The Object- Photographer Research

Research- making revolting things look attractive

Emma Hamilon

Emma Hamilton creates still-lifes of flowers, which are actually made out of meat and animal organs. Her work is very influenced by Dutch still life paintings from both the 17th and 18th century. By having her these images photographed in a very traditional way gives a normality to the use of the meat and animal organs. At first her images appear very seductive however once you have a close look they are very repulsive because you can see the animal organs. The pictures show how you can make horrible things  look attractive, I was inspired by this as I want to make the idea of eating animals look attractive as it’s what people do on a daily basis. The images have a very ornate feel to them because of the vase they are in, this adds to the seductiveness of the picture. To get this effect in my images I’m going to place an animal skull amongst very ornate cutlery and plates. I'm also going to experiment with using a black background.

Keith Arnatt

Arnatt’s series of images called ‘From a Rubbish Tip’ look at humans impact on the environment and how they ruin natural spaces with rubbish. My first thought of the images is how beautiful they look even though they are of rubbish. Arnatt uses very soft lighting which softens the idea of using rubbish in the image which is supposed to be revolting. The colour’s in the image are very warm which is a very welcoming and gives the rubbish an attractive feel. They also look like pieces of art rather then photographs because of the different textures and markings in the image, which look like paint splatters. Given the image the paint like feel adds to making the rubbish look beautiful. I like the idea of making something that is usually seen as appalling in to something that looks beautiful.

Heston blumenthal- Fruit bowl made of meat

I gathered research from the TV series called ‘Heston’s Feast’ which is about a chef named Heston Blumenthal who explores the Medieval era for recipes. In the Medieval Ages chefs use to entertain the guests by performing gastronomic trickery. Blumenthal made one dish where he created a bowl of fruit which was actually made out of meat, he said ‘When I first started looking at historic recipes, particularly recipes from medieval times, there was one dish that really attracted my attention, just because it was completely mad: Meat fruit.’ In the Middle Ages people thought that unless cooked fruit and vegetables had diseases, many chefs used this fear and painted meat to look like raw fruit. By camouflaging the meat as vegetables it makes the meat more attractive. I like the idea of tricking people into thinking something is more appealing then it actually is.