The Object: Critical Appraisal

‘The Object’

For ‘The Object’ project, the concept behind my idea was based on a personal story, something I feel passionate about. I wanted to be able to connect with the project to hopefully have a more successful outcome as the objects in the photograph represented something important to me. The story behind the project was based on a friend of mine who had a rough childhood, who was abused by her mother who was an alcoholic. I began my research by not only looking into her story, but doing some research on other people’s abuse stories, hoping to inspire me with ideas for objects to use for the final image. I did some research by looking at some shocking statistics online about child abuse:

After this research I decided to do some brainstorming on what sort of objects I wanted to include in my final image. My initial thought was to obviously use some sort of alcohol, representing the main concept behind the idea. Then wanted to have another object that completely contrasted what the alcohol represented. My immediate reaction was to use something that stereotypically represented a child; therefore, I decided to experiment with toys.

I did some test photos with a teddy bear, basically experimenting with the way you can manipulate the toy to look abandoned and alone but changing the composition, lighting and positioning. I then looked at a couple of photographers who also took photos of toys and represented them in different ways.

 

I first of all looked at a photographer called Brian McCarty, who specialised in taking photographs of toys. What I found interesting was the way Brian tried to represent the toys as having personality, and creating a story around them. An idea which inspired me to create a story around a toy, creating the sense for the viewer that the toy symbolises the child behind the image.

Another Photographer I looked at was Louise Daddona who photographed a broken china doll. This photograph completely inspired me and let to my decision of using a china doll for my final photograph. A doll’s much more delicate and child-like, therefore its hard hitting for the viewer when the doll’s deformed and to me completely symbolises the theme of child abuse.

Research on China Dolls then led me to the surrealist photographer Hans Bellmer, his photographs represent mutilated pubescent dolls, creating an eerie effect. The dismantling of the dolls has an effect on the viewer, the kind of effect I want to achieve from my final image.