Emily is a British artist who has international recognition with her unique photographic reconstructions of celebrated masterpieces restaged in a contemporary expression.
Allchurch has used an established method for digitally splicing urban images together but with contrasting elements. These images are based on real architecture from cities such as London, Paris and Rome that Emily herself has taken
Interestingly "Chiaroscuro" means "light dark in Italian and there are elements of light and dark both in terms of light and also in terms of fear.
In his book The Photographer's Vision, Michael Freeman explains that an image should not always been seen and fully understood in one glance but instead the viewers eye should be allowed to roam through the image and be allowed to explore and find elements that at first glance were not seen. This is so very true of Allchurch's work and I find that some elements in the images she has created are at odds with each other.
In the following image the construction of the architecture looks busy, perhaps too busy for the eye. I have highlighted 3 aspects in red which are interesting to explore
Firstly the mirror with an individual looking into the mirror at the viewer:
The impossible to use staircase around the tower and the modern day security camera suspended from the archway. In addition would you expect to see the levels of building so numbered on the outside?
The strangely suspended lights whose size appears disproportionate to the rest of the image, the bearded face above, lichen covered steps and pot which appears to be outside instead of inside the railings
What is interesting here is that all Emily's images are doctored and this initially is not immediate until the images are scanned by the eyes several times. Each of her images appear to have some extras digitally relevant to the city they are from, for example one image has a bottle of peroni, graffiti spelling SPQR and a helmeted Roman.
What I find absolutely fascinating is that the digital manipulation is extremely well executed and initially seems in place until the brain challenges what the eyes see. There is much in each image for the eyes to explore. Its very interesting and unusual that someone has made a set of images which though based on elements from multiple images they are in fact all doctored.
from an ethical perspective a reasoned mind would judge that the photographer is not setting out to fool the viewer but is giving the viewer much to view and almost like a detective, put together the elements to derive the country the image effectively represents.
I've detailed a link to Emily Allchurch's Urban Chiaroscuro as I think others will fin her work very interesting:
http://www.emilyallchurch.com/emily-allchurch.html
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