Building off inspiration from photographers such as Samantha Ann Francis and others that I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I tried taking and layering my own photographs to experiment with not only their methodology, but to see what would express my theme of grief and loss more.
Though continuing on from this idea of being obsessed with grief and loss, I was led to think about “What is left behind when someone is gone?” What, I wonder, stays after the presence leaves? This formulated my ideas/story into a much more interesting exploration of a question that I am still left figuring out.
The photos below have a base of a grainy black and white appearance because I like the effect of black and white – it puts emphasis on the form of the photograph’s subject.
Photograph_01
Photograph_02
At first, I wanted to layer and experiment with flowers. The reason being that their symbolism is something that I have been fascinated with for a long time. They’re beautiful and alive, but short-lived and are constantly going through seasons of change. As with their natural growth and change, I thought it was fitting for the concept of coping with grief and loss – as these two things are, after all, changes that must be accepted, just as how flowers live this way. Aesthetically however, I preferred the colour schemes of Photograph_01 over _02 and tried to make more images with these kind of red/pink warm colours as opposed to yellow and green.
Photograph_03
This one I played around with the dust/scratch effect on photographs to make it look older. I wanted to suggest the notion of the past being the past, and as time ages, change will come about as well.