Barbara Astman and Janieta Eyre

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Janieta Eyre and Barbara Astman are two Toronto-based photographers whose individual works are similar, as well as different, in many ways. Touching on the similarities, both Eyre and Astman enjoy having a pre-setup area, where they can strategically place objects and models to take very precise pictures. They dislike the practise of bringing a camera around with you on your travels and taking pictures of random things. Astman’s “Red Series” demonstrates how she took everyday household objects and set them up in a specific pattern, then painted them red. Almost all of Eyre’s work demonstrates the trait of deliberateness – she has models dressed up in costumes (sometimes even naked), peculiar props which include severed animal heads, and special effects put into the photographs. Both of these artists use their bodies/the human body as a subject matter. In Astman’s “Dancing With Che” series, she intentionally placed the camera facing towards her and began to dance for the camera, in order to get the blurred movements of Che’s face “dancing”. In Eyre’s pictures, it’s obvious how much she relishes in the act of using the human body as a prop. From almost disturbingly unreal outfits to intense editing, bodies are definitely a huge part of her works. Now, looking at the differences, Astman doesn’t really use a lot of bright/vibrant colours in her work. The lone exception to that would be her Red Series. Eyre, on the other hand, uses a wide range of all colours from the colour wheel. Although Eyre uses these bright colours, I didn’t really get the feel of happiness that would usually entail when one thinks of bright colours. I think it’s the use of props in Eyre’s work. In the first picture of her “What I Haven’t Told You” album, the one entitled “Eating Meat”, you see this lady in a very beautiful, colourful dress, but what irks us is how you cannot see her eyes. It’s often said that the eyes are the windows to our soul, so basically with her eyes covered; you don’t know what she’s all about. Then you look to the left, and BAM, there’s a severed cow’s head on the table. Not your average family-friendly photo. Astman however, her pictures are very light-hearted. You can tell that she’s having fun dancing in her Che pictures, and in her Red Series, it emanates a very interesting vibe, one to get the onlooker thinking about the idea behind the picture. Both of these photographers’ photos are beautiful in their own way. They don’t follow beauty in the usual sense; rather, they incorporate hidden messages into their works to spark our attentions, to have us try and guess what they were trying to do. Personally, I like Barbara Astman’s photos. Even though I love all things scary and creepy, I found Eyre’s work to be too gruesome and much for me. It was the album with dead animals that put me off; I’d not like to see my food before it’s on my plate.

Barbara Astman

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  1. What tools does Astman use to create her art?

Barbara Astman uses her body as the subject of a majority of her art. For some other works, she uses things such as glass, canvas, and newspaper.

  1. What are some of the ideas behind works such as “Visual Narratives” of 1978 and the “Red Series” of 1981?

Barbara Astman’s “Visual Narratives” work of 1978 was a series of self-portraits that was made to function as the beginning of a film storyboard. It revealed a lot about the effectiveness of combining pictures and words together to create art. Barbara had no hesitations when it came to using photography as a means of expressing a personal story, fraught with emotions.

Barbara’s “Red Series” of 1981 were photos of herself posing with everyday objects, with the image being cut off just below the eyes and knees. Barbara wanted a certain level of “seductiveness” in her work, and she felt that these photos fit the bill. They show off her consistency with developing visual narratives. The private way in which she takes these pictures is like a “movie for one”. Barbara herself is the sole producer and only audience for her work (at the time).

  1. What were the events that led her to take up photography?

In the late 1960s, Barbara was enrolled at the Rochester School for Technology, and was involved in a program for silversmithing. It was the time during the Vietnam War, and she got very involved in student protests. With these protests, she realized that what she was doing wasn’t relevant at all to her life. She moved on to the Ontario College of Art and Design, and naturally went into the sculpting class – where she could work with three dimensional objects, as she had done for so long. she finished some aluminum sculptures and wanted to document them, so she placed them all along the shore of Lake Ontario with water coming over them. A friend lent her a camera to take pictures. Later, she found that she still had a whole half roll left, so she instinctively thought: “why not”, and started posing for the camera and taking selfies. She realized that photography was the medium she had been searching for all along and it made the most sense to her out of anything she had ever done.

  1. Why did she choose photography as the media to express herself?

Barbara Astman chose photography as the media to express herself because she found that the immediacy of the camera suited the quickness of her mind and her need to see the operations of the mind that take form as quickly as her thoughts had taken shape.

  1. What was the story she was trying to communicate in her very early work?

In the beginning, when she was just starting to explore the camera, she was always about taking herself out of her own culture and persona, and trying to be somebody else. She found out that through dressing and covering up, one could be whoever they wanted to be. In addition to that, she feels most of her work has some sort of story or narrative to it – it’s always been very important to her.

  1. In her series “Dancing with Che” what ideas was she thinking of when creating it?

She had a Che t-shirt, and when she caught a glimpse of herself moving in the Che shirt, she realized that it looked as if her body was animating Che’s face. She took it as if she were resurrecting Che; as if she were bringing him alive. It was her body that was making Che’s face so malleable. Without her, the image wouldn’t have been able to do that. It’s for those reasons why she started to think she was “dancing with Che”.

  1.       a) Images Astman shot in Paris during a particularly emotional time of her life in 1982 were used later in scenes from a Movie for One”. When did she resurrect the images and how did she transform them?

Barbara resurrected the images when she started doing “Scenes from a Movie for One”. She felt she was ready to confront the images so she pulled them out. As for transforming them, she wanted to introduce colour to the Polaroids, consequently layering and layering them.

                b) What was Astman’s objective when she transformed them?
Barbara’s objective when she transformed the pictures was to intensify them. They were too emotional for her in black and white. She was reworking part of her own archive, so instead of going to public archives to get pictures for her work, she used her own previous photos.

  1. It can be said that Astman’s work is about “the difficulty of recognizing what is beautiful and how it operates”.  Explain her artistic objectives and personal experiences which influenced her concepts.

As stated earlier, she likes her pictures to have a certain level of seductiveness; it is something that interests her. Her opinion about the word “beauty” is that it is a very heavy word in the art world right now. She doesn’t feel that beauty in artwork follows a specific guideline; rather, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Everything is repeated and there are going to be ups as well as downs. Just keep making art and take whatever the world throws at you. When she was in her 20s, she was still a beginner and would be very happy when somebody reviewed her work in a positive manner. She later had an epiphany and realized she wasn’t trying to take photos of herself; she wasn’t trying to show the world what she looked like. Pertaining to her style of photography, she doesn’t really have an interest of documenting the world, of bringing her camera wherever she goes and just shooting random things. She’d much rather be in a specific, pre-planned place. A personal experience that led her to believe this was when she was in Cuba – she felt that actually being at the place was so much more meaningful than just looking at a picture of it.

  1. What unexpected element does she add to her narratives?

She’s never really liked a literal narrative, or sequenced things. She has urges when she just wants to do something that’ll throw people off. She likes having the unexpected element of chaos and confusion; she thinks they’re very interesting. She likes complexity.

                   Barbara Astman

       The Red Series

                  Dancing With Che

My Four Favourite Photos (“12 Feet From Your Door”)

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Crevice

This photo is one of my favourites because it shows the element of direction, as well as the principle of harmony. Because the picture has a shallow depth of field, it expertly allows the observer to immediately draw attention to the leaf growing in the tile crevice. Direction is shown in this picture because the crevice moves in a straight line; giving us the impression of knowing exactly where to head. The picture also shows harmony because the leaf matches with the other leaves, as well as the trees, that are in the background. Even if those things are in the background, they merely act as an eye pleaser; something to add to the serenity of the simple leaf that is pushing through.

Fancy Rock

This photo is a favourite because of the visual texture and colour in the shown rock. This was taken with a large depth of field, and purposely too, because when I was taking the picture, I noticed that the other rocks surrounding the subject rock were not as visually enticing or colourful as this one – thus, enhancing the beauty of this rock even more. The organic shape of the rock gives you the sense that you can mould it into any shape, though you probably wouldn’t get very far because it is a rock after all.

Hose

I love this photo because it displays the element of line, and shows the principle of balance. Much like in the crevice picture, the line is going forward, giving you a strong sense of direction and power. The symmetry in this picture is a peculiar one. The lamppost in the middle helps to draw a median point in the picture. It’s symmetrical as well as asymmetrical because even though the apartment building on the left isn’t the same as the little tin hut on the right, they still make the same vague shape, thus, giving off that vibe.

Stairs

This is a favourite picture of mine because I love scary things. These stairs are extremely creepy and you wouldn’t catch me going down there in the middle of the night for any reason whatsoever. It shows the principle of repetition with each set of stairs descending to the bottom, as well as the white tile bricks in either side of the stairs. The picture has a very large depth of field because it is needed to show the principle of repetition going far down to the end.

My Four Worst Photos (“12 Feet From Your Door”)

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Sky View

This photo is one of my worst. Despite the fact that it shows the element of colour, the picture quality is not one of the best. The initial aim was to try to get a large depth of field, so that everything in the picture would be in sharp focus. The onlooker’s eyes would still be drawn to the flower, since the majority of the background is one single colour. The picture ended up with only the stem being partially in focus, while the rest of the picture was blurry.

Don’t Park Here

This is one of my worst photos because to me, it is too boring and broad. If I could retake this photo, I would either focus on the element of line by putting more of the photo’s attention to the actual lines, or focus on texture, which is in the cement flooring. Even though having many of the elements and principles of design in a picture is regarded as a good thing, this picture just seems too sloppy to me.

Plant On Wood Chips

This is also one of my worst photos because it does not suitably display the elements and principles of design. The depth of field is much too large and the colour of the woodchips in the background takes the onlooker’s attention away from the intended subject, which is the fern in the middle. What I could do to improve this photo is maybe take it from a different angle – not bird’s eye view.

Dew

This is a bad photo simply because a couple of blades of grass in the foreground were extremely blurry. It would have been a good picture with a shallow depth of field, like it was supposed to be, if I hadn’t moved the camera an instant before the picture was taken. To improve next time, I’ll use a tripod or set my camera on something stable.