a spot.”.

Maisie Cousins began sharing her work at the mere age of 15 and soon reached far beyond sites such as Tumblr and soon started shooting for Polyester Zine. Cousins’s career soon rocketed and contributed in books such as Petra Collins’s Babe, she exhibited some rather risky images at the Tate and has had several personal exhibitions including one at the TJ Boulting Gallery. And Cousin’s s not stopping any time soon acknowledging “In all honesty, I think its pretty tough and competitive being a photographer today”. The photographer also says “It’s very easy to be exploited by big companies and magazines, but with social media and the internet you can stretch out your audience with your own control and push it in the direction you want. Photography seems to be the biggest way of globally communicating these days.”

The reason I am looking at Maisie Cousins is because I am simply astounded, inspired and honestly fascinated with her images and her reasoning behind them. I am mesmerised by Cousins’s ability to take such wonderfully bright coloured, saturated, very textured and detailed images that have such a higher meaning behind them. I am enraptured by the artists ability to simultaneously disgust and entice me in a singular photograph. I also love Maisie Cousins’s conviction to her message through photography and I love that she is not scared to produce such repulsing images that could potentially offend or cause upset.

Maisie Cousins explores sexuality through food and nature which is something I will be looking at in my book. I hope to look any the ides of how food can be seen sexually and that is why I think Cousins is such a perfect artists to look at. I am also interested in her ability to capture such a great level of detail in her images which I think is important when photographing food. The colour theme for my book is pink and Cousins often matches a similar theme so I will be looking closely at the colour palettes she uses.

NARRATIVE

LAYOUTS 

LAYOUT INSPIRATION

TEN OF THE SKY 

TEN OF THE GROUND 

TEN DETAILS 

TEN PORTRAITS

10.TEN.10.TEN.10

Today we were tasked to shoot 10 images on 5 different subjects in just one space of our own choice... 

MINI ZINE

For one our first tasks we were asked to produce a hand made book (a Zine) in relation to the ideas we are working on for our final book. My zine shows images of food in fun ways. I tried to focus on the colours and textures when taking my images. I wanted to create a zine that really jumped off the page with life and fun. Some of the images explore different topics such as sexuality (finger in the Pomegranate), eating disorders (alphabetti spaghetti) and nostalgia (love hearts). My aim is within this zine was to explore different themes and feelings towards food. This is definitely something I want to carry on exploring into my final book. For the cover of my book I opted for a very bright and eye-catching layout, I also included one of the images inside the book to give a kind of taste of what is to come. My initial first page includes a lot of bright text essentially describing food in its many forms. The piece of text is very informative and formal which I love as it completely contrasts with the look of the book. 

Our current project has us looking at creating our own final book, professionally printed, each page laid out and designed by us. The vastness and creative sense this project gives has us looking back at past work and knowledge learnt, influencing our final books outcome. The poetics of space is a broad subject of which we can photograph pretty much anything we want! In order to begin to think about what I could produce for my book I reflected on previous work and the journey I have taken to being here. A particular project I will be drawing on was called Title, this project had me creating magazine layouts. I am hoping that the knowledge and skills I learnt from this project will aid me creating suitable layouts for my book as well as hand making books/zines along the way. In addition to this I learnt about what photos were appropriate to be included in a magazine; this will be useful for knowing what I could put in my book. Having the knowledge I learnt in my previous projects means I will hopefully be able to take some very professional images and lay them out in an appropriate way that will look amazing. 

My book concept is something I have mulled over for quite a while. i know I definitely want to focus on two techniques; colour and texture. As an initial idea I have thought about taking photos of food to explore the different relationships we share with the consumption of different foods. I want my book to have modern and bright layouts with plenty of bold text. I am hoping to create something super exciting with high quality images. I am not sure as of yet whether I want to lean more towards an abstract kind of vibe which is very traditional to a zine or if I want to play more with the idea of a high end book that focuses on being able to go straight onto any bookshelf. Perhaps I will be able to combine the two? I know I want to produce a soft cover book to compliment my laid back yet professional photos. My aim is to create something to such a good standard that it could easily be put on a bookshelf to sell. Along the way I will be using various platforms to draw inspiration from. I will be starting off by looking at my own collection of photo-books as well as going to the library and book shops. I will also be focusing my time on Pinterest and Instagram to aid my development in ideas.

 So far in the first week I have looked on a website called Josefchladek.com which is an online bookshelf for photo-books. The site allowed me to look through a broad range of photo-books to draw initial ideas from. I also began by looking at books in the library, seeing how they are physically set out was helpful for me to start mapping out how a book will come together and what components I will need. Week two sees us planning out the journey for the rest of the project. I am hoping to do at least 4 shoots over the course of the next five weeks. After that I do not have a rigid oplan week by week I know however, I will be shooting as much as possible to refine ideas and the photos themselves in order to retain a high quality needed for the final book. I also know through tasks and my own work I will make mock up books and layouts in preparation for my final piece. 

INSPIRATION - MY BOOKS