Week 2:

Elspeth Diederix: "lilac"

Post Written By: Hannah Zimmerman

For my second blog post of the semester I chose another picture taken by my mentor Elspeth Diederix titled “lilac.” I chose another one of her pictures because I resonated with many of the photographs I saw on her website and I want to use her style and content as inspiration for my own personal work this semester in my photography class.

Our weekly assignment for this second week is to practice taking photos in the style of the pictorialism movement. This photography movement originated during the late 19^th and early 20^th century. It was important because photographers were challenging the way photographs were taken and “how” they should appear. It was taking the process of photography and experimenting with how the image could appear to create a more painterly effect. Parts or whole images could be fuzzy or blurred out through various methods and were manipulated to a point that it almost seemed like brush strokes made up the image. It was considered Fine Art because it was challenging the viewers imagination and this was done through alternative ways of taking pictures for a purpose.

The reason I chose the photograph lilac was because it reminded me of a painting. While this photograph doesn’t use any blurring effects or filters traditionally used in the pictorialist movement, the way Elspeth set up the lighting and tonality of this picture reminded me of what pictorialism is about. Additionally, this photograph uses a found object along with a flower arrangement, which using found objects is something I am interested in attempting to do this semester within my own work.

The photograph appears to be natural sunlight shining through a window adding soft lighting to a light wood chair supporting a structure of purple lilacs covering up the right side of the chair. The floor is concrete with a white cement wall with a nice composition consisting of a crack running up the wall to the right of the chair and lilac sculpture.

I find this photograph beautiful because of the artist’s ability to set up a well-balanced composition and cohesive use of tone and color within the photograph. Superficially, the photograph is pretty and attractive, but Elspeth Diederix’s work is about pushing past the everyday use of objects and challenging viewers to look at the objects/arrangements in her photos differently. She sets out to challenge the imagination and embrace the poetics of arranging objects differently in her compositions in order to get viewers to think about things in ways they normally wouldn’t.

This photograph causes me to think about the concealment of things, that once uncovered are beautiful beneath the surface. However, sometimes the things that hide behind the beauty are kept there for a reason, because people are embarrassed or scared to expose themselves.

The power of the effect this photograph can have on the viewer further reminds me why I think of Elspeth Diederix  as a mentor to my own work. I intend to use her power of capturing the invisible poetry of “things” as inspiration and motivation in the photographs I take this week.

Photo of the Week: