Cig Harvey Influence Paper

I chose to further explore the photographer Cig Harvey and influence my final project off of her work. She is one of the photographers that stood out to me the most and actually was referenced to some of my previous work. When I started to explore her work, her reasoning, and what she was trying to communicate, I resonated with her on a deeper level. I focused on one specific series of hers that inspired me the most and resonated with my style of photographing. 

Cig Harvey’s work has shifted over the years, when she was in a bad relationship she was creating one style of work. She states that it was a form of nostalgia and what she was going through, but it was work that “no one would see”(SVA, 2014). She used photography as her escape route, to her it's a gift to be able to go out and photograph things that resonate with how she was feeling. Once she stepped out of that frame and mindset, she started creating more images with things that meant something to her or had a deeper meaning behind, in her case, secrets. She started to associate these secretes with a color and worked with items of that same color. She works on her own, setting up each scene or asking for help from a friend or her father, and plays around with color and aesthetics. She started to let go and just respond to the world around her but she believes that finding out what you love and what you resonate with is what is going to make you stand out from others.

In her series, “You look at me like an emergency” she has the most fun, most colorful images that all have a different story behind. I connected with this project the most because of her use of colors. I personally enjoy color so much, I believe I am one with nature and my personality radiates so many colors. I associate feelings with colors and think of colors as moods. Harvey became happy and created this series, and this made me think that my images are made when I am at my happiest and when I am not, my images are dull and dark. So color is a very important principle in my work. 

The reason I resonate so much with Harvey's work is because she creates things from reactions and the outside world around her. I love nature and being outdoors, but I also love experimentation. I did play more with colors in this project and picked up things around me and simply created. I used myself, my sister, and my boyfriend in these images and set up a scene or just captured a moment. 

The way I chose to integrate Harvey’s work into mine was mainly through color, props, and the use of nature. Formatting wise I did focus either on full body images or specific areas. I edited the images to enhance the vibrancy of colors, create more contrast and shadows to highlight on darks and lights. But ultimately allowing the images to speak for themselves and give the viewer my insight of the mood of each photograph. I want the viewer to be able to feel the energy within my images and create their own mood with each image.