Analysis of Guy Bourdin Spring 1978

Essay on Visual Analysis (Guy Bourdin 1978)

Description

The picture I have is an image of a white hand with the fingernails painted in red holding up a black and white polaroid picture by their right hand in the bottom right hand corner of the Polaroid. They are holding it in the air in the street covering a women’s body so you can only see the bottom half of her legs. The lady is a white woman as you can see her legs and is wearing a pair of black heels with a strap around the ankles standing on the light grey concrete. The polaroid is also covering a dark building, at the very top it is completely dark that you can barely see anything and just to the right-hand side a bit further down the picture there is a sign with some letters and numbers on it. In the polaroid, itself you can see that there is a woman in the centre of the photo in the street wearing a black dress with black heels who has short dark hair in centre of the image. The woman is on a street just outside of a building which has quite a few glass windows with some posters on the inside of them.

Formal Analysis

The image is mainly made up from light and dark colours, the dark ones being mostly towards the top above the polaroid and the light colours are more towards the front and center of the photograph this makes the picture look quite cold as they show no warmth being so simple and dull. The hand with the red nail varnish and the small amount of legs that are showing is what brings warmth to the photo from the colour of human skin making it feel like there is life. The grey concrete is one of the only thing that gives the photo quite a bit of texture towards the bottom of it, this contrasts from the rest of the photograph. The picture is quite linear this is created by the lines that are seen in the photo where multiple boxes have been created, this is particularly seen in the actual polaroid on the building for example the edging of the glass windows and the walls. The actual polaroid paper itself is also another example from the defined white lines that’s create the box boarder showing a reoccurring pattern throughout the whole photograph.  

Deeper Interpretation

The photograph shows that a woman is running along an empty street in the polaroid picture however in the original photo she is standing still and being covered up by the polaroid picture from the knee upwards. This implies that her identity is trying to be hidden as she is only seen from the knee downwards by the Polaroid and barely recognisable in the Polaroid itself that she is running in. The colour red from the nail varnish signifies danger especially when it is associated with the other dark colours in the picture like the black this conveys a message in the picture that there is tension or danger surrounding the women as she is running from something or someone.  The darkness behind the photo symbolises that the darkness is what she is running from and could be running into it at the same time as there are shadows ahead of her. At her current position in the photo it is light and white this symbolises that at that present moment she is safe however having her identity hidden by the polaroid in the position she is standing in is showing us she is standing still almost as if she has stopped herself from running any further with her shadow behind her creating the tension that darkness will always follow her.  

Conclusion

Personally, I found this photograph to be difficult to understand what the story behind and deeper meaning was I think this is because of the lack of surroundings in the photo giving not much apart from the colours and what they symbolise. Simple colours and the lack of them helped me connotate the image as I could relate what the colours meant for example black symbolises darkness this linked with the small amount of red present which is why it is such a key colour in the photograph. This gave me the idea that the image had a dark meaning from the contrasting colours such as the different shades of blacks and whites. I thought that the photo also contrasted when it came to the woman in the Image because in the polaroid she is running/on the move yet in the original photo she is standing still and virtually covered. My interpretation of this is that women are always are on the go but hiding the fact that they just want a break but there’s no way of getting out which is why she is covered when she is standing still as she can’t speak up about it.