Jan Von Holleben Analyisis

This is a Photograph taken by the photographer Jan Von Holleben. He is a German photographer born in 1977, He lived most of his youth in a commune but began experimenting with photography at the age of 13 where he followed his fathers photography traits. After following his first ambition to be a teacher to disabled children he came to England to study photography at 'The Surrey Institute Of Art and Design' soon after he began his photography career. Holleben identifies a strong connection with his photography work and the influence of his parents and childhood memories.

This photograph is one of many from the project the dreams of flying.In this project he uses child models to create a creative scene which is illusionist whether its on the ground or not.
 In the interview below he states that nowadays people become so obsessed with the aftermaths of a photograph editing and transforming its original form, the public eye has learnt not to trust the beauty in the faces of the models because they are either made up with a whole heap of makeup or digitised and photo shopped. With his photography he aims to be natural but be creative and play around with the scenery to produce something imaginative and interesting.

Jan Von Holleben Interview

To create this photograph Jan Von Holleben set up a photo shoot and positioned his camera aerial to the floor.He then with his team set up the scene with plant pots and garden hoses to create the atmosphere of a jungle with snakes and animals,He then had a plan drawn out of paper and asked the child models to be positioned in this way i would imagine he would take this shot a lot of times to make sure everything was as realist and composed exactly how he wanted it to be.

To understand how he set up this i watched this video below.

Dreams of flying Photo shoot

In this video it shows the hard work that goes on behind the work of this photograph which is a lot of planning and evaluating before the final pictures are taken.The environment in this video looks quite exciting and fun which is what i think he is trying to create in this photograph.

I have chosen this picture to analyse because like Holleben's intentions i find it interesting and exciting to look at let alone analyse. Significant props in this piece include plants, ropes, A garden hose and a teddy bear monkey all of these props help create the jungle atmosphere in a modern way.I think this piece tells a story the guy on the rope represents the hero and the small girl holding his hand the damsel in distress and of course the small boy crouched down in the bushes the villain.

This set up is classic child's play as children often pretend to be superheroes and in every great superhero story are these characters. There could be many story's made up from this image but to me i can think of a story close to the children's adventure classic 'Jungle Book'  whereby the boy and the girl are being chased by a evil monkey and as they are running they come across a big ditch with nothing but a rope hanging to get to the other side, the boy hero runs and jumps to the rope but the girl is left behind and the villain is coming closer to her so the hero reaches out his hand for her and she jumps and clings to it just before the villain grabs her.

I think the fact Holleben used child models instead of adults or even objects (which would have worked quite well with the surroundings) hint a deeper meaning which is that children are open minded and have a vivid imagination so to someone analysing this piece they might soon find out this is all on the ground and not in a jungle but to children using their imagination to analyse this piece they will see a jungle because of the creativity in their minds.I also think Holleben was maybe recreating some of his fantasies as a child and some of his childhood memories which is also what makes it personal.

To make this piece a lot of planning, organisation and time went into it and overall i think it is a very good photograph that displays imagination and creativity and fun.This piece has inspired me to take time and plan sufficiently when organising a photo shoot and make sure the models involved are feeling the emotions your trying to convey whether that's excitement or sadness or worry if the model feels it and believes it so will the photograph.