Work of Jan Groover

Jan Groover (1943-2012) was an American photographer I have taken inspiration from due to her great work on everyday objects. Mainly her pieces on kitchen utensils which produce some of the best line forms I have seen.

This is an example of one of Groover's cutlery pieces in which she has pictured a fork, a knife and a spoon in what looks to be a pot. What I noticed immediately when looking at the image was the great line forms the objects give off. Most notably the fork which has the four sharp lines at the head of the object. The contrast within the image is spectacular. The dark shadows show a mysterious nature whereas the shine on the metal gives off a hugely metallic and professional feel. The composition, in my opinion, couldn't have been any better as the high angle Groover has adopted maximises the ability of the shadows. Despite being apart in the pot, the shadows of the fork and the knife actually clash which I find quite interesting as it's almost illusion-esque.

This is another example of one of Groover's pieces on cutlery in which she has pictured a bundle of forks together. Despite not having the inclusion of shadows within the image, the forks still very much have intriguing line forms attached to them. I believe the different

angles and directions of the forks lead our eyes into several parts of the image therefore there's so many different elements and aspects to the piece.

This is an example of my work in which I have used Groover as inspiration. Here I have pictured several forks on a window sill. I decided to use a windowsill as it gives great natural light to my image and can therefore produce some exceptional shadows. My main intentions before I did the shoot was to see how many different line forms I could capture and I think the composition is very telling to this. I have approached the objects with a slightly slanted angle which not only captures shadows in the foreground, but also the background. What I find particularly interesting, and puzzling, is that the foreground shadow has uneven lines and it almost looks very similar to a claw on a construction vehicle. However the background shadow, at the top, have fairly even lines despite being the same object.

This is another example of one of my pieces in which I have used a knife as the main subject. The reason I chose this is due to the contrasting features, in particularly the sharp blade which I believe works well in contrast to the well rounded holes of the knife.

The Photoshop Charcoal overlay filter has added a huge deal to this in my opinion as the knife has been given a rougher texture whereas the shadow has a more soft, lighter feel which I believe works as a visually pleasing combination.

Other images from shoot:

https://uk.pinterest.com/burdettolly/a2-photography-everyday-objects-jan-groover/