Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman was a young American photographer who sadly tok her own life before her career kick started. Born into a family of artists (mother Betty Woodman and father George Woodman) in a documentary called 'The Woodmans' Betty speaks about how 'all they did was art', this family lived for art, it was what they trained in, studied for, did for fun and how they earnt every penny they made. So it was no supprise when Francesca took her first film photograph when she was only fourteen. Francesca then went on to study photography, during this time she juniored on many famous shoots, getting her ready to move to New York where she believed it would be impossible to fail. After living in New York Woodman became depressed, and had two sucicide attempts before jumping out of a roof window and sadly ending her life. Nobody is really sure what hurt Woodman so badly that her life became unbearable, all we know is that the failure of her career kick starting made her life different to how she'd probably imagined, and her relationship with her beloved boyfreind broke down. Woodman's photography was exhibited by her parents after her death and that where her name went global, her prints scream generic issues that most photographers touch upon but in such an imaginative way. Her mind state is also clear through her photography, she often scribbled notes to various people on her photographs, mostly to her boyfreind, but sometimes just made up notes explaining her thought process or emotions. 

Francesca used various darkroom techniques to manipulate her photographs, she'd sometimes softly rub parts of them as they were in the developing solution. Woodman also had a passion for vintage clothing, she used it within her work most of the time, creating texture and a feminine feel to her work.

In my first year of college I looked at Woodman intensively, she became my hero as soon as I first laid eyes on one of her prints. I did lots of work responding to hers for my project 'fantastic forms'. 

After playing around with textiles, light, composition and style I started to work with shutter speed combined with movement which I'd done many times with a digital camera but this was my first time with a film camera.

The outcome was a real success and looking back on it now, one of my strongest photography outcomes of my first year. 

I've decided to use Woodman again for this project because of the way she represents issues in such an innocent way, I think it would be great to respond to people's fears or secrets in a similar way to how she responds to hers through her photography.