Bettina Von Zwehl

Anatomy of control 2000 

Bettina Von Zwehl is a photographer born in Munich in 1971.Her focus is on people in a portrait styles, and all of her subjects tend to be on their own. For many years she seeks different styles of representing portraiture in her work. She once completed a project where the model/subject were caring a cable, which triggered the shutter. This then resulted to the image being taken. In terms of my project I thought it would interesting to include this aspect by communicating with my model through written from instructing them to take images of themselves using the cable release. This would link in with my title ‘Postel’. In her work there was a debate between who was the photographer and who was in control of her work. Subjectively I would say that Von Zwehl is the photographer as she set the scene and gives the instructions and the children just press the button. They are asked to stand or sit in a uniform wear, which gives a clinical mood to the photograph. The children are represented in various ways and they all demonstrate various expression. Some of them are excited that they are photographing themselves other are confused about what they should be doing.I would classify the photographer as one that sets the scenes, they are in charge of the lighting and the surroundings, although the children press the button this does not make them the photographer.

This shoot consist of a white back drop, the models are children are wearing black clothing. Zhwel chose to use children as they were an unpredictable subject. Children react differently to various tuitions. In reference to this shoot this shoot this she shoot the children are the photographers, and so they all reacted in various ways. Somewhere excited that they were the photographers others didn’t quit know what to do.

 For my response instead of using adult I choose to recreate the scenes by using adults. I placed my model in the studio, by using a white back drop and places a table in the middle of the studio as does Von Zwehl does. My model sat on the table with the camera release cable directly infronted of her and I then wrote various instruction on a piece of paper, asking model to think about various letter that they ever wrote trying to trigger various facial expressions.  I then also experimented with instructing my model to pose in uniform way similar to Von Zwehl’s subjects. In order to develop my work I must use more model , and possibly consider the age range that I am working with.

 

After I had taken my images I then went on to edit my image into black and white, which linked in with my photographer. I felt as though the black and white contrasted fairly well with my model wearing complete black and the surrounding being white. The attention was directly on the model and no one else as a result of this.

I didn’t feel as though this artist linked in very well with my title of postal. I do not feel as though this is the road I would like to go down for my project and as a result I do not feel like am going to use her in my work for my project.