18) Guest Speaker: Rafal Milach - 26/2/18

Following on from Esther's talk, we also had Rafal Milach come in to speak about his work. My notes from the talk can be seen below.

The Winners:

Rafal started off by saying that as photographers, we must respond to visual culture, and one way that he has done this is through his project 'The Winners', where he wanted to recreate this idea of a utopian society through his own eyes. He based this in a place of his roots, which identified as a communist run place. He didn't want it to be about individual people, but instead a reflection of how the system works altogether. He chose the people to photograph by them being identified as the best of the best in their profession e.g best welder, best couple in love etc.

I really love how all the briefs behind his projects seem quite historical and in a way quite bland, yet he brings them to life with his style of photography and attention to colour and composition. The images have a nice colour palette and are well composed with lots of space and detail within them.

Refusal:

I also really liked his project 'Refusal' which features still life shots of objects which show illusion but also metaphorical meaning of illusion within politics and specifically propaganda. I really like when still life can explain deeper issues and meaning. Another aspect I really liked was the way he didn't manipulate them in post, because they were taken at an exhibition.

Overall I found the talk quite interesting and I really like how he has a range of different work from portraits to still life shots. It inspires me for my own photography because I'd like to focus on the same aspects of photography. I was also really impressed at how well he presented to us as a group, considering English is not his first language.

#creativeinteractions #guestspeaker