We looked at Valerie Phillips exhibition currently at college and chose one image to analyse. The image below is the one I chose although the version in the exhibition is yellow with the text 'we're going to be best friends, I can already tell' stated on it.
Analysis
I think the exhibition title is linked to traffic lights as Amber is her name but also one of the colours of a set of traffic lights and I feel this connection represents her edgy, fearless moods. Also her naivety. Instantly I get the sense that Amber is insecure and all over the place. In the image she is standing vulnerable and looks reserved as if she wants to make a good impression to new people. There is no expression in her face, giving nothing away, whereas in the other images she is laughing or smiling or pulling a face. The location of a cornfield I feel is an innocent location as again the others ooze grunginess and teenage influences. Perhaps a plain location has been chosen to match the message Amber is trying to portray – that she does put on a front but deep down she is just a teenage girl with feelings. The angle of the shot is pretty much straight on, there is no pose as such, implying nothing is false here. The yellow tint, in effect amber, I feel is a colour to represent herself (her name) and that she is being herself, nothing is hidden here. My opinion on the text is she is desperate and in truth vulnerable to the world, searching for not necessarily a friend but to be accepted and wanted. It’s quite childlike. It feels as though she is saying it and it is coming straight from her. The exhibition as a whole appears as photo-essay and documentation of Amber’s everyday life and her personality. Her style is also depicted in each image bar this one. She is an ex-model that met Valerie when she was 15 and Valerie continued to document her over the next few years. My overall opinion of Amber is that she is a girl who puts a show on to society that she doesn’t care what people think but deep down she is innocent and was thrown into the model world from a young age, leaving her feeling alone.
I was so interested in the works of Valerie Phillips and this story after viewing this exhibition, I bought the book. Some of my observations were correct, but in fact Amber is generally a happy-go-lucky teenage girl who lives for the moment, does not care what people think and more thank likely the next time you see her she will be sporting a new tattoo or piercing! She became a model from the young age of 15, around the time she met Valerie. They met again when she was 18. Then not longer after on the way to a photo-shoot in New York she suddenly realised this was not what she wanted to do, so she cut her hair, dyed and orange and inevitably was not cast for this job. She is now studying to be a surgical technician.
I was so interested in the works of Valerie Phillips and this story after viewing this exhibition, I bought the book. Some of my observations were correct, but in fact Amber is generally a happy-go-lucky teenage girl who lives for the moment, does not care what people think and more thank likely the next time you see her she will be sporting a new tattoo or piercing! She became a model from the young age of 15, around the time she met Valerie. They met again when she was 18. Then not longer after on the way to a photo-shoot in New York she suddenly realised this was not what she wanted to do, so she cut her hair, dyed and orange and inevitably was not cast for this job. She is now studying to be a surgical technician.
