Eleni Leoussi
Eleni Leoussi was born in Athens, Greece in 1946 and moved to London in the late 60’s to study photography where she has been a resident ever since. She specialised in photographing contemporary dance from the early 70’s through to the mid 90’s gaining great respect in this field as a result of her powerful and fluid images. The majority of which were captured during full dress rehearsals rather than through staged work.
I chose to look at these two images as I am interested in the use of shadows in Leoussi's work. Both images are in monochrome and have extremely dark lighting, this makes the images look eerie and dramatic, these terms are usually associated with theatre shows so they can provoke a certain mood to the audience. The first image shows a man carrying a woman, there shadows are projected onto the background by the use of a spotlight. The shadows are large scale which shows that it is an important part of the scene. The people and shadows are surrounded by complete darkness which isolates them in the middle of the composition. The shadows appear to be projected onto a grid which could represent a window. The second image is another scene in a theatre show. In this image there is no one present on stage, the audience can only see the shadows projected onto the backdrop. The use of shadows creates an ominous mood as you cannot see the identity of the characters. From looking at Leoussi's work it has helped me get inspiration for the use of shadows in my video.
Songs and Dances, Hansel and Gretel
