Personal Background
Olivia Parker was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1941. She attended Wellesley College where she studied art history, and graduated in 1963. Originally, she was a painter, but began to focus on photography in 1973. In photography she is mostly self taught. She has become well known as a photographer, her photographs being displayed in multiple renowned institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Style
Olivia Parker’s photographs are mostly still lifes. She assembles items, often flowers, fruits, shells, and self made objects like notebooks or maps, and photographs them using interesting lighting techniques. Her style is influenced by traditional European 17th century still life paintings. She often incorporates closeups, blurring, and shadows, making her images feel almost mysterious and vaguely historical. Some of her images are not so much still lives as macro photography, and some more closely resemble carefully constructed collages.
Philosophy
As mentioned earlier, Olivia Parker was originally a painter. She says that one of the biggest reasons she chose to switch to photography was the difference in perspective. With painting, everything comes from your own head, but she liked that in photography there was a sense of unpredictability due to its interaction with the real world. A lot of her images are centered around the human mind itself, for example, she did a series about her husband’s Alzheimers where she showed how it must have looked and felt from his perspective. She also often photographs everyday objects in movement, which implies the presence of humanity but never actually shows the people in the image. Overall, she focuses on everyday life, exploring light, movement, thought, and emotion, and each of her images tells a story.
Influences
A lot of Olivia Parker’s photographs are carefully composed and arranged, which is different from a lot of what I’ve done before, like landscape pictures. In replicating her images, I learned how much work and thought it really takes to compose an image. In the future, I want to try to compose my own still lifes and collages. Another thing that makes her an interesting artist is her level of experimentation. For example, she uses different mediums, from film photography to digital photography to paintings and collage. She also experiments with her photographs themselves, using interesting techniques like blurs, strange angles and focusing, and experimenting with lighting. This inspires me to push the limits of my creativity, encouraging me to try new things, even if they fail.
Images
To replicate this image, I actually pulled shredded paper out of the trash can! Overall, I think my image is pretty close to the original, besides the fact that it is more zoomed in. I would have liked to make it larger, but there were things in the background that I had to crop out. To edit this image, I used a gaussian blur on the background and increased the exposure of the image. I also increased the saturation in order to make the red color stand out more.
I really liked this picture because of the blurred effect, and I wanted to see if I could replicate it. To do so, I shook the camera and made the image a long exposure. I don't have a violin, so I used a ukulele instead. I chose to add my arm into the image because without the bow in the original image, there was too much empty space, and I wanted to give the image the diagonal angles of the original picture. I would have liked the background of the picture to be darker, but this was the darkest background I could find in my house.
This picture was difficult for me to replicate as I could not find a box similar to the one in the image. I ended up using a side table instead, and I actually really like the angled effect it gives the image. For the background, I wanted to make it bright and blurred, so I used a gaussian blur and made the background a window. I think it would have looked closer to the original image if it was less cloudy outside.
Artist Statement
All three of these pictures have a common idea, and that is the presence of personality. Although you cannot see people in the pictures, you can gain an understanding of their ideas and emotional states. For example, in the image of the balled up notebook paper, a feeling of frustration is conveyed. The blurred violin, or in my case ukulele, is moving quickly, giving the feelings of passion and music. The shredded paper is reminiscent of office work, of discarded things and wasted time. These pictures are powerful because of how much emotion they can display, despite not showing shots of actual people.