Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer known for his photography which was sometimes controversial large-scale and highly stylized black and white. His work includes celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits and still life images of flowers. . His most controversial work is the underground bondage and sadomasochistic BDSM scene in he late 1960s and 1970s of New York.
When looking at Mapplethorpe’s images, I am focusing on his still life work as it has given me inspiration for my first shoot, I like a lot of his still life work because of the contrast of black and white and what each one could represent. In this example of his work, I think that the lighting is a good idea where it looks like there is blinds at the window and this shows he is using the natural light to create the effect. Furthermore, this example demonstrates a good angle of view as, even though the angle is straight on, Mapplethorpe is focused his image on the flower going towards the light as this is how it survives. This could link in with my work because, like the flower is feeding off the light to survive, some people feed off memories(maybe memories of people they no longer see) to comfort them and this allows them to live better, just like flowers do with the light.