Artist research linking to the hotel industry

Imogen Latto
Feb 28, 2018
2 min read

I briefly looked at these two photographers, when writing my pitch. However, I thought that I should expand my research on these two photographers because they link vvidly to my project and can give me inspiration on how to begin with photography this industry. I am mainly going to research into any interviews that they have been involved in and look at what their responses are to their projects.

Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle is a French photographer and an instillation artist. Her project 'The Hotel, 1981', has inspired me becuase of the way she photographed quirky objects in many hotel rooms. I really felt inspired by this project becuase of the way Sophie was photographing guests belongings, that could reveal many ideas about their identity. I feel that this idea can be seen as very controversial because she is invading privacy, that is seen as confidential. This is an idea that I wouldn't feel comfortable with doing because she is gaining access to personal belongings without permission. I am inspired by the way she has displayed all of the images captured in each room. I believe it gives the audience more of a photographic description of the person, so that they can produce suggestions about identity. I believe that the specific objects captured reflect the charcter of the person and convey their human qualities. I like the black and white effect becuase it works really well when creating mystery around a persons identity and life. In my project I am going to produce my images in colour because I feel that it will add to the overall atomosphere of the images. Overall, I like the objective approach she has considered because it shows a truthful identity of a person and can convey a persons personality through the way the object is placed.

Roger Eberhard

Roger Eberhard is a Swiss photographer. His project 'Standard' has inspired me to think about issues surrounding hotels and B&B's. He travelled to 32 different countries and photographed a variety of Hilton Hotels's. I feel that he was trying to vividly show the similarities of the hotels across the countries, that don't reflect the place at all. However, he also photographed landscapes of the environment outside the windows of the hotels, which shows differences. I like the way that the hotel doesn't reflect the environment, meaning the room doesn't show any identity that resembles human traces. I like this idea but with my project I am photographing B&B's in a unique way that reflects the place and location.

Roger Eberhard's style of work is important to me because this is the approach that I don't want to show when displaying the Englishness of B&B's. The simple rooms convey similarities because they are the same hotel chain. They are designed to sell the brand of the hotel rather than individual, unique establishments. Whereas, I want to discover an original B&B that reflects history and is its own industry that was once important to England. The technique that Roger has used shows more of an advertisement style, which is the approach that I not going to consider. When capturing the B&B's I want to use the documentary style to show an important quality of England in a truthful manner.