Miss Aniela Photography

Above: l-r, 5-1!

My Top ten of early inspirations on Flickr, continued, 5 -1. (No. 1 strongest)
For 10-6, click here.

5. Jaime Bley
When I was first around on Flickr I was looking at all the work of people who ‘cloned’ themselves. Jaime was into multiplicity and I liked her work. However, not until recently, when I reacquainted myself with those images, did I truly feel awed by them. That’s because I think I have a bigger appreciation for finely-constructed, minutely-detailed work nowadays. It’s rare that I would like a clone pic where the clones are so distant from the camera. But when I look at Jaime’s intricate images I don’t feel like I am on Flickr, but standing in an art gallery. Really! I chose to put Jaime into this first list rather than my list of current inspirations, because although I am most in love with her work now, those images were created quite a while back, and I saw them when I first came onto Flickr nearly two years ago.

4. Lara Swift
Lara’s photostream currently no longer contains all the pictures I first saw 2 years ago, but there’s a comprehensive enough display of her ’self’ work here. Funnily enough Lara doesn’t want to do photography professionally (she is studying medicine) but she does have a fine talent for creating self portraits. Photos like this one have inspired my use of mirrors and old looking objects wherever I can get hold of them…

3. Lara Jade Coton
Lara Jade at a remarkably young age has a fantastic talent for photography, she was a professional in my eyes right back at the age of 16!
Of all Lara’s work I most enjoy her self portraits (just my own taste, there’s nothing like seeing ‘the star herself’) and her self portraits came in by the hundreds when I was first on Flickr. You can check out her self portrait set here. The interesting thing about her self portraits is that I don’t think I’ve seen such a diverse set of images that are mostly taken ‘close up’ to her face. Keeping close up to one’s face I find can often be extremely limiting and even unflattering, but Lara’s knack for CUs is unbeatable.
Images that particularly inspired me include this one where she is throwing a strawberry, which led to the creation of my image ‘Strawberry tossing’.
She did a fecking ace one with an umbrella too. I’ve yet to try something with an umbrella, when I do, her image will be in my head as the benchmark!

2. Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir
Rebekka is probably the most popular artist on Flickr. Her work ranges from self portraits to landscapes, to horses, to pics of her sons, celebrities and much more. I was most inspired by her early clone images, I know that this one most definitely had a direct effect on the creation of my clone pic ‘By the lake’. Nowadays Rebekka has a busy schedule hence doesn’t upload as often and I know she actively keeps her portfolio diverse and produces fewer self portraits. Therefore she’s not a top inspiration, because my biggest inspirations are those who are more dedicated to using themselves as a muse and annoying everyone with the possibility that they are hardcore narcissists ;)) - but she’s No. 2 in this list because her body of work over the past three years since she began photography is simply fantastic. Her successes are encouraging to anyone who starts out as an amateur on the web. She’s achieved some pretty amazing feats outside of Flickr, including an ad campaign for Toyota, and use of her images by an Icelandic airline.

1. Solea (Carmen Gonzalez)
At first I found Solea’s work too delicate and mystical for my taste - I was into big brash colourful processing and close-up subjects. But over time, works like this one became my personal benchmark and encouraged me to insert the ’self portrait’ into the landscape, such as for example, in my image ‘The approach’ and just landscapes alone too, titled, like her set, ‘Around where I live’. I loved the minutely constructed painterly quality to Solea’s images. Her openness about her preference for self portraits, ‘I am a self portrait artist, that is my way’, encouraged and motivated me to create more myself, and not be ashamed. Solea is openly sensual and evocative. I can’t see that intricacy in Solea’s recent work that I so admired a year or so ago, but that is not a criticism, she is as hardworking as ever and has also deservedly started to exhibit her work in print.

Next: my Top 5 current Flickr inspirations…

Above: l-r, 10-6!

On a recent post there was a little discussion about whose inspirations people could see in my work. I slightly disagreed on their choice. I thought therefore it might be interesting for me to sit down and analyse the most powerful inspirations I have encountered on Flickr.

I try not to be someone who hides ‘what’ or ‘who’ inspires me. All art, you could say, is a recreation of what the artist has seen before. A philosopher once famously spoke of ‘the death of the author’, ie. once a piece has been made, the author ceases to be the owner of it, no piece of art is unique, it is merely a remix of everything in culture the artist has absorbed prior to making his/her piece.

I haven’t seen alot of other artists be completely open about who inspires them. Being inspired by something, as opposed to copying, isn’t shameful, is an absolutely normal part of ‘creating’ art. In fact, to deny inspiration from others would simply be lying. Better to openly announce if something has directly inspired you, because then the viewers can clearly see how you have made the piece your own, and thus have more respect for you. Being hush about it can look suspicious, however, I understand that not everyone has to lay claim to other artists when they make a piece. People argue that art doesn’t have to be explained, the artist doesn’t necessarily have to say anything. I just personally find it healthy to celebrate the work of someone else whose work you admire, and once in a while, to show how a work of yours might be directly inspired by someone else’s work. (You could say that not all pics are directly inspired by anyone or anything, some pics of any one artist’s are more ‘unique’ than others in their portfolios).

I will give two lists of artists (too many for one blog upload so I’ve divided it up!) The first list is a countdown of ten (1 being strongest) of the artists who inspired me the most in the early days of Flickr, when I first came onto the site in April 2006.

After that I will give a ‘top 5′ of the artists who have a way of knocking my socks off nowadays. I find there is a difference between who first inspired me, and who inspires me now - obviously artists’ tastes change, adapt and develop - also, tastes of the person being inspired also change and develop over time.

All artists have inspired me indirectly, ‘vaguely’ across my work; but I have also given examples of where they have directly inspired a piece.

So, here’s the countdown, 10-6, of the artists who inspired me in the earlier days. (see photo montage above, which corresponds to the artists).

10. Dr Joanne
Dr Joanne’s images are quirky, questioning and really quite unique. I remember feeling very intrigued by this picture of hers, but never quite making a piece inspired by it. Her self portraits are remarkably diverse in style, some weird and even ‘ugly’, and some soft and feminine, such as this one, in which I love the movement. The same sense of movement withint a flowing feminine gown can be seen in my recent image An impromptu performance, although that one was more consciously inspired by Quizz, whom I mention later.

9. Rimbaudian (Gianluca)
Pity he doesn’t upload much - his last picture was back in June. One of those Flickrers with a life outside Flickr… lol. His work is definitely worth checking out. I loved the surreal one with the playing cards which may well have led to my Photoshoppery with my own deck and my pic ‘Strip solitaire’. He’s also the only male self portrait artist in my list! I do have more than one male self-portrait artist in my contact list nowadays though, including Federico Erra, but there simply aren’t as many as male than female SP artists on Flickr.

8. Maryanne B
Maryanne’s restarted afresh a few times since I first came across her work, but her gems mostly still appear on her stream. Maryanne does lots of duo portraits, with her partner, which are gorgeous, never cringey or cheesy, but actually quite tender scenes, especially the last one of this set. I think her shots in the bathroom may have been part of my inspiration to start taking pics in there too.

7. Maggie le chat
Maggie Le Chat’s placing of her nude self round interiors has generally inspired me to be confident about self portraiture itself, and the use of the nude female body. As with Lara above, her photostream has been edited int he last two years and not all work that originally inspired me appears on there now. Her use of detached limbs may have inspired this pic of mine.

6. Agnieszka
Agnieszka does pics of all kinds of things, including a smattering of divine, delicate self portraits, never nude, always ‘clean’, innocent and almost puritan, but with an undercurrent of sexiness, if that’s ok to say. ;)) Her self portrait set is varied; the pics that have had the most impact on me include this one which uses fabrics beautifully.

5-1 coming soon, followed by Top 5 current Flickr inspirations!

…at the funfair.

This picture is one of two images taken by Lola Gets, an artist on Flickr, and processed by me.
You can see the other collaboration here!

These are the nine images that will be exhibited at camara oscura galeria de arte, Madrid, from 17th April to 31st May 2008.

Not long to go!

The images are, from left to right starting with top row and going down:

An impromptu performance (2008)
The chase (2007)
Sea view (2007)
Girl dreaming (2007)
South by southeast (2007)
On the rocks (2007)
Memoirs of a woman of leisure (2006)
The deaths (2006)
Stretch (2006)

Camara oscura is in Atocha, the gallery district of Madrid, not far from the major museums.

My work, including the nine images on display, will be available in limited editions of five, printed on the finest quality archival paper with Epson Giclee inks, (at 23 x 34.5 inches for normal portrait/landscape dimensions, and 23 x 23 for square images).

The nine exhibition prints on display are coated in archival UV coating and framed with a natural matt colour aluminium frame.

I’ll keep the blog updated with any exciting press coverage (fingers crossed) and more info!