Kenda North, one of the speakers at the SPE Conference, spoke about some of her past work called Urban Pools. The collection that I particularly loved, were the pictures from the year 2006-2007. In that collection they were all under water pictures in color. One of the pictures was of a lady in a beautiful ruffled dress with bright red shoes and belt. I love the soft color of the silk white dress against the bold red accessories. In all her pictures she decides to compose her photographs without using the subjects head and it makes them so much more interesting to me. I would have never thought that choosing to not include a subjects head would have a strong outcome. I feel that the subjects head might have taken away from the beautiful clothing and it makes the dress the focal point in the picture. Now the viewer isn't distracted with outer beauty, you don't even question what might this woman's face looks like or even concern yourself with the age of the subject. Also the light reflecting off of the skin has the amazing designs the water makes when the sun filters through the water. Using that unique look definitely gives beauty to her subjects and a sense of perfection. The skin of the woman looks flawless which draws me in even further into this photo. The pose of the woman crossing her legs helps this feminine beauty she is presenting. I am so impressed with her ability to compose and shoot these wonderful underwater photographs.
Brittany Kennedy
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed her images. I visited her website at kenda north.com and viewed her work. I completely agree with Ms. Nelson. Gorgeous images. These struck my eye particularly aesthetically because of my attraction to the art of fashion. These images personally border the line of art vs fashion / commercial art. Ironically I do believe that the way Kenda North composes the photograph without the heads are interesting. It does cause the focal point of the photograph to be the clothing however, I believe that after viewing it and allowing your mind to analyze and critique the aesthetic points one wonders why there is no head present in the photograph. What was the photographer attempting to portray conceptually. Feminism, the way that a woman has been portrayed in society with not much of a voice or say in social aspects. The images are very strong and are appeasing artistically to the eye.