Crying Men is a series of photographic portraits of famous film actors by Sam
Taylor-Wood. Taylor –Wood asked
each of these actors perform and cry for the camera while she photographed
them.
Taylor-Wood wants the viewer to decide for
themselves which were real tears and which were fake. She did say it was
difficult for some of them to show their feelings and she had wanted to get
masculine men and show a different side to them, visualising the image below
for instance:
Looking at the actor
deep into his one eye, it makes you feel like the image is communicating with you
in a special sort of way, it’s like he’s almost looking deep into your soul.
the important thing about this image is the detailed shades on the wrinkles, it
makes you feel like you want to investigate more? For example what’s he
thinking? What’s the true meaning behind this and what is the artist trying to
get through to the viewer?
The ring on his finger has a clear number
one printed on it, the first impression you get is was it someone special to
him that something bad might’ve happened to? It also it represent a symbol too
which only means something to the actor himself, maybe there’s a hidden meaning
behind the symbol. But the artist gives
you the opportunity to interpret the symbol in whichever way you’d like to.
Colour is very important in this
photograph especially using black and white, it gives a good detail of the
wrinkles on the actors face and it kind of effects the viewer’s emotion when
you look at the detail in one eye, you get the feeling that it’s looking very
deep into your soul. On the other hand the other eye is covered by his finger
that has got the ring on, basically the ring represents the other eye. I
personally think that using black and white gives more detail of a portraiture,
this because there’s nothing else in focus apart from the face of the person,
if there was more things going on the background then the artist could’ve maybe
used colour. I think a simple colour could change the whole meaning of the
image, depending on the type of portrait.
I think you could
spend a lot of time looking for the true meaning behind this piece of work,
because it gives you the feeling of wanting to investigate more about the
person and his feelings. Looking at the image for a longer period of time,
everything sort of breaks down into more detail. Say if it was a film you’d
watch all of it starting from the beginning to the end.
Sam Taylor Wood
Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Johnson is professionally known as Sam
Taylor-Wood, she was born on 4th of March 1967 and is an
English filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. She started Art school at 16 and later attended
Goldsmiths College in London. After she left college she worked in a bar and
also helping with costumes behind the scenes of the Royal opera House. Before
she started photography and film making she also did some sculpting. However it
was her boldness in photography and films that began to create a name for her.
While working for a nightclub she came with the idea of photographing the
bouncers in their scary pose used for working on the doors this was done in
front of some paintings at the Tate art gallery in London. This was what
she wanted, to be controversial. Taylor
Wood has had numerous successful
group and solo exhibitions including the Turner Prize in 1998.
David was her father’s name, who
left the family when she was nine. Her
mother, Geraldine, is a yoga teacher and astrologist. She has one younger
sister Ashley, and a maternal step-brother, Kristian. Taylor-Wood grew up near
Streatham Common in south London
until her parents' divorce. She lived with her step-father until she was 16,
before moving out to live on her own in Hastings-by-the-Sea
In August 2008,
Taylor-Wood was chosen to direct Nowhere
Boy, a biopic about the childhood of the
Beatles' singer, John
Lennon. However she started a relationship with the
Star from Nowhere boy who is 23 years
younger than her they announced their engagement on 2009 and got married 21
June 2012 and both took the name Taylor Johnson. The couple have two daughters
together born before they were married.
As part of my AS year she was one of
my chosen artist and I was influenced to reproduce some excellent images after looking at her ‘Self Portrait levitating’ series. Although I looked at the Crying men work she did last year I have
explored that further when considering my unit 3 project which is exploring
portraiture.
Crying Men is a series of photographic
portraits of famous film actors by Sam Taylor-Wood. Taylor –Wood asked each of these actors
perform and cry for the camera while she photographed them.
Taylor-Wood wants the viewer to decide for
themselves which were real tears and which were fake. She did say it was
difficult for some of them to show their feelings and she had wanted to get
masculine men and show a different side to them, visualising the image below
for instance:
Looking at the actor
deep into his one eye, it makes you feel like the image is communicating with you
in a special sort of way, it’s like he’s almost looking deep into your soul.
the important thing about this image is the detailed shades on the wrinkles, it
makes you feel like you want to investigate more? For example what’s he
thinking? What’s the true meaning behind this and what is the artist trying to
get through to the viewer?
The ring on his
finger has a clear number one printed on it, the first impression you get is
was it someone special to him that something bad might’ve happened to? It also
it represent a symbol too which only means something to the actor himself,
maybe there’s a hidden meaning behind the symbol. But the artist gives you the opportunity to
interpret the symbol in whichever way you’d like to.
Colour is very
important in this photograph especially using black and white, it gives a good
detail of the wrinkles on the actors face and it kind of effects the viewer’s
emotion when you look at the detail in one eye, you get the feeling that it’s
looking very deep into your soul. On the other hand the other eye is covered by
his finger that has got the ring on, basically the ring represents the other
eye. I personally think that using black and white gives more detail of a
portraiture, this because there’s nothing else in focus apart from the face of
the person, if there was more things going on the background then the artist
could’ve maybe used colour. I think a simple colour could change the whole
meaning of the image, depending on the type of portrait.
I think you could
spend a lot of time looking for the true meaning behind this piece of work,
because it gives you the feeling of wanting to investigate more about the
person and his feelings. Looking at the image for a longer period of time,
everything sort of breaks down into more detail. Say if it was a film you’d
watch all of it starting from the beginning to the end.
The artist has used
rule of thirds in this image, ring and part of the eye being on one of the
lines, I think this is to display most of the person’s face in the middle of
the photograph to give it more depth and arty, because that’s what gives you
the recognition of who the person is in the portrait. Around the environment you
can hardly see what’s round the person, but on the right hand side (ring) you
can see something looks like a cabinet or a curtain but the main focus is on
the face. The reason it’s dark on the background is because the artist is trying
to focus on the face not the background, which I personally think a portrait
should be all about.
The techniques Sam Taylor
Wood has used is black and white image, to show the detail of the portrait
however she’s used lightning effects from the left side of the image this is so
you could see every small detail (wrinkle) of the face. The techniques of the
lightning effects that she’s used tell you how you could change a piece of work
from simple portrait to a very detailed one. I personally think this is what
makes professionals different from others
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