Saturday, January 10, 2009

the silent artist

When you look through catalogs, magazines, websites, and even sets on TV and in movies... what you see has been carefully planned by a stylist. Naturally the stylist's purpose will vary case by case. In a film, the set may seek to evoke a feeling by its use of color and lighting.. I'd easily refer to most of the film "Se7en" and TV shows like Law & Order.

It is when we begin to flip through catalogs for clothing, we may notice a carefully planned color story. Although the items to be sold are garments, the entire image will typically capture the "feel" of either the clothing, the current theme, or the season. Anthropologie typically has beautifully styled images in their catalogs.

In interior photography, the stylist will create a space by pulling colors together and creating a work of art within the entire boundary of the shot. The photo becomes the canvas, and the art is the stylist's vision.

Here are some that I'd like to share.



This is hands down one of my favorite images. There's something so striking about the ultra modern and sleek design of the chair against the heavily textured concrete wall and dramatic lighting.




These may be hard to see, but as a set, you can certainly make a connection between them. The color story is just lovely, with a rich textural combination of natural and man made materials. My favorite is the bottom right.




Tea in a mossy forest? Yes please :)



Anthropologie's Jan '09 catalogue:
above: a rich color palette from stone to garment








2 comments:

tabbycat said...

You can take it all a step further once you realize just about everything in our lives is art designed - from the towns and cities we live in to every piece of food we eat to the execution of terrorist attacks. We just notice the exceptional and the impossibly incompetent. It's all visual.

Mlle said...

OOooo.. so true! Unfortunately, city planning often falls short in my eyes.. ha ha Although, Paris is a fabulous example of a city which was redesigned and is really quite stunning.

thanks for the thoughtful comment :)