Background Kyle Thompson is an American photographer born on January 11th, 1992. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he got into photography in an unconventional way, since he didn’t go to school for photography. Instead, he is self-taught, starting his career by exploring abandoned houses in the suburbs of his hometown. After driving around the US for 6 months taking photos, he moved to Portland, Oregon.
Style Kyle’s work has a very distinct surreal style. The majority of his photos are either self-portraits, heavily staged, or both. A part of his surrealist style is where he takes his photos, which are largely empty, abandoned places, like abandoned homes or lonely forests. To add to this theme of emptiness and confusion, he employs ambiguity. One way he does this is by obscuring parts of a scene, especially when a human is involved. When one is, their face is usually not seen.
Philosophy Kyle’s photos focus on stories in a very interesting way. Specifically, he deliberately creates a breakdown of his stories. To do this, he uses ambiguity to cloud his stories to a point where they become nonsensical. As he explains in his biography, he focuses on, “the collapse of narrative, as there is no defined story line [sic] with a beginning and end…” This results in the picture becoming something that he describes as a “fleeting moment [that] lives on in a constant unchanging state.”
Influences I found this photographer’s work fairly recently, so I haven’t been able to act on these influences much. However, it has still had an impact on me. His surrealist, almost otherworldly style really interests me, since I love the aesthetic of unknown confusing things. I also think this artist has inspired interesting ideas for art methods I can use. Specifically, there are stories I want to express with my art, but I don’t feel comfortable telling to the world. I think that the ambiguity that this artist uses really could help me in this endeavor, since I could use ambiguity to mask the stories I tell as to not make myself vulnerable and still tell the stories I want to express.
"Marshes" Jenna Lock-Arnold, iPhone 6s, 2020
Unfortunately, for this photo, I couldn’t exactly get a photo of fallen leaves for this photo. To work around this, I decided to run with the theme of being in a small body of water. Both of these photos have the theme of being submerged in a small area of water. My photo uses red water in a sink with warm lighting. On the other hand, Kyle uses a red-gray puddle with cool lighting.
"Desperation" Jenna Lock-Arnold, iPhone 6s, 2020
Again, because of the winter conditions and life circumstances, I couldn't get a good tropical type lake shot. To solve this, I chose the Huron river to get as much of the tree line as possible. Unfortunately, a downside of this is I couldn't get a shot close to the water's surface. So while both images use hands coming from a lake, mine uses far fewer hands shot from a lower angle with brighter lighting.
"The Watchman" Jenna Lock-Arnold, iPhone 6s, 2020
Running with the theme of not being able to get things, I couldn’t get any fog any of the mornings for shooting. Using the next best thing, I used the theme of someone sitting by as things move around them. Both of these photos involve a character standing as movement occurs. However, my photo uses no fog, cooler and brighter lighting, and a person moving away. Kyle's, on the other hand, uses fog, cooler and softer lighting, and a car.