One of the artists we looked at during our seminars was photographer Joel-Peter Witkin.

Witkin’s images can often be described as being rather controversial. His subject matter tends to lean towards more “taboo” topics, and some of his best known work are photographs of corpses. As well as corpses, Witkin often photographs people who are sometimes considered outsiders by society.

I really enjoyed looking at Witkin’s work. I feel it has an eery kind of beauty about it. His work reminded me of some of the pieces that I saw at the Death: A Self Portrait exhibition in London earlier this year.

I also thought it was interesting that Witkin deliberately damages his negatives, by scratching them and using bleach, to create the effect he wants. This reminded me of work I have previously looked at this year, and also my work in which i’m distressing images in different ways and recording the results.