Personal Background Olivia Parker is a still life photographer who was born in 1941 Boston, MA. She has a bachelor of arts in art history at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. Her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimers and she took a lot of different pictures documenting it. She also took pictures of different things he did before the diagnosis, and it revealed to be a sign of Alzheimers.
Style She is a still life photographer. She likes to use the blur effect in a lot of her photos. To use this blur effect, she gets a lot of close ups of her photographs. And sometimes the blur is added in the editing phase of her photos. She also likes taking pictures of notes and objects, with the background being a weird, rainbow/water look. But she is most famous for using light to give the photo a surreal look. The light allows her to get a different perspective of the photos.
Philosophy Her pictures of notes and objects were based on her husband’s Alzheimers. And with the strange background she uses, she is trying to convey what her husband saw, and how he sees things different from other people. She shows the multitude of objects that he bought. And the piles of notes that he made to remember things. She is interested in the way people think about the unknown. She likes to focus on basic human needs like food, houses, a need for company, and growth.
Influences She is influenced by a lot of painters. Her biggest influencers are Paul Gauguin, Martin Johnson Heade, Robert Rauschenberg, Lemuel Wilmarth. She likes different kinds of artistry. Kinds that give different perspectives, and mean something different. She’s shown me that you should slow down and think about the dynamics that fall within the edges of the picture.
(Olivia Parker) John's Notes
My Notes
At first I thought this piece would be one of the easy ones to do. I was thinking in my head that they yellow would definitely and I would get the perfect angle with the sun in the back going through a window, but that didn't work out. The yellow didn't pop. I couldn't really get the sun in the back because it was cloudy that day and the notes would be too dark, so I just used my door so it would be something white. And I should've moved my camera further up to get the right angle of the notes. But other than that stuff I think it turned out alright. Just a few tweaks to get the right picture.
(Olivia Parker) Four Leaves
Four Trees
I think this was the easiest one to do, and a little more on the editing side. First grabbed four leaves and put it on a neutral background (just a piece of paper). Then I took picture from a birds eye view. Then I edited out the background in Photoshop. Out of all my pictures I think this would be the closest one. Obviously I didn't have the exact same leaves as Olivia Parker, so I couldn't find those type of leaves that curved on the edges. And I wish that my leaves were a little brighter, and contrasted better with the black. But other than that stuff I think it turned out pretty nice.
(Olivia Parker) Pomegranate
These Are MY Pomegranates
These Pomegranates were the most difficult to take pictures of. I was planning to take these on the concrete outside, but it was snowing so I just took them on another cool-looking platform. It was pretty difficult to get close enough to these pomegranates to make it look like Olivia Parker's. But for what it is, it is pretty close to the photo. The pomegranates are in around the right place. I blurred out a lot of what she blurred out. She has the concrete going along the middle right to the upper left, and I have it going to the middle right to the middle left, so it isn't exactly right but it is pretty close. And overall, I think it turned out OK.
Artist Statement At the beginning of this project I had trouble finding what photographer to do a report on. All these other photographer took pictures of beautiful things that there was no way I could get to or take pictures of. But then I found Olivia Parker's photos. She takes pictures of everyday things in a beautiful new light (literally, her lighting in the photos is beautiful). And I wanted to recreate them. I think all these photos have a theme of everyday objects but in a new light. The notes represent the things we forget and just throw away. The leaves represent the uniqueness that each one of us has. The pomegranates represent how little we are, and how we need to come together as one.