Bellmer and the Polaroid 403R

I recently revisited the work of an artist by the name of Hans Bellmer. Bellmer's work deals with adolescence and deformity, as with the previous post I suppose the more general heading is 'Deformation of Beauty' (which can also be linked to Bill Henson, see later post for more of this). Bellmer took shop mannequins and began to reconfigure them using the simple ball and socket joints so as to create figures which had a kind of 'ruined innocence' about them, as can be seen in the images below, the moving around of the body parts into new arrangements deforms the typical concept of the beautiful and healthy body into something more resembling the work of Francis Bacon or H R Giger. The expressions and the way in which the pieces were photographed originally suggests a particularly sinister theme, perhaps more like rape victims, which give as unsettling an heir as the maquettes of the Brothers Quay (still from the film, The Street of Crocodiles, furthest below).

Taking into consideration Bellmer's work and combining it with my initial concept of dividing the body using the framing of the image I took out my Polaroid passport camera and began to do just that. The first image is my first attempt as it appeared on the original polaroid image. Though it illustrates my point I felt that by lining up the edges of the limbs etc. in the image I could more clearly express my intentions and influences, which is why the lower image has been doctored in Photoshop. Lighting when using this camera for this kind of work becomes more important and, as the flash provided with the camera only lights for the passport-portrait style image I intend to experiment with off-camera slaveflashes so as to use the light more expressively. If this is successful I also plan to shoot some shots with Polaroid chocolate film, which has a large grain and gives brown-sepia toned images which would further resemble early Bellmer photographs. I also left the edges of the polaroid image on rather than peeling them off so as to further the idea of the rotting or decayed texture, particularly when compared to the smooth and even skin tones within the image.

Passport Photos and the Polaroid Miniportrait 403R

I've finally managed to buy a Polaroid 403R from eBay. These cameras were used up until fairly recently to take passport-photos manually, but have now been phased out by machines or digital cameras. I think when trying to study identity and anonymity the passport image is key. The passport image is the identity on paper, it is recognised in bureaucracy as the proof that the person who owns the document exists and that their image and the information printed in the passport match. That there is no directly interposing negative, that the image is exposed directly onto the polaroid film is also linked in with validity, there can be no tampering with the image after it is made, the light reacts chemically with the film and the image is created.The camera comes with a built in angled flash and two fixed focussing distances, 1.2m and 1.92m, this means that every image taken with the camera will look fairly consistent with the preceding and following images, particularly when photographing the face. Though there are more complex lighting set-ups for the passport photograph, as in the diagram below, I have found that taking the images with the flash pointing directly at the subject on a white background is similar enough to the passport style for my purposes.

The image below is a grid of six 3.25" x 4.25" polaroid images. The camera has three settings for taking photographs, you can set it to take four separate images, two and two the same or all four the same. Though these photographs are only my playing and experimenting with the camera I have some more specific intentions for the next set which should be more relevant to my project.

Found Passport Photos

In my first year of Photography at college the tutor mentioned the idea of found photos and since then I've kept my eyes peeled for photographs on the ground. After three years I've found only two. Strangely the images are both passport style photographs. I'd held on to them for a while not knowing what exactly I wanted to do with them, as well as being worried that if I were to use them in a project or stick them into a book they would become fixed there and could not be used at a later date. I bought a small 'passport style' notebook from Muji and decided that this was a suitable vehicle for the photographs. So as to avoid a finality in their fixing to the pages I used photocorners so that I can remove them at a later date if need be. With each image I included the year and the address of where it was found. Though there is not the volume of material to contribute much to this project I felt that it would be worth including it if I am to look at themes of identity and anonymity.

The first image I found on a supermarket floor as I was sweeping up towards the end of my shift. There was some information written on the back, though beyond the name, Julian Fox, the text is quite cryptic. The text reads: 11540/Julian Fox/Full.

The second image I found on the steps of the Kimberlin Library and so assume that the person in the photograph is a student currently studying at De Montfort. I think this is an interesting facet of this photograph, that I may see or have already seen or encountered the subject of the photo and that they would be none the wiser. There was nothing written on the back.