Duane Michals - sequence photography.

Following on from my previous assignment feedback, I have been asked to look at the sequence work of Duane Michals.

The first thing I notice through Michals images is nature plays a huge factor. I have enjoyed studying Michals sequence photography. I find it intriguing and full of depth and detail and I'm guessing many others do as well as I also came across a lot of other photographers who have been inspired to create their own examples of his work.
After studying countless sequence images over the past few hours, I can see plenty of themes coming through in his images. I have already mentioned nature but also gender, sexuality and death as well as a possible paranormal aspect in some cases. It is obvious that Michals keeps his subjects as natural and comfortable as possible, keeping images where he uses models in natural surroundings and even in natural scenarios, such as A Chance Meeting. Here is the simplest form of sequence in a scenario that most people will relate to and connect with.
Nature seems to play a big part in Michals work, whether it be through floral arrangement as in The Dream of Flowers or whether we include the beauty of the naked human body which is present in a lot of Michals work including Paradise Regained. Here we can see a lot of Michals attention to detail through his sequences but yet the idea is still so simple and each frame flows delicately into the next one. Sexuality is a theme that Michals appears to be comfortable with enough to create sequences such as The price of pleasure and A young girl's dream and as mentioned before, and with reference to my previous assignment about the ease of creating 'ghostly' images, death is also a subject that Michals likes to utilize. Sequences as simple as Grandpa goes to heaven, which personally feels like a lighthearted twist on the reality of the scene, and also The spirit leaves the body, which feels a lot more like paranormal imagery, ooze with Michals signature style of being so simplistic yet tell such a powerful story with deep implications.

My personal favourites are Alice's Mirror and Things are queer. Both these sequences seem to use objects as opposed to actual people but have overwhelming detail and I really like how each frame is a small part of the one before. Yet they both still overflow with Michals character, with each frame still flowing beautifully into the next. There are two sequences that I really find disturbing, purely out of personal taste. They seem to have a slightly darker feel and I personally find them more paranormal than any other theme Michals uses.These are The Bogeyman and The magic box. Both images are creative and unique but I tend to find them quite difficult to study, maybe due to the implications of the content. After all, the Bogeyman name in itself is meant to frighten and is the thing of childrens nightmares.

The continuation and flow through each of Michals sequences is remarkable, each individual with a vast variety of content yet still within Michals signature style. I can now see why so many others have been influenced by him and and have attempted to create their own twist on his work for example Caitlin Isobel, Alysha Elkins Green and another known as Photoaw.