Emily Knecht

I saw an interesting article when looking at twitter regarding the work of photographer Emily Knecht, and I wanted to analyse her work further as it made me think about her work in relation to my own project, and her work was inspiring to me.

Emily Knecht loves to photograph the ideas on intimacy, but not in typical ways such as naked photographs or sexual themed images, she did a project entirely consisting of photographs of herself crying. These images capture raw emotion and vulnerability, linking to the theme of intimacy.

"In the moment, if we're having an argument and I'm crying and I'm like 'Hold on, I've got to take a picture,' he's like, 'What the fuck is wrong with you?' It's like, is it taking you out of the moment? Is it connecting you more? What are you doing? And I don't know all the answers yet."

I love this idea of capturing the intimacy of herself and her emotions, even if it seems like a strange thing to do when your emotions are strong enough to make you cry.

Feelings by Emily Knecht

When I looked at some of the self portraits Knecht took of herself whilst crying, I felt myself feeling empathy for her in the photographs, as they really are quite intimate and hard hitting, almost uncomfortable in some ways. However, I love the way in which they are taken, with her presence being the lightest part of the image, making it stand out against the background, something that might have been achieved with the use of flash on her camera.

Feelings by Emily Knecht

Her images are an original take on self portraits, or portraiture in general. It's really inspiring to me that such simplistic images can capture such raw emotion and intimacy, just from looking at her face it makes you almost feel the emotions she was feeling. 

I looked at some of her other work on her website, the two projects called Girls and Boys. I really like the way she's captured some of those images, and the composition of them is different and interesting, showing her own personal style. 

Emily Knecht is definitely someone I feel inspired by, and I hope some of the influence her work has had on me I can apply within my own project.

http://emily-knecht.squarespace.com

The article: http://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/this-photographer-took-a-selfie-every-time-she-cried-for-3-years?utm_source=idtwitter