Artist Research- Karen Rohee
Karen Rohee is a French artist from Marseille with a Master’s degree in Tourism and Art History. She started photography back in 2014 using DSLRs and SLRs, however she found digital images to be flat and boring. In 2018, she made the transition to analog photography, exploring various styles and techniques, including street photography, cyanotype and solargraphy.
Cyanotype is a type of alternative photography which creates a blue print made by exposing paper coated with chemicals to UV light.
Solargraphy is a type of pinhole photography that records the sun’s path across the sky over a long period of time.
These are some photos I selected from a project of Rohee’s called ‘Film Soup’. The technique Film Souping involves soaking film in various liquids (before or after developing) to alter its chemical properties and create unexpected and unique results. This is a process that introduces unpredictable and often dramatic effects to images, such as colour shifts, streaks, bubbles and textures. The natural products this photographer enjoys using to soup her films are things like tea, lemon juice, salt, cinnamon powder and wine. Sometimes she even uses black tea to create sepia tones, softening the images and adding brownish hues that mimic the look of old photographs.
Karen Rohee Shoot Plan
A personal belief of mine is that objects hold memories so; To create my own pieces of work inspired my Karen Rohee’s artistry, I have a plan to photograph a number of my own personal objects, which are sentimental to me. Following on from my Jason Powell themed shoot, where I used my own family’s photos from the past, an idea I have is to picture the objects in my own or other family members hands. Because I do not possess colour film (and this project is time sensitive), what I plan to do is use normal paper to ‘soup’ before letting it completely dry to then scan it and use it to overlay over my own images in photoshop. The reason why I want to do this is because Rohee’s photos remind me of collaging with all the different things she does to her pictures before achieving her final results. An idea I have is to make it look like there are things like coffee stains on the photos I take, to link to the concepts of aging, wearing and tearing, that happens to objects when kept for a long period of time.
Half Term and Week 4 Reflection:
During Half Term and the forth week of FMP I…
- Researched two different experimental photographers (Hannu Huhtamo and Karen Rohee) and planned out shoots based on them both
- Carried out my Matt Black themed shoot
I managed to find a number of unique photographic experimentations to try out, however I did not attempt 2 of them yet and also did not start my project proposal. These are the things I definitely need to complete during week 5 or 6 to develop some rough ideas for which direction I would like to take my final outcome.
Week 5 Reflection:
During the fifth week of FMP I…
- Edited and evaluated the Matt Black based shoot I did- experimenting with various presentation formats
By the end of week 6, my goals are to complete the Hannu Huhtamo and Karen Rohee based shoots I have planned and to complete my project proposal.
Karen Rohee Shoot
For this shoot, I used a tripod and my cameras self- timer feature so I was able to photograph my own sentimentally important objects in my own hands. The only light source for these pictures was the overhead lighting in the room as I did not want any clear reflections on some of the shinier objects I chose to photograph. I decided to chose things such as seashells I have collected, rocks I have found, a medal I have won and a bookmark. An idea I had last minute was to add a mat and wilted rose petals in the background to make the pictures less plain, while still keeping the main focus on the objects in my hands.
These are the pieces of paper I used to create stains on, using a mixture of tea, coffee grounds, water and sugar.
I waited for them to completely dry before scanning them so I could use the stains as overlay for the photos taken during this shoot.
Editing
Because my pictures came out very saturated, I begun editing by adjusting the levels to wash it out- sort of like the way colours can fade from film over time. Noticing that many of Rohees images hold a pink-purple hue, I adjusted the colour balance as well. I chose one of the stained pieces of paper I created to overlay and used the Linear Burn blending mode to integrate it more into the picture (keeping the opacity at 100%). A last minute idea I had was to try and make the image look a little more ‘plastic’ to further imitate to texture and feel of photographic film and to fill some of the blank spaces with a different surface/texture. I found a black bin bag and scanned it to overlay over the picture, using the Subtract blending mode and reducing its opacity to 40%.
I used the same editing technique for the medal pictures as well, except I used the Exclusion blending mode for the coffee stains and the Colour Dodge blending mode for the bin bag texture.
The colour balance adjustments I made for this image made it have more cyan, pale oranges and dusty pinks.
The stains on this photo made it look a lot like the picture was burning, reminding me of fire, so I chose to make the image have quite an orange yellow hue.
I am really proud of how these photos turned out. My aim was to mimic the look of deteriorating photos over time, which I feel I have been very successful in. The outcomes from this shoot link well with the idea of past vs present as it looks like the photos have gone through things from when they were taken- such as being crumpled up and getting stains on them. This can relate to how memories can be distorted and changed in various ways over time.
Week 6 Reflection:
During the sixth week of FMP I…
- Carried out, edited and evaluated the Karen Rohee ‘Film Souping’ shoot I had planned
- Completed my project proposal
During this week, I attempted the Hannu Huhtamo shoot, however, it was unsuccessful so I am going to re-plan it during week 7 and try it again.
Week 7 reflection:
During the seventh week of FMP I…
- Re-planned some aspects of my Hannu Huhtamo shoot
During week 8 or 9 I am going to attempt the Hannu Huhtamo (Light Painting) shoot again and organise some ideas I have for how I want to present my final piece.