Leslie David

Leslie David

'Souvenirs de Paris'

Leslie David is a graphic designer, illustrator and art director based in Paris.  Most of her works are photographs of landmarks, streets and buildings. This picture is part of a series of 8 postcards called souvenirs de Paris. It is a photograph that had been taken in Paris then partly covered with various coloured paints. She has a range of clients that the work might be for, but as it is called Souvenirs de Paris I would assume that they are to be sold or used as postcards as they are a 'set of 8 postcards'.
I have chosen this particular piece of work as my chosen theme is architecture. Her work fits into architecture as the photographs that she uses are of buildings in Paris. I may consider using her idea of applying different coloured paint on top of the photographs, possibly changing the way it is applied and to the area that it is applied. 
There is not much information about the postcard, which leaves it up to the imagination of the viewer to think of about it. To me I think the meaning behind this image is that you can update something old without changing its appearance. By working on to the photograph it is not changing or manipulating the building it is simply adjusting its time to make it something new. As the colours are quite bright and vibrant it could be showing that new life can be given to the building by simple gestures such as colour change. 
My first reaction to this image is that its odd, I originally didn't like it as I think its quite simple and doesn't really work with the photograph. After spending a bit of time looking at the other works my thought have changed slightly, I think it has a meaning to it but its up to the viewer to decide what it is. To me its updating something without changing it completely. I like the choice of colours to overlay on the photograph but the one thing I don't like about it is the way the paint was applied. To me the paint doesn't work with the composition as it is just applied over the photograph without thinking about it, in my opinion it may have looked better being applied into the negative spacing such as the sky. The work has inspired me to experiment with working on top of photographs to see what affects it has on the image, maybe using other materials as well as paint.