Melanie Pullen is a very stylistic photographer with a rather cinematic approach to her imagery. High Fashion Crime Scenes "is based on vintage crime-scene images Pullen mined from the files of The Los Angeles Police Department and The LA County Coroner’s Office.
Drawn to the rich details and compelling stories preserved in the criminal records, Pullen began re-enacting these crime-scenes, with well-known actresses and models, outfitting the “victims” in current haute-couture, and photographing them in her elaborately staged settings." (MelaniePullen.com)
The series uses the high fashion and stylistic approach to draw the attention away from the crime in the scene. It's a glamorous approach to something not glamorous at all.
"Pullen herself has noted that she targets society’s glamorization of violent acts and crimes by literally re-dressing what are deeply disturbing events, forcing the viewer to question their own values and observations."
This image (Station - metro series) is the first that appears on her website. The image is very dramatic, caused by her composition. The framing and angle of the image would be a dramatic and interesting photo without the body in the middle. It has a very symmetrical look which is easy and satisfying to the eye, only to be disturbed by the body which is not symmetrical or as pleasant on the eye. This disruption forces the viewer to have their attention drawn towards her.
The light causing the amount of shadows also adds to this dramatic effect. the high contrast caused by this allows more a more mysterious feeling. We can also tell that it's shot at night because of the artificial lighting and the darkness around the image. Humans have been scared of the dark for centuries as you never know what could be hiding in the shadows and so we will have a sense of unease because of this. We know to be weary at night because our safety could be in jeopardy, which is further made clear by the actual dead body placed in front of us.
It feels to me, kind of wrong to to be looking at this body. She's so helpless and all I can do is look and observe the situation. Her isolation makes for a very lonely image, and it feels wrong that nobody is helping her even though we know it's staged.
We're given little context as to what happened, all we know is the location and a rough time of day. This adds to the mystery of the image.
This glamorisation of the crime represents how we glamorise crime in general. We find it exciting, we like to be shocked and we're glad it's not us. I feel that this series puts this into a visual to make us as the viewer question how we think about these things. We feel disconnected when we're simply talking about crimes because they don't affect us, however the truth is that it could be us. They're still people, and although the identity is hidden in the image, we can still tell they're human, as we are. That could be us there. The lack of identity allows for us to place anybody we personally know in that situation, making us confront our views even more.
This image is also taken in the metro, a part of the same series. The message and meaning behind them are very similar; the woman is isolated from any other human contact and left alone with no help from others. The image is taken in a very stylistic and cinematic, and as with the image before, without the dead body this image would be an interesting and dramatic shot in its own right.
The leading lines in the image draw our eye into the centre, however as the model is laying directly on one of these lines it's impossible for our eye to not be drawn towards her instead.
The framing is rather different from the first image, where we see her directly in the middle of the frame, as here she is towards the bottom left. This makes the image seem a little less forced and put together than the first image.
The tones used are very cinematic and dramatic, but also rather morbid. The greens and ugly artificial light makes the scene much more sickly, clinical and ghastly, almost. Yet the contrast and framing makes the image look pleasing to the eye. It's been cleverly composed to offer satisfying and unsatisfying elements.
Pullen's work is very interesting to me, and I'd love to take her approach into my own images. She makes undesirable instances seem beautiful and glorious to look at. I would like to attempt this approach with my everyday annoying circumstances.
While our subject matter may differ a lot the thought behind them could be similar in the way that we shoot.
Drawn to the rich details and compelling stories preserved in the criminal records, Pullen began re-enacting these crime-scenes, with well-known actresses and models, outfitting the “victims” in current haute-couture, and photographing them in her elaborately staged settings." (MelaniePullen.com)
The series uses the high fashion and stylistic approach to draw the attention away from the crime in the scene. It's a glamorous approach to something not glamorous at all.
"Pullen herself has noted that she targets society’s glamorization of violent acts and crimes by literally re-dressing what are deeply disturbing events, forcing the viewer to question their own values and observations."
This image (Station - metro series) is the first that appears on her website. The image is very dramatic, caused by her composition. The framing and angle of the image would be a dramatic and interesting photo without the body in the middle. It has a very symmetrical look which is easy and satisfying to the eye, only to be disturbed by the body which is not symmetrical or as pleasant on the eye. This disruption forces the viewer to have their attention drawn towards her.
The light causing the amount of shadows also adds to this dramatic effect. the high contrast caused by this allows more a more mysterious feeling. We can also tell that it's shot at night because of the artificial lighting and the darkness around the image. Humans have been scared of the dark for centuries as you never know what could be hiding in the shadows and so we will have a sense of unease because of this. We know to be weary at night because our safety could be in jeopardy, which is further made clear by the actual dead body placed in front of us.
It feels to me, kind of wrong to to be looking at this body. She's so helpless and all I can do is look and observe the situation. Her isolation makes for a very lonely image, and it feels wrong that nobody is helping her even though we know it's staged.
We're given little context as to what happened, all we know is the location and a rough time of day. This adds to the mystery of the image.
This glamorisation of the crime represents how we glamorise crime in general. We find it exciting, we like to be shocked and we're glad it's not us. I feel that this series puts this into a visual to make us as the viewer question how we think about these things. We feel disconnected when we're simply talking about crimes because they don't affect us, however the truth is that it could be us. They're still people, and although the identity is hidden in the image, we can still tell they're human, as we are. That could be us there. The lack of identity allows for us to place anybody we personally know in that situation, making us confront our views even more.
This image is also taken in the metro, a part of the same series. The message and meaning behind them are very similar; the woman is isolated from any other human contact and left alone with no help from others. The image is taken in a very stylistic and cinematic, and as with the image before, without the dead body this image would be an interesting and dramatic shot in its own right.
The leading lines in the image draw our eye into the centre, however as the model is laying directly on one of these lines it's impossible for our eye to not be drawn towards her instead.
The framing is rather different from the first image, where we see her directly in the middle of the frame, as here she is towards the bottom left. This makes the image seem a little less forced and put together than the first image.
The tones used are very cinematic and dramatic, but also rather morbid. The greens and ugly artificial light makes the scene much more sickly, clinical and ghastly, almost. Yet the contrast and framing makes the image look pleasing to the eye. It's been cleverly composed to offer satisfying and unsatisfying elements.
Pullen's work is very interesting to me, and I'd love to take her approach into my own images. She makes undesirable instances seem beautiful and glorious to look at. I would like to attempt this approach with my everyday annoying circumstances.
While our subject matter may differ a lot the thought behind them could be similar in the way that we shoot.
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