Photographer Research 4: Sam Taylor-Johnson

Sam Taylor-Johnson, born 1967, is a British photographer (among other professions) who is famous for her photographs of levitating people. She has edited her photographs in a way that would be impossible to create outside the editing process, due to the fact that many of her photographs defy the laws of physics. I have chosen to write about Taylor-Johnson because I think it is important for me to start editing my photographs in a more creative fashion, and her work could definitely inspire me to do just that. The first photograph that Sam Taylor-Johnson took that I had taken an interest in was a photo of a woman being levitated by balloons tied to her legs. Due to the improbability of this situation actually occurring, we can see that some editing has gone into this photograph. I think, however, the photograph looks entirely realistic and I would like to learn from Taylor-Johnson's work. Here is the photograph she took:

The second photograph that Sam Taylor-Johnson took that I liked is another photograph that would be difficult to take without editing software. In this photograph, a young woman is balancing on the edge of a chair, which is tilting on its side. In the eyes of the viewer, she is about to fall on the floor moments after the photograph is taken. I think this photograph is very creative, and I really like the use of form in her work, to further convince the viewer of the photograph that this situation is actually occurring and is not edited to seem that way.

The third photograph by Sam Taylor-Johnson that I thought was worth writing about was this photograph of a car in the dark. A spotlight appears to be shining over the car, lighting it up in a room of darkness. Whilst looking through all of my photographs, I noticed that the majority of them are taken during the day, in the sunlight. I therefore plan in the future to shoot at night, or at least when it gets dark and use different sources of light, such as lamps, or even the flash on my camera depending on what I am photographing.

The fourth photograph by Sam Taylor Johnson is one quite similar to the first one, except this time there are no balloons holding the woman up, making her seem as if she is floating in mid air all by herself. I think this photograph is very inspiring due to the fact that the amount of editing that must have gone into this is huge. There is nothing in this photograph to suggest that it is fake, so it has been edited very thoroughly which I would like to somehow replicate in my future work.

Just from looking at a few of her photographs, I could tell that Sam Taylor-Johnson would be an influence to me in terms of her editing skills. She has allowed me to realise that the editing in my work tends to reach a limit of 'multiple imagery', but I now intend to do shoots that include vast amounts of editing in order to reach new styles of photography. Also, I would need to think about what I am going to be editing before I take any photographs, so that I could plan it all out and have my photographs portray exactly what I need them to.

To summarise, Sam Taylor-Johnson is famous for her skills in editing photographs into unreal situations, such as balancing on tilting chairs, being suspended by balloons, and floating in the middle of a room. These photographs have been really interesting to me to look at and I am quite sure I will refer to Sam Taylor-Johnson's work in the future again when taking photographs that require a lot of editing.