Photographer Research 3: Danielle Tunstall

About This Photographer:

Danielle Tunstall is a graphic designer and horror photographer from the UK. During her first initial years in photography, she had more of a soft spot for landscape photography, but realised she preferred to photograph people with blank backgrounds instead over time. She says she likes using a plain background because it allows the viewers to focus all their attention on the subject, and that less is more and in that case you shouldn't have any unnecessary information in photographs. She has a real passion for gore but doesn't aim to shock the viewers, she simply likes to comment on everyday life and the human species through her work. "My work is purely fiction based on reality." She likes to incorporate the graphic-design part of her life with her photography work, making good use of her excellent and eye-catching Photoshop skills.

Why Have I Picked This Photographer?

I have chosen to explore Danielle's work in particular for my topic of 'contrasts' because I like how she takes something ordinarily seen as quite innocent, but puts a horrific and evil 'twist' on it - therefore showing a contrast similar to good and evil. Also, because of the connotations with the horror genre, Danielle includes an array of really vivid colours, which often highly contrast each other, such as reds, white and black. Another interesting contrast that Danielle often explores, like stated in the 'about this photographer' section above, is that of reality and fiction.

Evaluation:

This image is all about contrasting something which is born natural, pure and innocent, with something very evil and scary, the devil. Although clearly enhanced with Photoshop, I really like the effect produced here, because the intense contrast between the darkness of the eyes and the paleness of the skin is really eye-catching, and could almost pass for something 'fine art' related, because aside from the devil element, it's a really pretty and beautiful image of a baby. Danielle has used a really strong, but effective source of lighting here, as it has really helped to enhance the softness surrounding the baby's face and clothing, giving the child more of an 'innocent glow' which also helps to contrast the mood surrounding this image.

The model in this image is dressed as a Geisha. A Geisha is "a female Japanese hostess trained to entertain men with conversation, dance, and song." Geisha Typically, Geishas are associated with beauty, hence the strong use of makeup and the colour pink to represent femininity, and what Danielle has done is take that and contrasted it completely with the gory idea of death, horror and blood. I like Danielle's use of lighting and colour here, as this is key to creating the 'ghost-like' effect which makes the Geisha all the more horrific and disturbing. Geisha's traditionally wear white face paint to cover all impurities and to hide identity, but Danielle has really enhanced that idea in this piece as it acts as it if it hiding the true identity of the model - a killer. The paleness of the skin and the background is also essential in allowing the red blood to stand out and draw attention from the viewer.

I like the contrasting theme of reality and fiction in this photo, and also the use of stereotyping. This image really reminds me of the story in American Psycho, where the central character, Patrick Bateman appears to be the usual businessman working in New York City, but in reality, he goes home to murder prostitutes. Danielle has cleverly used stereotyping to create her model as the typical 'businessman' which the smart suit, shirt and tie, and facial, he looks like a normal guy you would walk past on the street. This photo is particularly good in the sense that you can't tell how she has created the bloodied, severed arm, so if she has done it with Photoshop, she has done a really nice job as the blood pouring from the man's mouth flows correctly and the use of lighting really helps to show that this image is essentially real. I think that Danielle has applied some sort of sepia filter to the image to give the photo that gloomy, dark effect, but this has been taken away from the arm as the brightness of the skin and the red blood really stand out and catch the viewers' attention.

In the world of the media, females are usually represented to show beauty, purity and sexuality, but this theme has been contrasted with the traditional idea of the Mexican Day of The Dead. where people where makeup very similar to this to festivals. From the use of three main colours; red, white and black, it is clear that the overall mood and tone of this photo is about death, horror and morbidity as these are connotations of funerals, blood, and illness. Looking closely at this image, I think this is a very basic repetition technique of one single image and flipping it over so that the two images mirror eachother, further enhancing the tone as there are now two women. The curves and levels have clearly been enhanced really strongly, which can often make an image look really poor and over-the-top, but because Danielle has only used those three key colours, I think the effect is really eye-catching and makes for a great contrast of beauty/innocence and death.









Influence:
I find Danielle's work inspirational because she started off as a graphic designer, which is exactly how I came on to study photography, and I like that we both heavily use Photoshop often to really enhance or work and put a personal touch on the topic. I think Danielle has influenced me most because she has explored a range of contrasts which aren't as obvious as others, they involve some heavy thinking about the emotions and mentality of the human race and what we all go through as a society. Looking at Danielle's portfolio has opened up my eyes to look at people a lot differently than I used to, and by doing this, I can find a much wider range of contrasts than what I initially thought about.

Summary:
Overall, Danielle explores the contrast between life and death on a daily basis, and I think I can learn a lot from looking at her work. Rather than worrying about the visuality of an image, I also really need to think of the message behind the contrast and try and show this through my work as much as possible rather than just making an image look nice.