Charlie
St John
A month after being battered
This piece is part of Goldin's 'The Ballad of Sexual Dependency' series.
the story behind this piece is that while she was staying at The Berlin Hotel, she got assaulted by her lover who she later broke up with.'The balad of sexual dependancy' is about drugs, parties, love and all else to do with those topics. this image represents the peak of emotions in this project.
Goldin herself commented 'I took this picture so that I would never go back to him. ' and kept it as a reminder that he was abusive and not to miss him.
the image is a front facing image at eye-level making it more emotive and personal. the lighting is very soft and not dramatic in contrast to the history of the image. goldins exposure was quite low in this photo, meaning that the viewer may only focus on her face. she is using a film camera in this photograph.
Style
Nan Goldin is a documentary photographer who is known for her 'in the moment' photography. her images are usually quite gritty and grungy. many of her images are self portraiture but she does also take candid's of others. she used coloured film with flash to capture the colour schemes she wished to achieve.
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Nan Goldin
My Response
I personally love nan Goldin’s use of colour and composition. Her work is so emotive and beautiful. She is an advocate for rights all over the world and she shows that through her art, standing up for those that are too fearful stand up for themselves. I wish for my films and photography to one day make people feel these emotions. I feel inspired by her simple photography just using her film camera with natural lighting and casual angles just yet managing to create stunning photos. She manages to capture emotion using nothing of typical techniques such as angles colour and composition which is difficult to do.
intention
She uses her camera to spread awareness and messages, such as photographing abuse against woman, photographing gay people in a time where homosexuality was often frowned upon and drag queens. Nan Golding also used photography as a way to show her everyday life and what she And Her friends got up to.
