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| "Circus Girl" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
The second blog entry I did for Pattens and Tones was on a series I had created early on in my photographic career titled Modern Merry Pranksters. The final color prints were constructed from 11 x 14" black and white photographs reshot in 4 x 5" color neg with textural boarders. As I began to scan this body of work, I was excited to look at them from a new perspective by viewing just the 35mm black and white portraits.
Exploring ways of opening up the two dimensional perspective of a photograph, I had surrounded these portraits with fabric, powders, stickers, clay, marbled paper and other items to try to represent what I feel was their inner personalities. Then I reshot them with a 4x5 copy camera in color. But I had never examined these portraits separately from the context of my initial project.
These portraits reflect my fascination with obscuring individual personalities with masks, unifying them with a single prop. I made a small selection to show you the diversity of each persons reaction to wearing googly eye glasses. I created this work back in 1991 and thinking about it, these are really the beginning of my photographic exploration with masks and the psychological effect it has on everyday people. Even with the smallest prop that obscures the eyes, people tend to let their guard down allowing me to capture a more sincere look at their inner personality.
I remember quite a bit of backlash to these images in my photography class at San Francisco State University when my classmates and instructor berated them for obscuring the "windows to the soul"! Many felt that I had degraded the individuality of the person by subverting their character. I still feel that by hiding their eyes with goofy glasses, it unified them giving them a confidence that showed their true personality behind the mask. Don't we all feel a little bit more secure and mysterious when we slide on our sunglasses?
To the inner depths of the psyche we go!
Julie Green
May 2, 2015
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| "Peacock Lounge" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Pat in the Hat" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Portrait of my Brother" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Portrait of my Father" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Portrait of my Mother" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Stretch" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Whacky Packet" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Ana Banana" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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| "Susahn Mehan" from The Modern Merry Pranksters Series |
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