Maurizio Anzeri

Maurizio Anzeri was born in Italy 1969 and now lives and works in the UK.
He makes his portraits by sewing directly into found vintage photos. Previously he used to do ink drawings with the photographs and wondered what it would look like to be stitched into. He put tracing paper over the photo and drew on the face until it develops. Sometimes the images come to him straight away due to the detail in the photographs but he mostly spends his time drawing on them. 
Once the drawing is done he pierces the photo with a set of needle like tools he invented and takes the paper away. The stitching on the images can obscure the faces because of the lighting and the amount of stitching used. 


Anzeri's work has influenced me to experiment with my photographs in a way that I wouldn't have considered before. I like the idea of mixing traditional photographs with a material such as thread. His works links to my idea because he uses old vintage photographs in his work which is what I am exploring. 


I like the way he's used brightly coloured thread over the sepia or black and white photographs as it makes the images more modern with the added colour. In my own opinion there is something daunting about sewing into people's faces but I think once I have experimented with sewing into my own photographs my preconceptions of this idea might change. I like the fact that he hasn't made the marks directly to the shape of the face, he has experimented with different ideas and shapes but focusing it only around the face area. I like the way it provokes different feelings and emotions when people see it, some have said they find it fascinating how the combination of two completely different materials have been used to create a interesting final outcome, whereas others say they hate the idea of sewing into faces as they find it disturbing. 

Vintage Photographs

Following my theme of past & war time experiences, I experimented with taking some photographs of arranged collected photographs and objects. 

This was my first experimentation, I arranged the objects in a simplistic way simply to see what the outcome will be. 

I like that this composition is not arranged and taken taken from a different angle. 

A close up of a postcard.

Close up of postcard, bird scull and photograph of a road.

I tried to make this composition to focus on a holiday or a trip to the coast. I arranged the objects to fill  area. I then edited this photograph by adding a boarder and photo effect in a programme called pixlr-o-matic.

This is my favourite composition because I like the arrangement of objects and think that the photo effect works well with the image. 

Darkroom Prints

As I am focusing on the theme of the past and war time experiences I took some photos with my SLR that follow my theme. These are photographs that I had taken in the Imperial War Museum. I hoped to achieve high quality prints with good contrast. 

I tried to achieve a shot as if the planes were being aimed at. I wanted the planes to be viewed through the crosshair but  because of the angle it was positioned at the shot would have had a lot of background image and not a lot of the different exhibits I wanted in the shot. 

I took a photograph of one of the front pages of a newspaper. I chose this one because out of all of the newspapers this one had more working on it linking to the war. It is quite grey because the light in the room was quite dim and I didn't have an inbuilt flash on my camera.

As I looked around at the different exhibits I chose which ones would make a good composition. I wasn't expecting this image to come out with good contrast because the lighting was not that great around the machinery. 

The contrast is good but the print is a bit grey, to improve this I would change the timings. 

The contrast on this print is good. I had the light on f16, filter on 5  and exposed for 7seconds.

I think that the contrast is of a good standard, this is helped by the lighting on  the subject matter.

This print is has quite good contrast which I didn't expect seeing as there was on direct natural lighting directed on it. 

The contrast on this print is quite good, but in my own opinion I think that it is too dark. However I am just judging it by this scanned in version whereas the original print doesn't look as dark as this.

This photograph has come out grey, this is due to the lighting in the room with the newspapers was quite dim. I added a filter to make the image have more contrast.

These next set of photographs were taken of different posters and pictures around the museum.The photographs didn't come out that sharp because the poster photos were enlarged and therefore were not as sharp as a primary photo.

This photograph came out slightly washed out because the image wasn't exposed for long enough.

This was my second attempt which came out with more contrast than the first.

Don McCullin

Don McCullin born 9th October 1935 is an internationally known British photo journalist. He is mainly recognised for his war photographer. In 1959 a photograph that he had taken of a local London gang was published in the Observer. This lead him to work for the Observer for several years. Between 1966-1984 he worked for the Sunday Times magazine. His assignments included Biafa, the Belgian Congo, the Northern Irish 'Troubles', Bangladesh, The Lebanese Civil War, El Savador, and The Russian Invasion of Afghanistan. His most famous photos are of Vietnam and Cambodia.

On visit to the Imperial War Museum in London I took a look around the 'Shaped by War' exhibition by Don McCullin. It consisted of various room exhibiting his photographs taken when working for the Sunday Times. His photographs were very moving has he had captured the emotion and atmosphere in every image. His use of spacing was great considering he was amongst war and conflict taking place. His photographs showed the realisation of what took place and what is still happening now in some countries. One set of images made me feel really emotional and disgusted at what had happened was one photograph being of a family standing by a staircase then the image next to it of that family all lying on the floor after they had all been shot. I love the fact that he uses black and white photography as it makes the image more powerful; his work influenced my choice of photographs for my final idea. 

Initial Idea

I've thought of different ways I can explore the theme of encounters,experiences and meetings by creating a mindmap of ideas.
An area that I am interested in exploring is past and war time experiences. My visit to the Imperial War Museum in London will assist my idea that I am exploring. I hope to shoot a whole film roll of the different exhibits.