Paul Schneggenburger is a German photographer and artist. He started his photographic work by doing portraits. He then developed this idea of ''The sleep of the beloved''. It started as part of his diploma in 2010 at the University of applied arts in Vienna. It ha snow become an on-going long time project in which he adds to all the time.
He wanted to just investigate the differences within a pattern of sleep, for example looking at the changes in positions and the way people move over a long period of time without being aware of their movements. It then formed into this prolonged project of how lovers sleep together and their movements through the night. He takes these images inside his studio where he sets up a bed and uses a long exposure over 6 hours from midnight to 6 in the morning.
He then puts the images together and they come out as these dark, ghostly and mysterious images of overlapped hours of sleep. One thing that is significant about the way he takes these images is that at no point within the six hours is he present, he simply just sets up the camera and the environment and leaves the camera to do the rest of the work.
In the above image is a long exposure of a couple over 6 hours of sleep from midnight to 6am. The image is edited in black and white to give the illusion that the couple is almost floating as they sleep which could be illustrating the way we dream.
They are edited in black and white but they are also shot on dark backgrounds to further deepen the mood of the photograph. In my opinion, the images not only symbolise our unconscious movements as we sleep which we are unaware of but it also depicts the relationship between the couple in bed together. It shows a level of security and love between two people.
Furthermore, it could symbolise the restlessness of when we sleep. Sleep is often described as a peaceful and restful period of time in our day, however within these images Schneggenburger has portrayed how our unbeknown movements can show how restless in fact we are during this time of complete 'peace'.
Schneggenburger's aim throughout these pieces of work was to portray and present the relationship between the two people within the photograph. In my opinion, sleep is very personal and it can take many different forms. To depict a relationship can often be difficult in ordinary portraits and so through the intimate outlet of sleep,it is easy to show the connection of two people, which some may say is ironic as they are not looking at each other or talking to each other, things we associate with the word 'relationship'. However, in this image in particular it shows how through the night their paths cross and also how they end up in the morning. The intimacy within these movements is rarely photographed and so, in my opinion has a much more powerful meaning.
My responses...
These are my responses to Paul Schneggenburger's work. To achieve these I shot them in a studio using a mattress and a black sheet as my props to create the illusion of a bed at night. It also creates more shadows around the blurred figures and allows the contrast of the black and white effect to be more prominent. I used a long exposure which allowed me to get the movements of the different positions of a nights sleep.
I got the model to move in different sleeping positions throughout the ten second exposure to obtain the merged composition. I chose to respond to this photographer as part of my sleep project as it shows how people sleep and how unaware we are of our movements throughout our sleep cycle. It's also a different side of sleep photography and uses techniques that offer a distorted view of sleep.
The way the images are blurred due to the long exposures gives the illusion that their is more than one person within the image. This is significant as it introduces a monologue to go alongside the shadowed photographs. I chose to just use one person as I wanted the focal point of the images to be their sleeping pattern,positions and movements rather than the relationship between two people which is what inspired Schneggenburger to take his photos. I did this to develop from his images and make them my own photographs inspired by the way humans sleep and in what circumstances.
For some of the photos I kept the clothing of the model dark to mirror the dark sheets in the background, which offered a more mysterious outcome, this is due to the viewer not being able to make out the whole image but still being able to see the movements,which creates a dehumanised interpretation of sleep. However, I also experimented with having one of the models wear a bright white piece of clothing to further enhance the outlines of the movements created when someone sleeps. In my opinion this allows for a more vivid and dynamic view of someones sleep cycle and allows the viewer to empathise with the imagery, in a clearer way.
No comments:
Post a Comment