On a recent residential trip to London with we had the opportunity to visit the Horst exhibition at the V&A museum, when I first heard about this trip I was sooo excited to see his amazing collection as I'm a lover of classic photography and studied him as part of my photography A-level and its safe to say I wasn't disappointed!
As materials were limited in 1906, all of Horst's work is black and white, using lighting and shadows to create interesting illusions and depth to his images. This is an effect that interests me greatly due to my love of old photography and the distressed, classic nature to simplistic black and white images, I find the compositions of his objects also very powerful as they focus on strong curves of the figure and show the natural beauty and macro quality of the skin.
These two images shown above are favourites of mine, although they are extremely different I feel they both share similarities, for example, the shapes in both images involve a strong, unmissable curve. The first image relies strongly on dramatic lighting and shadows, sculpting the woman's back showing the curve of her spine. The crisp white corset and loose ribbon fastening in the image allows you to delve further into the connotations of the image and makes you question where she is and what she is doing?
The second image leaves a lot for the imagination, making you question the meaning behind the hands and the racial diversity in the image. Although the photograph is made up of 2 individuals of different races there is also consistency, both nails are perfectly painted in a shiny black nail varnish, this leads me to believe that both women are similar in the sense that they may be upper class as their manicures are made up of absolutely no imperfections. The contrast between the skin tones also relates to the strong lighting and contrast within the image.
When looking around the exhibition I was instantly drawn to these particular images as they reminded my of the work I did surrounding my final major project in my art foundation. Since coming home and researching further into the life and work of Horst, I found that when he created these images in 1945 he decided to take a break from photography and work on a new kind of project, patterns from nature. He used shells, butterfly wings, flowers and minerals and repeated the intricate patterns over and over to create these detailed designs, this is similar to the techniques I used in my own initial designs when repeating my architecture photography for my garment inspiration.
Apologies for the low quality of these images... the files are just waaay too big! As you can see there is a clear resemblance between Horst's work and my own, I'm so happy to have had the chance to visit his amazing collection and expand my artistic knowledge!
To find out more visit this link http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-horst-photographer-of-style/... I would definitely recommend a visit to this exhibition if you get the chance.
becky x
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