Personal Background
Emily Blincoe was born on September 2, 1981 and grew up in Austin, Texas. She now resides in Nashville, Tennesse and oftens spend her time travelling around the country. She has a deep hatred of school and does not work well in a class environment. When she was 22, her brother bought her a film camera and she found it interesting and had a fun time learning its process. This newfound hobby of hers was shelved quickly, until a few years later she bought a point and shoot camera. She would use this camera to photograph her location and preserve her memories. Eventually, her obsession with documenting her life grew into a creative outlet, prompting her to become a photographer.
Style
Her still life arrangments include a lot repetition. Objects are repeated in rows and columns, sometimes varying and other times not. One of the most promient feature of her still lives are the gradients. Whether it be shapes, sizes, or colors, she always manages to make a perfect transition. Her still lives present maybe different objects, from bright and colorful packages to lively objects of nature. She usually arranges her still lives to create perfect squares.
Philosophy
Blincoe shows her love for the people around her and the beauty in the ordinary through her photography. She believes that models and the people that society tells us are beautiful are not the only people worthy of being documented. She feels the most satisfied when she truly believes she is creating for herself. Her most meaningful images of those she has created are of her family. She creates photos to hold a memory in time to look back on.
Influences
Blincoe finds that her inspiration to create is ever-changing. However, there does happen to be a few constants to her inspiration, such as colors, faces, little moments, light, and finding the beauty in the ordinary. She also doesn't draw inspiration from other photographers, but instead from her friends. She enjoys photographing faces because she believes they are important and worthy of documentation. Photographs, specifically images of loved ones, can be cherished and viewed for many years to come. Her favorite part about photography is that photos hold a place in time that we can always look back on.
Compare and Contrast
I expected making the burn gradient to be much harder than it was. Though, that's not to say I didn't run into some problems. When I tried to burn the ones on the right end, I would find that the match would curl up. To combat this, I started burning from the bottom and made my way up to the top to make sure the match wad burned equally throughout, which kept them straight. The gradient also doesn't stretch far to the bottom of the match because I wasn't comfortable burning that far down the match, but now that I think about it, I could have held it with tweezers or something. I think I did a good job of recreating this still life.
I didn't have as many bandaids avaliable to use for this photo, but I made do with what I had. It was fun trying to figure out how to arrange the bandaids into a perfect square and it felt like I was doing a puzzle. Obviously, the layout is very different and I forgot the finger, but I didn't really like that aspect of the photo anyways so I'm glad I left it out. I didn't realize the bandaids would make the same effect as when you take a photo of a computer screen and I found that really interesting how the texture does that. I think it adds a cool effect to the photo.
I couldn't find perfect color match for the lollipops but I think they're relatively close. Also, I wasn't able to get a perfect white lollipop and I only had one close white one, so I couldn't make a smaller one to put on the edge. I tried to fix the right end in photoshop because it's a little spread out and crooked, but I couldn't make the shadows look natural so I kept it as is. I originally tried to take this photo directly in the sunlight, but it made the shadows too harsh and the colors too dull. I instead opted to take it in a lightly shadow area of my deck, which is more similar to how the original photo is lighted.
Artist Statement
For the most part, I had a fun time taking these photos. I had limited options of what photos to choose because I did not have access to many of the objects Blincoe used in her photos. I took all these photos outside on a sunny day and the sunlight was so blinding that I couldn't see the photos I took on my phone. Most of the photos had to be taken in the shade because of how harsh the sunlight was. I think my favorite photo that I took was the match gradient because it was very fun to set up. Overall, I think I did a good job recreating all of these images and captured the overall feel of the photos.
Sources
http://www.emilyblincoe.com/faq
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/carianneking/2015-07-15/what-photographer-emily-blincoe-can-teach-us-about-instagram
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/emily-blincoe-arrangements-photo-series_n_7564490
https://www.thejoyofplants.co.uk/emily-blincoe-leaves-through-lens#:~:text=Inspired%20by%20shapes%20colours%20and,geometric%20patterns%20against%20plain%20backdrops.
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/carianneking/2015-07-15/what-photographer-emily-blincoe-can-teach-us-about-instagram
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/emily-blincoe-arrangements-photo-series_n_7564490
https://www.thejoyofplants.co.uk/emily-blincoe-leaves-through-lens#:~:text=Inspired%20by%20shapes%20colours%20and,geometric%20patterns%20against%20plain%20backdrops.
Images
Matches
http://www.emilyblincoe.com/arrangements/2014/12/11/yct3ha5e888ffzwi2row9le2gv71a0
Bandaids
http://www.emilyblincoe.com/arrangements/stb1m9xgac3woml7wnpx2znqgwyida
Lollipops
http://www.emilyblincoe.com/arrangements/aonc9aj7cqqi2vz9heim2hiv3soxzo
http://www.emilyblincoe.com/arrangements/2014/12/11/yct3ha5e888ffzwi2row9le2gv71a0
Bandaids
http://www.emilyblincoe.com/arrangements/stb1m9xgac3woml7wnpx2znqgwyida
Lollipops
http://www.emilyblincoe.com/arrangements/aonc9aj7cqqi2vz9heim2hiv3soxzo