Soul Sights and Still Lifes

By Wendy Faunce

Wendy is a junior at Ball State, studying creative writing and telecommunications: video production. Here on The Public Screen, she aims to inform readers about recent and impacting projects of filmmakers, photographers, and other visual artists. 

Photographer Laura Letinsky is best known for her still life-photographs, some of which were recently displayed at the Photographer’s Gallery in London. The photographs, all of which were included in her series titled ““Ill Form and Void Full,” use fruit, dishes, paints, candy, and pastel-colored stains to compile an image that Letinsky describes as highly personal with strong “affiliations with domesticity and intimacy.”

Letinsky focused on portrait photography at the beginning of her career, specifically portraits of couples. While she was able to convey the affection that photography can evoke, she was not settled in the genre. “While I was taking photographs of couples in the 1990s, I began thinking about love, and about how photography relates to love, how it can function within a kind of circuitry of production and consumption… I also wanted to switch from an omnipotent point of view to something that felt more immediate, more first-person.”

Though one would be tempted to think that photographs of candy and fruit would be aloof and reserved when compared to portraits, the photographs simply show the same love of people in a more hidden and almost intimate way. Each item in the picture has been stretched, cut, arranged, or destroyed by someone, giving each item a distinctly human quality. In a sense, these inanimate object photos externalize the inner turmoil we can’t always see clearly below the surface of human interactions. In the same way people changed these objects, they can stretch, cut, and arrange each other’s souls as well. 

Photos and Fairy Tales

 

By Wendy Faunce

Wendy is a junior at Ball State, studying creative writing and telecommunications: video production. Here on The Public Screen, she aims to inform readers about recent and impacting projects of filmmakers, photographers, and other visual artists.

Portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz has had an astounding career that began when she was a very young woman. In 1970, after graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute, Leibovitz was hired as a staff photographer with Rolling Stone. At the tender age of 23, she was promoted to head photographer. Over the next 10 years, she photographed countless musicians including John Lennon and the members of the Rolling Stones. Vanity Fair then hired Leibovitz. She photographed countless celebrities, musicians, and artists for the magazine. As with Rolling Stone, her photos became icons of artistic freedom and unrestrained boldness. In 1996, she was appointed official photographer of the Olympics in Atlanta.

People from around the globe recognize and admire Leibovitz’s distinct style. Her photos are well known for their bold base colors and “awkward” positioning of subjects. For example, one of her most famous photographs is a cover of Rolling Stone in which a completely naked John Lennon wrapped himself around Yoko, who was almost smiling for the photo. For Vanity Fair, she submerged Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub filled with milk. Her arms and legs raised high in the air and comical expression stretching her face into a mocking smile.

Some of Leibovitz’s most recent work has circulated around Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites for several months. She has put together a collection of “realistic” portraits of Disney characters. For this “Disney Dream” series, Leibovitz uses A-list celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Will Ferrell, and Jeff Bridges to impersonate Disney cartoon characters’ against the backdrop of scenes similar to those in their movies. The photos are yet another staple in Annie Leibovitz’s already stunning career. “We’ve brought a classic to life!” she says.

Picture Personal

By Wendy Faunce

On the streets of New York City, Richard Renaldi combines photography and a social experiment, creating a very unusual project. Renaldi composes shots of two or more off-the-street volunteers who have never met intimately posing as friends, family, or lovers. The resulting photos are astounding. While some convey the awkward closeness of strangers, most of the photos reflect the weak yet genuine bond created between the volunteers within minutes. Responses like, “It was a good feeling” and “It was nice to feel that comfort” are very common among the participants despite their initial hesitation to participate. A thirty-something poetry teacher responded, “I felt like I cared for her,” when posed with his arms around a 95-year-old fashion designer. The photos often move Renaldi himself. He states, “It’s kind of lovely.”

 

One volunteer read further into her experience, reflecting, “We are probably missing so much about the people all around us.” And she is completely right. Though it may seem clichéd, we have the responsibility to acknowledge the inherent beauty of each person we encounter. We should not require a person with a camera to enable that acknowledgement. As renowned writer C.S. Lewis stated, “it is hardly possible for [people] to think too often or too deeply about [the glory] of [his/her neighbor].” He goes on to claim, “It is in the light of [the] overwhelming possibilities [of our neighbors’ glory]… that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.”

Our greatest asset and source of life is each other. There are so many people in our lives that it seems impossible to even acknowledge, much less revel in the glory, of each and every person we encounter. However, considering the number of people stretched throughout time, culture, and place, one realizes that a relatively small and specific group of people is present in one’s life. 

Though it is impossible to create and maintain deep and meaningful relationships with every person we encounter, it is possible to recognize everyone as being of significant value to our lives and vice versa. Renaldi’s photos remind us that, in the words of Lewis, “[t]here are no ordinary people…” and that, even if in very small ways, we must treasure and celebrate the miraculous and remarkable existence of the human person.