Ilana Buriel
Mrs. Cauchon
Period 1
3 March 2023
Favorite Photographer: Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman specializes primarily in self-portraits. She aims to portray herself in all sorts of different contexts and she brings her self-imagined characters to life. Her work raises questions while being very unique. Cindy’s work speaks a lot of words through photographs and influences many people.
Cindy’s photographs have a specific style to them. They’re very different from other types of photographs taken by other people. She uses herself as a blank canvas and dresses up with makeup, costumes, and scenery. She achieves her results by using costumes along with lighting for her desired mood of the photo. She uses a lot of lighting from behind the subject to make the subject really pop in color. Portraits are the primary type of photography done for her photographs. She photographs herself as these many different characters. Her aesthetic is really fun but also really dark. She does a lot of clown photography which is always fun and adds a big pop of color to her photography. But she also does a lot of darker photography that seems to have a deeper meaning to it. Her work has a lot of different aesthetics and moods to it but the one thing that doesn’t change is how strong and influencing each piece of her photography is.
The composition of the photographs is always amazingly done. Cindy makes sure her subject, which is herself, is always in the middle of her photos. If not in the middle, then centered at a certain angle to achieve the message/mood she was intending to convey. Her photos always come out clearly with not so much negative space. Her photos always come out very symmetrical. If there are any patterns or lines used in the background, then she always centers herself correctly to get a good result. I love how she does her photography, especially how she uses her lighting and looks. Cindy Sherman is one of my favorite photographers because of how much her photos speak to its viewers without using any actual words. Her photos always come out interesting and have this “weird” type of feeling to them which is something I love to see. Her photography is the type of photography I would like to someday achieve. It has a specific cool type of feeling to me and I would love to give others that type of feeling when viewing my photography as well. Cindy is an amazing photographer.
Cindy Sherman is a portraits photographer who adds certain elements to each one of her photos. Her photos are never boring because of the added colors or costumes or makeup. The editing and lighting also play a big role in her photos, as well as the backgrounds. She knows how to balance things out super nicely. She always combines things in a unique way. Cindy Sherman has inspired other photographers like Ilona Szwarc. Ilona felt Cindy Sherman was always so expressive of herself and her beliefs/opinions, and that inspired her. Iona has made sequences and expressive pieces to show her beliefs and mind. Cindy is an inspiration to many! Including me myself. Her work is something unique and worth looking more into.
