In the series Polaroids, Levi photographs nude bodies. There are barely any photos with the front of the subject's face shown. It seems as though Levi works with the curvature of the body in order to get the specific shots she wants. The photographs with two bodies are the most captivating my opinion. The the bodies are placed in the photo posted below show Levi's strange ideas compositionally. They bodies build off of each other and even though that pose normally would not look flattering because of the lighting and composition the photo is strangely appealing.
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| Polaroid 11 |
When looking at Levi's work one can see that she almost always photographs men, naked, and mostly only cropped images of bodies. Levi has stated that her inspiration came from when he father was in jail. The idea of him not having control of his body really frightened her and inspired her to (almost) only take photographs of men. This statement helps me understand her work a lot more. I was wondering why a lot of her pieces had men and also why there was this lingering sense of being anonymous. I feel as though when someone goes to jail they are replaced by a number and do not have an identity. This explains a lot as to why there are barely any visible faces in Levi's work.
In Domestic Spaces Levi has chosen to photograph more women in this series. She also chose to photograph in color. I think that the color works a lot for this series because one is able to look more closely at the skin on the body and how it is being distorted in the photograph.
I like how this portrait on a woman seems as though it is kind of like a demented twist off of a normal portrait. I think this because of the classic blue background used for school photographs and that maybe if the woman was clothed and had her face facing the camera it would look like any other portrait. I really like how detailed the photograph is and how one is really able to see all the creases in the skin.
I feel the same way about the photo below. I really like looking at the different lines the skin makes in the photo and one can tell that Levi is really focused on making that a focal point. I do wonder why Levi chose to photograph women and in color in this series.
Additionally, while in Photo 1 we had an assignment where we had to emulate a famous photographer in some way. I chose Edward Weston, specifically focusing on his nude portraits. When taking photos I found I was more interested in how I could make the body look distorted. I focused more on skin and twisting the body instead of Weston's approach where he photographed the body as if it were a statue. I felt that my body of work and Weston's nudes relate a lot to Carrie Levy's work and why I am so drawn to her photos. I still want to continue this body of work so I will definitely be going back to Levi's work for inspiration.
