Elle Cain Photography: Cig Harvey

http://www.cigharvey.com/about/

Cig Harvey

In my last post I included a YouTube video of the work by Cig Harvey. This is a photographer i stumbled across on YouTube. It was so helpful to actually watch a video where the photographer is talking through her images, where she got her inspiration and the process in which she went through to create her images.

Because Narrative photography is all about story telling, it is not always easy to look at a narrative image and fully appreciate or understand the image without being able to hear the photographers story behind it.

Cig Harvey creates narrative photography based around herself. All of her images are inspired by feelings, experiences and thoughts she is dealing with in her life. She explains in the video on my last post, that often, she takes photographs inspired by her current feelings, often as a reminder for the future, that she doesn't want to be back in that place again in her life.

Alot of her images involve herself being in the actual images, so using self timer. Where as alot of other images she takes, are of object or scenes which are either natural or composed by her, which reflect on how she is feeling and what experiences she is currently going through.

I feel basing narrative photography on yourself, is a really good idea as its for sure going to be a subject which you really understand, feel strongly about and can connect with. If you don' t feel strongly about the narrative behind your image, how are you supposed to create a truly engaging image or, be able to explain the story to the viewer.

The Belly of the Whale, Self Portrait, Watertown, Massachusetts, 2004

The narrative behind each image is not explained on the website of Cig Harveys website. However from watching the video on my previous post, i know some of the narratives behind her images.

This image is a self portrait of her, holding a painting of a whale. She explains that this was to represent the hard time a close friend was going through and the idea of carrying the weight of that friend and their problems through their hard time.