Christina Hills

Christina Hills Untitled written by Laura Ambrosone

Selected to recreate an Annie Leibovitz photograph.

Objective description

The photograph is of an extreme close up of a white tulle material, showing detail in the foreground then gradiating to a lighter blur and a soft yellow background. The image displays a high tonal spectrum starting from the top and darkening towards the bottom .There is a slight white vignetting surrounding the image

You who think that this would be the beginning of a long spiral of financial troubles …but miraculously she’s still with us today without cement shoes. I thought that Christina’s execution proved to be successful it that it mimics the Annie’s photograph very well, with its hues and tones it creates.it appears to be and extreme close up of the dress worn in the original shot. I found it interesting that she has taken the focal point away from the model and given it to something that equally shares the spotlight but is often overlooked…the dress detail. First time I looked at this image I thought of a snow covered mountain scape being warmed by the spring sun.

Formally I thought the gradiation of tone and blur enjoyable. I thought that the material Christina used describes the original dress material well in texture and hue. The only issues that I have would be the vignetting, shown on the lower area of the image. I find it to be a bit distracting and unnecessary though it could possibly act as a reflected light on the right side. The other minor issue I have would be some of the lines just barely touch the outskirts of the image create a bit of tension (for example- the top left).

While communicating with Christina she explained her photograph as a homage to Annie …describing how much she enjoyed the backlighting Annie had executed and the atmosphere Annie created explaining her style of photography to be clean, dreamlike and extravagant. It was mostly Christina’s process that we discussed she explained her scouting of different stages, one taking her as far as Banff springs hotel. Christina ended up scraping her initial ideas and decided to use acads table top studio, so she could be able to manipulate her subject matter without constraints of an environment (light position, availability). The tulle (which I believe was lended from a friend) was to now to become her centre focus (which originally was black before Photoshop stepped in with its desaturation options !). Through a large amount of tests Christina realized that the extreme close up would be her final image.