Tristan Risk #11 / Red Chair Project

[mbarrick]

littlemissrisk for artofadornment This image also officially re-opens the Red Chair Project after ten months on the shelf.

Comments

[cheekydevil.livejournal.com]

I officially volunteer for Red Chair-ing. I have time off, even!

there is something off about it .....

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

She doesn't look very comfortable
She is troubled by something m sitting awkwardly - or disturbed by something (or some thought) off camera. It alsmost lookes like
she is reluctant to do the photo.

...anyway - that is what I pick up from this one



You should get me when I come back from Burning Man - in all my Playa covered desert clothing (although I can guarantee your Red Chair won't stay red if I sit in it)

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

Well - I respect Michael as an artist enough to give him real feedback rather than stroke his ego (not everyting on LJ is purdy or brilliant


Michael - re-take the photo - or select a different one from your set (or tell me to go to hell as its your art - not mine)

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Interesting comments. Particularly since her expression in this one is the reason I chose it over the other ones in this pose. There is clearly something else going on outside the frame. Her attention is split between the viewer and somewhere the viewer's left. For the viewer that creates the feeling that *you* have someone behind you but because it is a photograph you are denied access to what's causing her expression, and that is uncomfortable. The voyeuristic dynamic between the viewer and subject, which is normally completely safe because the photographic subject can't react, is upset by the intoduction of the unknowable object of her gaze being altogether too close to the viewer. Rather than a classic pretty-girl pin-up where the subject has no power. The safety of being an anonymous viewer is removed and that is going to make some people unconfortable.

I'm beginning to think that I might need dig a lot deeper into this dynamic. My favourite from last year's group of photographs, the first one I painted, also had the model reacting to something out-of-frame.

Personally, I think she looks fabulous in this picture because she is feminine and attractive but full of strength and opinion.

Never fear, though. There are more classically demure, less confrontational images coming.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Yup. And Sandi hates it, too.

Part of me is dying to explain the expression, but I don't want to wreck it with an unneccessary back-story.