Riley Lawless Coombes
BA (Hons) Photography Portfolio
My name is Riley Lawless Coombes, and this portfolio is a representation of my photography over the last three years from A-level, Art Foundation Diploma and personal projects.
Since visiting the Tim Walker: Wonderful Things exhibition 2020, I have been fascinated by his surreal photography, I was particularly inspired by how the exhibition transformed space. It felt like I was in a strange dream and this began my exploration of 'dream-like photography'. The oddness of the lampshade and the yawning cat within this photograph provokes questions in the viewer around what's real like in a surrealist painting.
I printed my photographs onto different materials including acetate and then experimented further with double exposures by layering the acetates onto a light box. The projection from the light box was interesting and the vibrant and bold colours contribute to my photographic style. This led me to experiment with digitally editing my photographs to create multi-exposures inspired by the aesthetic of Tierney Gearon: Explosure (2008).
I used a digital projector to place patterns and images onto the model inspired by Richard Battye: PROJECT (2018). I collected visual research of illusional patterns which I then projected. The use of a slower shutter speed allowed more movement in my model, giving the impression of her blending into the background and smoothing the overall appearance of the image.
I juxtaposed dream-like with surreal nightmare photography which was initially inspired by Arthur Tress: Dream Collector (1970-1974). Tress interviewed children about their most memorable dreams and then captured the stories with his camera. I used my own memorable childhood fears/nightmares, around being lost in the woods, to create surreal and eerie photographs. The toys represent the lost child which I double exposed with the trees, inspired from Maurice Tabard: Untitled. Solarized Double Exposure (1935-1960).
When exploring the term 'identity politics' I began examining differences in youth cultures and how young people present themselves by taking a series of portraits. Rineke Dijkstra's Beach Portraits (1992-2002) inspired my composition, perspective and lighting in my Youthquake project. I then edited the photographs and designed stylised magazine covers to create a series of different issues.
Youthquake portrait 1
Youthquake portrait 2
I created a glossy magazine stylised photobook for my final piece of the Youthquake project alongside a final portrait below 'A Real Revolution: Women in the Media'.
A Real Revolution: Women in the Media showcased in the SFCA Exhibition ‘Fake News’ 2021
During my Art Foundation, I used collage for my major final project. This allowed me to experiment with found photography and arrange the images to create different, unique and surreal designs from them. The aspect of using found imagery was exciting and I used the name 'Street Value Insanity' to package the collages into a series of rave event posters.
Set of 3 collaged rave event posters in exhibition 2022
Recently I have taken inspiration from more personal sources, as shown in my developing project- 'Deconstructing the Family Album'. My initial idea developed from reading "Photography – A Feminist History" by Emma Lewis, where she highlighted that the family album, as a document, was often the mother's responsibility to curate for the family. I thought it would be interesting, from a feminist perspective, to deconstruct my family albums.
The aesthetics of Maria Kapajeva's “Cutbacks” (2017) from “The Dream is Wonderful, Yet Unclear” (2014-2020) inspired the starting point of my project as I removed the subjects within the photographs, like the mill workers within her 1980s found imagery. I then used the tactile process of collage inspired from Jean McEwan’s “Altered Postcards” (2015) to create layers within the photograph. This represented the relationship between the collective and personal memory of the photo album.
The surreal aesthetic from collaging and double exposures conceptually highlights the child-like imagination that allows children to hold a different memory from their parents in the way they observe the world.
Experimentation of layers underneath the cut out silhouette
My latest project came about by working with wet-collodion plates and a 5x4 camera where I made my own ambrotypes and tintypes during a series of workshops. I used this technique to capture portraits and presented them alongside paper negatives of personal objects to make a typology inspired from James Mollison “Where Children Sleep” (2010). I then collected dialogue from each subject explaining the importance to their object.
After experimenting with ambrotypes (right) and tintypes (left), I came to the conclusion of creating ambrotype portraits in my final diptychs of the project. I used lighting and 9 second exposures on the 5x4 camera to illuminate the subject.
Development and inspiration
I found this guggle jug in a beach shop in Wales. I’ve been camping in North Wales with family and friends since I was a baby. It’s always my favourite time of year because I have such fond memories and hope to keep doing holidays like this for the rest of my life. - Riley
I thought this is kind of an ephemeral object that is going to change. It’s not like an object that’s going to be around in a couple weeks because it will start to deteriorate but I thought that this object is really important to me right now. It smells amazing and it’s just full of all this life from this wild place. - Casey
I was called the div by lots of people when I was a kid. What I like to do is turn things on their head , so I see the hat as the hat of dyslexic empowerment. And I’ve claimed it, I have destroyed its power as an object of ridicule and turned it into an object of fun. - Benedict
My mum taught me how to knit a hat and scarf which I put around Snoopy and then I took it with me when I was sent off to boarding school at age eight. I remember I cried for about two weeks, fairly constantly, and then I didn’t cry again for a very long time. - Jonathan
In my 20s I was diagnosed with ME/CFS and spent a long time not really able to do very much. I dreamed that one day I’d be able to do something like a marathon but thought that would be impossible. In 2022 I was lucky enough to have a place in the London Marathon and these shoes took me around the 26.2 miles. It was an amazing day. - Lizzie
