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Polly Braden
I was introduced to Polly’s work by my tutor for one of my assignments as research on the Square Mile.
http://pollybraden.com/work/london-square-mile/
Polly’s square mile was based around the financial square mile in London, so has lots of architecture in most of her shots. This can appear quite dull but the way she has used the light to enhance it is exquisite. She’s used angles and shafts of lights to make ordinary dull grey buildings look like geometric stars.
Paternoster Square 2006
An image of an office worker going about her business amongst the grey architecture. In itself the lady would be quite ordinary but behind her you have an angled sculpture which zigzags behind her, the lighting is dark/bright which emphasises the art work and it makes the lady look as if she is almost being attacked by it, as if it is alive. Then you have basic office buildings to either side with square straight edges which makes the angles of the sculpture stand out even more. Then there is dappled lighting all over the floor. The colour of the photo is almost mono tonal, it’s basically the same grey of the buildings all over, but it feels more colourful than that with the angled lighting. The lady is also carrying cardboard boxes which again emphasises the shapes in the buildings.
One New Change 2012
This photograph fascinates me; I see something different in it each time I look at it. When you first see it you just see a woman staring out of a window, it’s not until you look at it in depth that you notice other things. Did the photographer takes this into account when she took the picture or am I reading too much into it?
I see 5 layers to this image:
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the photographer taking the image reflected into the window
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the reflection of St Pauls Cathedral in the window behind the photographer
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the rain drops on the window
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the lady looking out of the window towards the photographer
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the background behind the lady looking out – is it offices or a shop? I’m not sure
Below is a sketch of the layers of the above image.
These images are not mine and have been supplied by wix as free images to website builders so Ive used them in this sketch to illustrate the layers in the image above.
I’m sure if I looked hard enough I could find even more layers to this image. This image has again got quite a dull tone to it overall because of the architecture, but it’s not until you look hard at it that you realise it has a lot of warmth and a glow to it.
I have the same problem with my square mile as I have a lot of greenery around my home, mountains/parks etc and this makes me think how could I alter the green to make it different? It’s all about making your image different or stand out. I always imagine if you had 10 people side by side and you asked them to take a photo of a mountain, how many would come back with the same image type? I try to think of this when I do my assignments.
Whats the lady thinking about? She looks deep in thought. I love to take pictures of people who are obviously deep in thought.
This is one of my images of a cricket match, it makes me smile because of the difference in size of the 2 cricket players and that they are deep in discussion about the game they are playing or their next move. This is what I mean about an image having layers and what I aim to achieve for the future.
Polly also includes one or twos figures amongst her architecture and deliberately tries to isolate her subjects and they seem to be over powered by the buildings, but personally I think the buildings come alive when there are people close to them.
Conclusion
What have I learnt form Pollys Square Mile work?
To look for something different when you are taking a photograph, dont just take the standard straight forward image and look for layers and depth in your work.