Olivia Parker
Personal Background
Olivia Parker is an American photographer. Born in Boston Massachusetts during 1941, she is 80 years old. With a degree in Art History from Wellesley College, she started her career as a painter. She turned to photography by 1973, mostly self taught. This choice made a great difference in her life, resulting in over 100 exhibits in the USA and internationally including the Chicago Institute of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her most recent exhibit is about what she believes is happening in her husband, John's, mind as he suffers from dementia.
Style
Olivia Parker is considered as one of the best Still Life Photographers from her generation. Drawing inspiration from science and nature, her first collection was named "Signs of Life". Her early arrangements included most shells, flowers, or nature, yet later on she introduces man made objects such as maps, journals, sculptures, or pens. Most of her career she stuck to dark room/studio editing, but a recent skiing accident in 1995 resulted in her trying out digital photography. Her overall work compares, and is also inspired by 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings.
Philosophy
The biggest driving factor of Olivia Parker is life. She believes that still life photography is still an "open arena", and that the classical idea is "dead matter". She believes what she chooses to photograph, no matter dead or alive, are still signs of life. Olivia Parker says that she is interested in the way people think about the unknown, and how even though all is uncertain, optimists and bingo players are "on the lookout for moments of perfect knowledge and perfect cards.” I believe this means her photography reflects how she thinks about the unknown, and hopefully makes other people continuously evaluate her images.
Influences
Olivia Parker is someone who I can pull inspiration from. I really love her philosophy, and that dead or alive, many things can be a sign of life. My favorite collection of hers is probably her first one called "Signs of Life". I love the color palate, which is white and I think that the whole aesthetic of it is beautiful. I always thought that all of my images should try to be as colorful as possible, but her photographs have influenced me and now I want to experiment with taking photos in black and white, or with less color. I also noticed that her photographs don't always make sense, and they're not always clean cut. This has inspired me to not overthink it so much, and take pictures of whatever I feel like.
Olivia Parker is an American photographer. Born in Boston Massachusetts during 1941, she is 80 years old. With a degree in Art History from Wellesley College, she started her career as a painter. She turned to photography by 1973, mostly self taught. This choice made a great difference in her life, resulting in over 100 exhibits in the USA and internationally including the Chicago Institute of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her most recent exhibit is about what she believes is happening in her husband, John's, mind as he suffers from dementia.
Style
Olivia Parker is considered as one of the best Still Life Photographers from her generation. Drawing inspiration from science and nature, her first collection was named "Signs of Life". Her early arrangements included most shells, flowers, or nature, yet later on she introduces man made objects such as maps, journals, sculptures, or pens. Most of her career she stuck to dark room/studio editing, but a recent skiing accident in 1995 resulted in her trying out digital photography. Her overall work compares, and is also inspired by 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings.
Philosophy
The biggest driving factor of Olivia Parker is life. She believes that still life photography is still an "open arena", and that the classical idea is "dead matter". She believes what she chooses to photograph, no matter dead or alive, are still signs of life. Olivia Parker says that she is interested in the way people think about the unknown, and how even though all is uncertain, optimists and bingo players are "on the lookout for moments of perfect knowledge and perfect cards.” I believe this means her photography reflects how she thinks about the unknown, and hopefully makes other people continuously evaluate her images.
Influences
Olivia Parker is someone who I can pull inspiration from. I really love her philosophy, and that dead or alive, many things can be a sign of life. My favorite collection of hers is probably her first one called "Signs of Life". I love the color palate, which is white and I think that the whole aesthetic of it is beautiful. I always thought that all of my images should try to be as colorful as possible, but her photographs have influenced me and now I want to experiment with taking photos in black and white, or with less color. I also noticed that her photographs don't always make sense, and they're not always clean cut. This has inspired me to not overthink it so much, and take pictures of whatever I feel like.
This was the hardest photo to recreate. When I first saw the image I thought it was just a pear on a plate, but it is so much more. To take this image I first had to balance the pear on a stack of dishes because i don't have the exact dish Olivia Parker did. Then I had to figure out how to make the shadows with lighting. I ended up having to grab 3 different flashlights and set them up on different sides of the pear to cast a shadow. Editing was also difficult because I had to make the background all black, and try to make the colors on the pear right. All in all, I love how this turned out and I think it looks very similar to the original Olivia Parker image.
This image was a little easier to take, but still difficult. The actual imaging wasn't too hard, but the editing was due to the face that I have different lighting than she did, and different colored walls. I tried my best trying to get the colors right, and blurring the background. I think it turned out well and is a good recreation of John's Notes.
For this image, I did not have a plain white block, so i covered a block i already had, in white paper. I also noticed when taking this picture that the garlic I had has more of a yellow tint to it, rather than white in the original picture. I tried to fix this in photoshop with the Brush tool and Dodge tool. A challenge I had with this photo, was getting the lighting and shadows right. I did my best with natural lighting, then changed the exposure, brightness, contrast, and curves in photoshop.
Artist Statement
This project showed me that there is so much more going into a photo than what meets the eye. Choosing the photo I tried to pick the easiest ones to recreate, with materials I already had. I found out when taking the photos, they were not easy. Lights and Shadows, a recreation of Form and Substance, has beautiful examples of lighting, clarity and balance. Her Index Cards, a recreation of John's Notes, represents memory, with each note card being a crutch to support your mind. Only Garlic Variation, a recreation of Garlic Variation 1, I believe represents an abnormal simplicity, which creates a safe feeling in the mind of the viewer, but invokes question upon closer examination.
This project showed me that there is so much more going into a photo than what meets the eye. Choosing the photo I tried to pick the easiest ones to recreate, with materials I already had. I found out when taking the photos, they were not easy. Lights and Shadows, a recreation of Form and Substance, has beautiful examples of lighting, clarity and balance. Her Index Cards, a recreation of John's Notes, represents memory, with each note card being a crutch to support your mind. Only Garlic Variation, a recreation of Garlic Variation 1, I believe represents an abnormal simplicity, which creates a safe feeling in the mind of the viewer, but invokes question upon closer examination.
Sources
- https://iphf.org/inductees/olivia-parker/
- https://www.oliviaparker.com/about
- https://www.pem.org/press-news/order-of-imagination-the-photographs-of-olivia-parker
- https://www.oliviaparker.com/miscellanea-curiosa?pgid=kfwxijxs-c5de40e0-46e4-4bc5-993d-d6661b7f9683
- https://www.oliviaparker.com/still-life-2001-2008?pgid=kfwy3ad3-069b2cb5-866a-47ef-bb4d-a54a5367f8e7
- https://www.oliviaparker.com/still-life-2001-2008?pgid=kfwy3ad3-a95b032f-2d67-4259-9952-a5be391c34a5