Marlena Artis - Tania Franco Klein post 5

1) Which of the artist's many technical choices are of interest to you and why?

First of all, her entire series, "Our Life in the Shadows", contains a variety of vivid colors combined with different lightings and harsh shadows. I absolutely adore the balance between the colors, lights, and shadows that Klein creates. Klein has a very simple composition throughout this series, most of her photos do not have many different subjects or distractions. She relies mainly on the use of colors, lights, and shadows. I really like this concept because many photographers rely on what their subjects are rather than utilizing other aspects of photography to create a shot.

2) What do you believe are the artist's conceptual and/or thematic intentions?

I believe Klein is trying to express melancholy and exhaustion throughout this series. Her shots are of mainly of one person alone, either standing or laying down. Some are of herself as well. Her still life shots are of objects that seem to be carelessly put away or left out. These inanimate objects seem to all be waiting for their owner to come back and tend to them, since it looks like the owner got up to tend to other matters. It seems that Klein is expressing how we as people constantly live an exhausted and sad life; always nonstop working on something to achieve a higher end goal. Yet we remain depressed, anxious, and tired from never fully getting to where we want to be. Therefore her reasoning for naming this series, "Our Life in the Shadows", since nobody sees the struggle we all personally go through - physically, emotionally, and/or mentally.

3) How do you personally respond to these choices and intentions?

I really love this series and each one of her photos are perfectly composed in my opinion. I truly admire her use of lighting and shadows along with her vivid choice of colors. Looking at each of her photos lets me think of taking photographs in a different way. Rather than creating/picking my subject and framing it myself, I feel like I should also let lighting and color be a way to determine my subject. Personally I really like her idea and concept for this series, it's easily relatable to many other people. We all deal with depression, anxiety, etc; at a certain point in our lives and we usually keep it to ourselves. Klein tells a relatable story through this series, shooting the scenes that nobody really sees.