Artist Name: Masahisa Fukase: Solitude of Ravens

Information:
Masahisas work Solitude of Ravens was shot between 1976 and 1982 in the
wake of his divorce with his wife whose name was Yko Wanibe. The visual
narrative of his series of photographs is formed around Ravens. His work is
grainy, dark and impressionistic according to one of many people who have
observed his work. With his work he often magnifies or over exposes the
negatives, always aiming for mood over technical refinement.
Genre:
I think that just by looking at Masahisas work that it was leading towards the
genres horror and narrative. I noticed how these genres really fitted with his work
as before his wife and he divorced his photographs used to portray a sense of
happiness when observing the photographs themselves without needing any
other information apart from the image that stares at you, but once he and his
wife was divorced his work took a turn towards the dark making him create these
dark raven images that look like a part of destruction and horror, it portrays
negative feelings such as fear when observing. Although the ravens are a symbol
of freedom he used this in his work to use against the unused (negative) space in
his photographs, identifying his feelings of wanting to be free from all the
negativity from the after effects of the divorce.
The techniques:
In Masahisas work he uses a film camera as you can see with his images as
some well-known darkroom techniques were used such as multiple exposures
where in the darkroom you are able to combine two exposures on top of one
another. Another technique he used was enlarging a small portion of the
negative to single out a particular part of the photograph or to get rid of a
specific unwanted object or ones that could distract the viewers eyes from the
meaning of the photograph. Lastly you can see dodging and burning was used on
some not all of the photographs in his solitude of Ravens work, you can see this
as you can point out the glowing outline from where the technique has been
used.
What is being communicated and how it was achieved:
In Masahisas work I think he was trying to communicate with the viewers on
his wanting to be free from the darkness that has been eating at him because of
the divorce. You can tell he has achieved this by the sense of fear when looking
at the images as if he was reflecting his fear of not being able to be free from the
darkness onto the viewer. He also achieved this by including the ravens in the
photographs as the ravens are a symbol of freedom; he managed to capture
photographs of the Ravens in which he would have to have enlarged the
negatives to produce the outcomes he had.
Influences from the Artist Masahisa Fukase:

Artist Name: Masahisa Fukase: Solitude of Ravens

From researching his work I think his work has influenced me in ways that I can
think of ways to create similar images to his. Although his work isnt quite similar
to what I had pictured myself doing, the techniques he used could be useful
when the time comes to do my own work. The things I would take from the
things I learnt about his work would be the way he is able to manipulate the
photographs so that they could have various different meanings to the
photographs themselves.

Artist Name: Masahisa Fukase: Solitude of Ravens