Annica...

Annica is a fine artist from Stockholm, Sweden. Although she is trained in fine art her specialism is photography. 
She started working with portraiture and has gone into fashion based photography since. She does a variety of different portraiture from fashion and beauty photoshoots to more thoughtful and imaginative pieces. 
She also did a short series of sleep where she looked at the different environments of sleep using often uncommon surroundings such as fields and wooded landscapes. She also looked into how people sleep for example positioning of sleep, including covering their eyes or face. A lot of her work as been exhibited and she has won awards for her photography. She is now based in America and continues to work in unique surroundings with dark and eerie meanings behind her photos.
Although not all of work is based on sleep, a lot of it links to the movements and symbols of sleep and can be interpreted in association with the unconscious mind and the physical signs of a sleeping person.

This image is taken from her series on sleep. She took photos of sleep in uncommon places along with uncommon way of sleeping. For example covering your eyes with your hands, standing up, along with unusual sleeping environments such as fields, beaches, and forests.
In the image above there is a girl lying down seemingly covered with a white duvet and a white pillow, symbolic of sleep. However she is surrounded and almost hidden by golden strands of over grown wheat. The colour of her hair is mirrored by the colour of the straw as she is blonde. She is facing away from the camera and this gives the idea that she is somewhat unaware of the photograph being taken, which is further implied by the viewpoint and angle the photo is taken from. It is taken looking through the strand of wheat and this is shown by the blurred foreground and the focal point being the sleeping girl. The lighting is also significant as it appears to be replicating the light from the sun which suggests that is it not necessarily taken at night which further portrays the mysterious and uncommon arrangement of a photo of someone sleeping.
In my opinion, although it is obvious that she is sleeping due to the accessorises around her such as the duvet and pillow and position she is in, it seems to look as if she has been put there and not necessarily planned to be there. This adds to the strange and almost fairy tale aspect of the photograph.

My Responses...

These are my responses to photographer Annicas work. I chose to focus on the more fairy tale style of her work. To do this I used the angle of looking down on someone sleeping in an uncommon environment from above to show the element of the idea that someone has been put there rather than choosing to sleep there. I did these shots in my back garden and used a tripod which was positioned over the top of where I was lying. I chose to do it on grass because of the contrast of my pale skin and ginger hair to the deep green of the grass which heightens to fairytale and mysterious mood of the images.

I took a few images as a starting point looking at the photos from Annica, where she has a model lying in grass. 

I wanted this angle and perspective to link in with my project title. To adapt this into my own work I chose to have a model appearing to be asleep in the grass as opposed to just lying there. I then post edited these images to make them more vibrant and contrasting, again the green of the grass and the pale skin along with the ginger hair.  Looking at this image objectively, it is a girl with a dress on lying in green grass with her eyes closed. However, in my opinion, the angle of the image allows for a much deeper meaning of imagery. It suggests that someone is watching her sleep, heightened by the fact that it is an unlikely environment for her to be asleep in  and so it appears strange and questionable to the viewer. The contrasting colours also imply the image to be in day light, which again emphasises the uncommon nature of the composition. 

In the images above I chose to take inspiration from the work Annica did with symbols of sleep. A lot of her work isn't actually of people sleeping, but more so the way in which people sleep and the physical signs of sleep. To adopt this into my own project I chose to take a couple of images of someone covering their eyes with their hands. This could suggest that they are blocking out the light from the outside world in order to sleep. However it could suggest a sense of tiredness, something that prepares the human body for sleep. In my opinion these images offer a different interpretation of  my title and allow the viewer to take different perspective on the theme. I edited one in black and white to enhance the appearance of the shadows around her and between her fingers to replicate the dark and eerie nature of Annica's work. I also wanted to emphasise the negative space behind the subject, and create it to be more dark and endless to bring the focal point to the foreground of the image. 

I continued this idea by incorporating different stances into the signs of sleep. In the images above, it shows a girl in a vast and empty field, with her face covered by her hair which is draped over her shoulders as she lazily slouches. I wanted the positioning of the girl in these images to be the focal point and what the eye is drawn to. This is because, it shows how people sleep, in a different surrounding and with a different angle. For example, her relaxed state and the way her body is leaning forward is symbolic of the way when we sleep our whole body is motionless and our mind is unconscious and so our body becomes relaxed. Also the way her hair is covering her face suggests that she is unrecognisable to the outside world, which is often the case when we sleep as our mind is also asleep and so is unresponsive to conscious matter. It also shows a sense of detachment, in that she is unaware of her own movements and her own appearance, which again is the case when we sleep. This is portrayed as she cannot see the camera, and the viewer cannot see her face, which creates a sense of disconnect in the way we look at the image. It almost looks uncomfortable which causes the viewer to question the meaning behind the imagery. 
In most portraits you see the persons facial expression which allows us to empathise with the photograph, and also understand the interpretation behind it. However, in these images it allows for a more subjective view of the image and a different perspective on the notion of sleep. 

 For the next set of photographs I used the things around me for example leaves, branches and fallen trees to encase my model as if she had been put there and chosen to sleep there. These photos represent 'sleep in uncommon places'. A lot of Annica'ss work is shot in unusual and creative surroundings to make the imagery have a different meaning other than just people sleeping in their natural and normal sleeping environments. I wanted to adopt this into my images, however I didn't want the images to be as light and vibrant as Annica's. I chose to develop from her ideas and make my photos more desaturated and mysterious by the use of location. In Annica's images they are uncommon places but they are beautiful and comfortable places to sleep. In my work I chose to go to locations that aren't seen as 'beautiful' and are very unlikely to want to be slept in. For example, forests, empty fields, wooded areas with rotten branches and overgrown grass. I did this to add another meaning to the images rather than just sleep in uncommon areas but sleep in uncomfortable and unwanted surroundings. The use of clothing is significant as it shows that the girl is pure and clean and the environment she is in is dark and dirty which further emphasises the unwanted nature of the places she has chosen to sleep in. 

In these images I took the symbols of sleep, for example bedding,and photographed them in an unnatural environment to develop from the images in the forest. This enhances the idea of sleep in uncommon surroundings and offers another interpretation of the imagery. Theses images suggest that she has chosen to sleep in these unlikely circumstances and therefore brings in the eerie and mysterious mood to my images which is also evident in the work of Annica.
I experimented using different angles to change the perspective of the image. For example, from above creates the feeling of her being watched, as well as looking from the ground . Whereas taking the photo from the side induces the feeling of being present with the subject and that it is being taken from her perspective rather than the viewers.