Mariam Sitchinava

Effortlessly Captures Deep Moods; Mariam Sitchinava is a young photographer based in Tbilisi, Georgia who sees photography as a way to express feelings. Since getting her film camera a a few years ago she first picked up photography.She is shooting portrait and fashion photography with passion of nature and women.This self-taught photographer has created a book called "Deep Moods" and has collaborated with everyone from Urban Outfitters to Vogue Girl, who found Sitchinava's beautiful photos via the Internet. She is a freelance photographer and shoots portraits and fashion photography with a passion of nature and women. She has that rare ability to effortlessly capture the complicated emotions we all experience in our youth. The fact she uses a manual camera with so much sophistication is something I would have to adapt on photo shop after using my DSRL to show the features Sitchinava's images have. Sitchinava's portraits not only depict inner reflection, it also encourages people to turn their attention to their own person, exploring what lies beneath their demeanour to really get to know themselves.

I've chosen these series of images purely because of the concept behind the images and how the 'real message' isn't as obvious but yet we know it's referring to some emotions of individuals. Her effortless technique in capturing these images is something I would experiment in my development. In contrast to Rania Matar, Sitchinvava has a different approach to photographing teenagers. This contrast and difference will help in experimenting and gaining as much knowledge of concepts and ideas towards my final outcome.

Image Analysis:  

My image I chose to respond to by Mariam Sitchinava. This image is beautiful in its simplicity and shows her aim of expressing things we endure as youth, the idea the model being surrounded by nature and as teenagers nature doesn't effect us but this image captivates the message that we should.  This image could be interpreted to mean she feels as though nature makes her feel comfortable or even happy. When I first seen this image my initial thoughts were what is she thinking? My main focus on the image was on the composition and how the camera is straight from her head but towards her knees the trees  begin to go slanted giving it that not finished effect. However this image has been taken with a manual film camera so it may have been intentional. This image reflects the idea of being content within greenery and shows the human art form with her flesh out. I think it is fascinating in the way her arms cannot be seen moving our focus on to her bare legs and slanted trees. The perspective once you see the images starts from the top of the image however this image has been taken so the ground/grass is the top and clouds are the bottom, reversing the two. The clouds seemed to be hiding a blue background which says that maybe the weather could have an effect on the image, for example if the sky was clear blue and the image it self was 'sunny' then the image would make the viewer happy. This image makes you think and wonder over again.

Response:

This is my response to Mariam Sitchinava's work. I chose to add my own idea of having a very isolated atmosphere so I didn't include the idea of a sky/trees. However I adapted the idea of having someone content in nature and soaking in fresh air to say 'Look I'm Happy.' Sitchinava's work was produced with a film camera and as my work was taken on a digital camera it's quite different but nevertheless, I aimed to show the same feeling of the girl in the image.