Joel Peter Witkin
Just as Don McCullin and James Nachtwey showed the world horrific images of war and suffering, Joel Peter Witkin manages to do this in an entirely different and effective way. Where images of war captured mans inhumanity to man, Witkin seems to capture inhumanity on a more personal level. At times Witkin has been accused of exploiting 'freaks' for his own gain. Witkin himself feels that he finds beauty in the subjects he shoots.
Witkin is renowned for his photographs of dead people which a lot of people find disturbing. To understand his work I feel like you need to first understand a little about his background. At an early age Joel Peter Witkin witnessed a terrible accident which resulted in the death and decapitation of a young girl. This affected the young Witkin deeply (as I'm sure it would to many adults too) and he began a morbid fascination with death. The really amazing thing about Witkin's work is power these images has to shock, sicken, mesmerise and inspire you all at the same time. "Woman Once A Bird" is a fascinating yet beautiful image. To me, the photograph symbolises not a bird but a fallen angel, stripped of all their holiness. The large wounds on the back soon becomes the main focal point after firstly inspecting the painfully impossible tightness of the belt. Compositionally the image puts everything out there for you to see and in the same way that classic painters would draw you into the paintings (The way the missing wings and belt form a triangle). I feel the positioning of the figure, if shot from the front would make a nice classical portrait.
"Waiting for de Chirico in the artist section of purgatory" is an elaborate composition based on the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico. The image is extremely busy and has many nods towards De Chirico's work. As the title suggests, I feel like this photograph draws you into purgatory, waiting for the artist himself to join you. The image uses darkness to add a gloom to the proceedings. Scattered about the photograph, amongst snippets of De Chirico's work are many symbolic images from art and history. Another thing that catches my eye, amongst the collage of images is what appears to be a series of steps. These steps possibly indicate that the only way out of purgatory is down and down, traditionally leads to hell. 
Witkin is one of my favourite photographers and I first found out about him after watching the film Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's Ladder had many horrific moments (it's a film about a man who keeps seeing demon's which were inspired by the photographers work. I love the way he uses symbolism, traditional art methods, surrealism and I especially love the way he painstakingly composes each picture for the most dramatic effect.
Composition and symbolism are two of the main things I have been researching for my war project. I would like to be able to add an extra layer of meaning to certain photographs to captivate the audience and draw them into the world of the photograph.
Also, one of my original ideas was to recreate famous works of art as photographs. If I end up following this idea (which I hope to at some point in the future) then Witkin's approach is something I'd love to try.
"I do not make the work to disturb people…I photograph death because it is a part of life! I look forward to dying because I think living on earth, in the plane is one part of existence, and death is another, and that we are constantly learning through the process" - Joel Peter Witkin
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